A creature: the problem of nihilism in the poetry of Machado de Assis

The problem of nihilism on Machado de Assis' poetry has remained an unstudied subject. The main purpose of this paper is to argue that nihilism is a leitmotif of "Uma criatura", a poem originally published in Revista Brasileira in January 1880. The fundamental claim is that Machado de Assis had an acute awareness of the complex and multifaceted nature of the presence of nihilism in his time. The analysis proceeds in order to stimulate the dialogue between the poetry of Machado and the thoughts of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche concerning pessimism and nihilism.