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The article discusses the premise behind binding literary value to the ability a work has to yield socio-historical information, prevalent in recent criticism on Machado de Assis. It argues that the body of Machado's work shows an increasing ambivalence regarding the links between imagined lives and history, thus proposing that in his late writings the matching between things real and things represented is a rhetorical and melancholy gesture of great insight. In order to illustrate the prevalence of moral imagination as object and technique in Machado's late novels, the author highlights a few points of contact between Machado de Assis and Henry James, contemporaries and akin in their literary sensibilities.

This study examines two literary worlds fashioned by epic authors Machado de Assis and Henry James. In the novels Esaú e Jacó (1904) and The Ambassadors (1903), the writers explore the theme of ambassadorship. In these two texts, key characters act as emissaries. Councilor Aires, Lambert Strether, and Sarah Pocock discover that ambassadorial service brings with it many complication Each of them fulfills his or her mission in a particular way and does so with difs. fering motives. For these three individuals, access to and interpretation of information becomes decisive in fulfilling their respective commissions. This information circulates in distinct ways, yet the ability to access and understand the information depends on each ambassador's social and cultural "capital", as can be seen in the theories of Pierre Bourdieu.

This study examines two literary worlds fashioned by epic authors Machado de Assis and Henry James. In the novels Esaú e Jacó (1904) and The Ambassadors (1903), the writers explore the theme of ambassadorship. In these two texts, key characters act as emissaries. Councilor Aires, Lambert Strether, and Sarah Pocock discover that ambassadorial service brings with it many complication Each of them fulfills his or her mission in a particular way and does so with difs. fering motives. For these three individuals, access to and interpretation of information becomes decisive in fulfilling their respective commissions. This information circulates in distinct ways, yet the ability to access and understand the information depends on each ambassador's social and cultural "capital", as can be seen in the theories of Pierre Bourdieu.

O artigo desenvolve um diálogo estrutural entre os contos "The figure in the carpet" [A figura no tapete] (1896), de Henry James, e "Teoria do medalhão" (1881), de Machado de Assis, de modo a demonstrar como o movimento da forma estabelece, em ambas as narrativas, sentidos polissêmicos que dão vazão a conteúdos volúveis e contraditórios.

The article discusses the premise behind binding literary value to the ability a work has to yield socio-historical information, prevalent in recent criticism on Machado de Assis. It argues that the body of Machado's work shows an increasing ambivalence regarding the links between imagined lives and history, thus proposing that in his late writings the matching between things real and things represented is a rhetorical and melancholy gesture of great insight. In order to illustrate the prevalence of moral imagination as object and technique in Machado's late novels, the author highlights a few points of contact between Machado de Assis and Henry James, contemporaries and akin in their literary sensibilities.

Este artigo prossegue na discussão sobre o papel do duplo no mundo desencantado da era liberal. Por meio da análise de algumas histórias de Henry James e de Machado de Assis, ele investiga a figuração do sujeito, esvaziado e iludido, assombrado por seu outro eu mutilado - imagem replicada tornada pavorosa pelo horror que o homem moderno comete contra si próprio. As narrativas de Machado, além disso, ao evocar personagens como que possuídos por vestígios de sua "herança bestial" ou por projeções de feitos mundanos (que eles metonimicamente tomam como sua essência integral), desestabilizam ainda mais o conceito de individuação. Nos dois autores, lidar com esse paradoxo também significa conduzir a narrativa a seus momentos negativos ou de falência, quando narrar deixa de ser possível.