This paper aims at examining the different ways by which Joaquim Nabuco shapes his personality in My Formation, choosing the trip as theme, especially to Europe, as the conductor thread for the investigation. Having always by reference the way by which political and literary values match in his thoughtfulness, we intend to suggest that his subjectivity seems to be elaborated leastwise at two distinct levels, thou tightly articulated. The first one corresponds to the youth of the author, pronounced by a melancholic curiosity that implies, on the limit, a fast and superficial contact with the targets he aims at knowing; the second entails a relation with the tradition level, especially the British one, whose permanence, extension, and variety will promote an ambience of serenity and freedom that turns out to be one kind of axis around which Nabuco conceives his biography.
Joaquim Nabuco; Melancholy; Subjectivity; Trips to Europe