Machado de Assis and the periodic press: an analysis of “Confissões de uma viúva moça”

Abstract

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7917.2014v19n2p123

This articles’s aim is to analyze the short story “Confissões de uma viúva moça”, published by Machado de Assis as a serialized novel in Jornal das Famílias. The story gives us some evidence on Machado’s actuation in Rio de Janeiro’s periodic press in the beginning of his literary career, as well as the ways in which he built a relationship with his readers, being them real or fictional. Firstly, there will be a brief theoretical discussion in relation to the status of the newspaper and the formation of the reading public in the nineteenth-century Brazilian society, seeking to understand the role of the newspapers and journals and the circulation of literary texts, as well as the profile of the readers of Jornal das Famílias. Secondly, the short story will be analyzed, in order to show how the relationship between the writer and the reader is constructed, considering the communication vehicle in which it is published. Finally, the polemic in Correio Mercantil will be discussed, in order to show how Machado and his editor built a relationship with the readers of Jornal das Famílias.