Summary or Drawing? Reading Eça de Queirós Today

Abstract

The narrative O morto no centro da sala (2013) by Gonçalo M. Tavares is the object of our critical attention. It establishes an intertextual dialog with Os Maias, whose contours we are trying to investigate. The Tavares novel also proposes a reflection on the (hyper)contemporary challenges of reading and teaching Queirosian texts. If Eça de Queirós, in his well-known “Letter-preface to Azulejos do Conde de Arnoso”, already sketches a disqualifying profile of the nineteenth century reader, he undertakes, however, incomparably somber contours in this fiction by Gonçalo M. Tavares, which is contemporary to a context of strong decline in reading.

Keywords:
Queirosian Studies; Multimodal Fiction; Reading the Canon; Afterlife of Literary Characters