Abstract
To what point does the field of erudite production influence the distinction and marginalization of writers? This operation is analyzed in the market of symbolic goods discussed by Bourdieu, where the search for "pure" art leads to the aesthetic distance between the work and the public. This sociologist’s analysis is discussed in parallel with the Reception Aesthetics Theory, when the ambit of expectation enables interpretations in the field of literary production. The appearance of Machado de Assis in the midst of an illiterate society and constituted by Francophile intellectuals is problematized by questioning the existence or the type of erudite field of production that is formed in a country where the presence of literature is disparaged by its own intellectuals.
Machado de Assis; literary field; distinction; aesthetic distance