Abstract
The significant advance of Law and Literature studies in Brazil has attracted the interest of lawyers and encouraged students to develop research, especially in the field of law in literature. Many of these papers seem to lack, however, the conceptual apparatus, assumptions, and instruments necessary for the analysis of literary texts. Considering this context, this article, in addition to presenting some historical data and defining different currents of Law and Literature, emphasizes the need for specialized theoretical and methodological issues involved in such interdisciplinary investigations, and uses the short story Suje-se gordo!, by Brazilian writer Machado de Assis, which brings to question the effectiveness of the court regarding justice. The intention is to provide an analytical model that could be applied in different studies of law in literature.
Law in literature; theoretical and methodological issues; law court; justice; Machado de Assis