SOBRE A PERCEPÇÃO TARDIA DA IRONIA NA “SEGUNDA FASE” DA FICÇÃO DE MACHADO DE ASSIS: DESCRIÇÃO E INTERPRETAÇÃO DO PROBLEMA À LUZ DA TEORIA DA RELEVÂNCIA

Abstract

The article discusses the presence of irony in the work of Machado de Assis, taking as its object Dom Casmurro and its critical reception. It is known that literary critique did not highlight Machado’s irony, which is particularly present in the novels from the second phase of his production, until the second half of the 20th century. This would only change together with changes in the conditions of critical praise, with the emergence of a renewed attention to textual aesthetics and to Machado’s social criticism. By analyzing certain passages from Dom Casmurro, the article dialogues with Sperber and Wilson’s relevance theory in order to argue that 1) the privilege of an ironic attitude, to detriment of ostensibly ironic utterances, and 2) the treatment of notions non-necessarily present in the doxastic knowledge shared with the public, together explain the delayed perception of irony as an organizing mode of Machado’s fiction. This supports the hypothesis that only changes in the context of reception, with the emergence of new conditions for critical praise, would change that initial reception, reconfiguring the interpretation of his fictional work.