A apropriação machadiana de A Divina Comédia de Dante

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to Machado studies by analyzing the references of the Brazilian writer Machado de Assis to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Dantesque references can be found throughout Machado's production, be they direct quotations of verses or not. Italian Edoardo Bizarri, French Jean Michel Massa, American Hellen Cawdell and the Brazilians Eugenio Gomes, Eugenio Vinci de Moraes and Teresinha Zimbrão da Silva, to name a few, have studied the references of Machado de Assis towards the work Divine Comedy. For, considering that among the Machado novels with direct quotations from Dantean verses, Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas and Esau and Jacob, belonging to the so-called phase of maturity of the writer, have already been studied, we propose to study in the thesis the remaining novels, namely Dom Casmurro and Counselor Ayres' Memorial. In the study of these two novels, we shall consider both the Dantesque quotations and the Dantesque references without verses, besides summoning other Machado works where these quotations or references are repeated, and which may thus contribute to the interpretation of Machado de Assis from Dante.