The Influence of Machado de Assis: Journal Article by Earl E. Fitz

Literary and Historical Backdrop

Machado de Assis, a pioneering 19th-century Brazilian novelist, is widely regarded as Brazil’s greatest literary figure and influential in Latin American letters. His writing style, marked by irony, metafictional techniques, and subjectivity, prefigured modernist and postmodernist traits. Machado wrote during Brazil’s transition from empire to republic, reflecting social upheavals and race issues in his deeply nuanced works. John Barth encountered Machado’s novels in the mid-20th century, recognizing their significance for reinvigorating narrative form and philosophical themes in American fiction.

Postmodern Resonances and Aesthetic Dialogues

Earl E. Fitz’s article situates Machado de Assis as a crucial intellectual and aesthetic influence on John Barth’s The Floating Opera. Machado’s technique subverts traditional narrative structures by blurring boundaries between author, narrator, and reader—an approach Barth echoes through metafiction. Machado advances a “both/neither” framework that challenges modernist binaries like subject/object and fact/fiction, aligning with postmodern sensibility. This liminal "space-in-between" is central to Barth’s existential explorations and stylistic innovation, linking Brazilian and American literary modernisms across continents and eras. Fitz and other scholars highlight how Barth's early novels embody Machado’s legacy of skepticism and aesthetic reconciliation.

Transnational Literary Influence

Machado’s impact on Barth exemplifies a specific form of Inter-American literary exchange. Barth, initially influenced by European authors such as Fielding and Sterne, found in Machado a narrative master who articulated complex self-consciousness and narrative unreliability. This connection transcends linguistic and cultural borders, illustrating a transnational dialogue between Latin American and U.S. literatures. Barth explicitly acknowledged Machado’s formative role in shaping his fictional approach, bridging 19th-century Brazilian literary innovation with mid-20th-century American experimentalism. Fitz’s research reveals this dialogue as a meaningful framework for reconsidering cross-cultural literary influences beyond conventional national literary histories.

Key themes

• Intertextuality between Machado de Assis and Barth's The Floating Opera.
• Blending of formal playfulness with genuine emotional depth.
• Exploration of existential ideas influenced by Brazilian and European literary traditions.
• Narrative self-awareness and critique of authorship.
• The provincial as a cultural and literary figure negotiating plagiarism and originality.
• The tension between Romanticism and modern literary experimentation.

Symbols & ambiguities

Recurring symbols include metafictional elements and narrative self-reflexivity, reflecting Machado de Assis’s influence on Barth’s construction of the author and narrator figure. This interplay embodies the complex notion of literary borrowing and transformation—Barth’s novel reflects the ambiguity of authorship and originality, where parody and homage coexist. The figure of the provincial writer symbolizes the cultural tension of imitation and creativity, while existential motifs underline the novel’s inquiries into meaning and selfhood, exemplifying a blend of skepticism and sentimentality.

Study questions

How does Barth incorporate Machado de Assis’s narrative techniques into The Floating Opera?
In what ways does the novel challenge traditional notions of authorship?
What role does existential philosophy play in the thematic development?
How does Barth’s depiction of the provincial writer inform the novel’s cultural critique?
What are the effects of metafiction and narrative playfulness on reader interpretation?
How does The Floating Opera balance sentimentality with skepticism?
In what ways does Barth’s work dialogue with European literary influences through Machado?
What ambiguities emerge from the link between plagiarism and originality?

Critical approaches & debates

Scholar Earl E. Fitz’s article primarily adopts a comparative and formalist approach, exploring how Machado de Assis’s narrative techniques influenced John Barth’s The Floating Opera. Some readings emphasize Barth’s indebtedness to Machado’s blend of comic irony and nihilism, showcasing a postmodern engagement with despair through humor. Others debate the nature of this influence, contrasting Barth’s American existentialist context with Machado’s Brazilian societal critique. Key disagreements focus on whether Barth’s adaptation of Machado’s style serves as homage or a critical reworking, and how themes of authorship and reader participation differ between the two authors’ structures.

Key passages

A significant passage is Barth’s foreword, where he credits Machado for teaching him how to mix formal playfulness with genuine sentiment and realism—an insight Barth felt was missing from Joyce and Sterne. This passage reveals the blend of comic tone and melancholy that Barth channels in The Floating Opera, crucial for understanding the novel’s existential themes. It also highlights the concept of the author as both reader and imitator, reflecting Machado’s challenge to Romantic authorship.

Bibliography

Fitz, Earl E. “The Influence of Machado de Assis on John Barth’s The Floating Opera.” The Comparatist 10, May 1986, pp. 56–66. Machado de Assis, The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas (translated edition). Barth, John. The Floating Opera. Foundational analyses include Fitz (1986), with recent comparative studies examining Machado’s lasting impact on American postmodernism.