Desdemona to Capitu: Machado de Assis reads Shakespeare

Abstract

The aim of this article is to investigate the critical body of work on Machado Assis, from the second half of the 19 th century, in an attempt at a critical definition of literary criticism in Brazil. It involves research into the conditions for enabling critical practice, from the notion of value (significance strategy), through the question of the canon and the processes of hybridization, quintessential modus operandi of Machadian critical discourse. In this sense, there will a reflection on the reception of Shakespearean theater in the critical essays of Machado de Assis as discursive strategy for the analysis of O Primo Basilio (Cousin Basilio) by Eça de Queirós (studium). And, as logical outcome, it is worth deferring to the work of citing Shakespeare’s Othello, not only as a “source” for the storyline of Dom Casmurro (1899), considered “the most subtle and genial novel in the Portuguese language” (LOURENCO, 2015, p.143), but also for the gestation of Capitu, the most oblique and enigmatic character from Machadian textuality (punctum).