Abstract
This article aims to analyze the preambular texts written either by Machado de Assis or by a fictional creation of his, whether those texts were for his own works or for the works of others. The investigation of these documents as types of exordium is based on the approximations between literature and rhetoric and between book and discourse. After drafting the bridge between the old rhetoric and the typographic tradition, the article focuses on Machado's prefaces exercising multiple functions, which converge in his desire to direct the reading. Although many of his allograph prefaces were assembled in Obras Completas, we included an appendix with an edition of these texts, in order to frame them in the context of their publishing.
Keywords:
Machado de Assis; prefaces; rhetoric