Abstract
From the analysis of three short stories - "Aurora sem dia" (1873), "O programa" (1882) and "Vênus! Divina Vênus!" (1893) - this article discusses the representation of the vulgar poet in Machado de Assis. Through it, I try to demonstrate that the author defeated the poetic model of the "Poet without Art", building a figure of a vulgar poet as a way of problematizing what he saw as the negative effects of the triumph of Romanticism. This criticism remains associated, however, with changes in Machado's poetics; the normative and pedagogical posture, which endeavored to highlight the ideal of the good poet, gave way to a more historicized approach to that figure: from an opportunistic charlatan to be fought and denounced, he became an occasional poet, the object of a simple ironic record. Thus, Machado de Assis also abandoned the normative perspective proper to the rhetorical-poetic regime.
Keywords:
Romanticism and anti-Romanticism; poetics and rhetoric; Machado de Assis' short stories