The Machadian Criticism and the Realism of Another Reality

This paper seeks to show how much Machadian criticism, represented above all by the names of Roberto Schwarz and, to a certain extent, the Brazilianist John Gledson, questioned the normative and Eurocentric standards of Western literary criticism, presenting a productive proposal for the study of the work of Brazilian writer Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908). The work explains that the proposal of this criticism consisted of reading the Machadian text as a manifestation of the realism of another reality. Finally, it concludes that this criticism did not hesitate to challenge the limits imposed by Europe on the concept of literary realism so that it, redefined, could embrace an eccentric (off-center) Brazilian realism.