Sílvio Romero, the most severe reader of Machado de Assis, became known in the Brazilian social thought for his biggest mistake: to decry this author's work for its irrelevance. Research on this mistake reveal the influence of positivism and naturalism on this important literary historian’s theoretical assumptions and also the political, aesthetic and doctrinal guidelines developed by the generation of 1870. Indeed, Sílvio Romero’s literary reviews on Machado de Assis provide an understanding of artistic/intellectual sociability in Brazil at the end of the 19th Century and describe the intellectual and artistic roles that he considered appropriate for the Brazilian race-building process.
Machado de Assis; Sílvio Romero; literary criticism