Abstract
José Veríssimo and Sílvio Romero were rivals in many different aspects regarding the conception of literary criticism, the position of the intellectual and the artist in Brazilian society and the role of controversy as public acting. These and other disagreements are evident in their portrait of Machado de Assis, the first president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. These different profiles embody opposite intellectual ideals that dispute the establishment of a national model of the artist and, mainly, its role in the historical moment. It is argued that this disagreement showcases the interfaces between their interpretations of Brazilian reality and the ethical and aesthetic references of their intellectual environment.
Keywords
Machado de Assis; Sílvio Romero; José Veríssimo; Literary criticism; Sociability