Crisálidas

by Machado de Assis, The Perfect Library (Editor)

Libro de poesía de Joaquim Machado de Assis.

Genres: Poetry

132 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1864

About the author

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, often known as Machado de Assis, Machado, or Bruxo do Cosme Velho, (June 21, 1839, Rio de Janeiro—September 29, 1908, Rio de Janeiro) was a Brazilian novelist, poet, playwright and short story writer. He is widely regarded as the most important writer of Brazilian literature. However, he did not gain widespread popularity outside Brazil in his own lifetime.
Machado's works had a great influence on Brazilian literary schools of the late 19th century and 20th century. José Saramago, Carlos Fuentes, Susan Sontag and Harold Bloom are among his admirers and Bloom calls him "the supreme black literary artist to date."

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brazilian writer Machado de Assis started his career with this collection of poetry in 1864. He was 25-years old. The funny thing is I know him as a writer of novels, so the poetry threw me for a loop. Checking out his work online, he did publish five books of poems including a “complete works.”

Machado de Assis was known for Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas (1881) and Memorial de Aires (1908) both books written about love, getting older and of course, death. So what does a younger man write about? Love, of course but also death (the book was dedicated to his father who had died).

The latter half of the 19th century was changing between romanticism and realism. In his forward to the book, Dr. Caetano Filgueiras writes about what inspired Machado de Assis: “mysticism of Lamartine, scepticism of Byron, philosophy of Hugo, sensualism of Ovid, patriotism of Mickiewicz and Americana of Gonçalves Dias. Add in reflections of Homer, Camões and Dante and you get a lot going on.

The poems reflect on various subjects like Cleopatra, Os Arlequins (Roman emperors), Epitáfio de Mexico (Emperor Maximiliano), and Maria Duplessis (the lover that Alexandre Dumas fils based La Dame aux Camélias). However his longest poem is also his best, Versos a Corina, which pays tribute to the muses of many famous poets over the years: Leonor (Tasso), Lívia (Horace), Beatriz (Dante Alighieri), Catarina (Luís de Camões), Corina (Ovid), Cíntia (Propertius), Lésbia (Catullus), Délia (Tibulus). Good stuff.

It’s good to see where a writer begins, and in this case to see another side of his work.

[Inês Etulain · Rating 4 out of 5]

não é o melhor do machado, mas é muito bom. o cara era romântico demais