Esau and Jacob, the history of the Machadian suburbs

physiognomies of a carnavalized Brazil

Abstract

This article analyzes the novel Esau and Jacob, by Machado de Assis, published in 1904, from Morro do Castelo, taken by us as “image of thought” for a historical and carnavalized reading of the narrative signed by Conselheiro Aires. The highlighted expression is by Walter Benjamin, angular thinker for the development of the concept of “physiognomy”, structuring term of our thinking, made by the German-Brazilian critic Willi Bolle. The notion of geopoetry, understood here as a theoretical and literary practice which focus on the artistic and literary margins, not only in its written expressions, but also vocalized, performed and experienced in the core of popular culture, it adds to the Bakhtinian proposals of carnavalization and incompleteness to embody the theoretical framework of this geopoetry´s study, which is based on a dialogic methodology (in Mikhail Bakhtin’s terms). Through conclusions, we verify how Machado’s novel of the opening of the 20th century is consolidated as carnivalized and liminal prose (this last concept by Victor Turner), which is structured as “history of the suburbs” to tell the movement of the periphery at the center of Brazilian History.