National Adequation and Critical Originality

Abstract

Let us take as our starting point António Cândido's study on Aluísio Azevedo's O cortiço. Written in the 1970s, it was initially published in two partial versions with the purpose of generating local ballast for debates on method. 1 In the earlier version Cândido sought to point out dimensions of that debate that escaped the structuralist readings then in vogue. In the second, the author set out to show by example the legitimacy if not the necessity of passing back and forth between aesthetic analysis and sociohistorical reflection, an oscillating movement from the left, that, among those up-to-date on French and American trends, was considered a methodological error, an offense against artistic freedom.