Espaço e personagem na ficção de Eça de Queirós e de Machado de Assis

Abstract

This search observes aspects of the spacial representation in the works of Eça de Queirós and Machado de Assis, having like main, but not exclusive, direction, the analysis of the space and its collaboration for the construction of the characters. Considered as two bigger exponents of the realistic prose in Portuguese language, Eça and Machado take in its last written a lyric tone in which Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro are transfigured by the fiction, serving of stage for the countless reflections of the characters of novels like A cidade e as serras, A ilustre casa de Ramires, Esaú and Jacó and Memorial de Aires about the nineteenth century social-political and cultural context. These cities play essential role in the substantiation of these narratives and in the characterization of his characters, appearing with assiduity at crucial moments for the development of the action and for the perception of the thematizations of fin-de-siècle events and of historical facts, like the decadence of the landowning aristocracy in Portugal and the substitution of the Monarchy for the Republic in Brazil. Observing the importance of the figuration of cities like Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro for the development of the plot in the cited novels and for the construction of the characters, as well as his relief for the understanding of the processes of ficcionalization of the reality, this work analyses the diegetics spaces and its influence for the aesthetic ways taken for Eça de Queirós and for Machado de Assis mostly in their last written. The theoretical approuch for this verification takes as a connecting thread concepts developed in the context of the narrative theories, and still its dialog with other disciplines like the philosophy, the history, and the literary studies of several aspects.