Facade of the underground: the city of written Machado de Assis and Lima Barreto

Abstract

This study ponders the relations between literature and urban experience. In this perspective the representations of Rio de Janeiro city, recently inserted in modernity and still having traces of its colonial past, are mapped. The study has as its main objective the analysis of chronicles produced by Machado de Assis and Lima Barreto, writers who can be considered “portrayers” of the modernizing Rio. The study of such chronicles considers, besides the literary focus, the historical configuration and the strong journalistic appeal of such genre, which had been disregarded by the literary canon. Besides the representation of Rio de Janeiro city generated by the literary discourse, the study promotes the unique literary confluence between Machado de Assis and Lima Barreto, who had been considered antithetical. In order to promote such confluence, the study maps the discourse of the modernizing metropolis, Rio de Janeiro reaching the XX century. Through the revelation of the forest of symbols which is “weaved” in modernity, the Machadian and the Barretian city emerges. What can be observed then is the appearing of Rio written by four hands, amongst a “disconcerting harmony” generated by the apparent paradox which involves the literary wok of these two writers.