Representações da loucura em o alienista de Machado de Assis e “the system of doctor Tarr and professor Fether” de Edgar Allan Poe

Abstract

Several and significant publications on aspects of intertextuality in the work of Machado de Assis and Edgar Allan Poe, considering style and literary aesthetics, can be cited, however few comparative studies were carried out regarding the approach to madness and humor in their works. Although they are recurring themes throughout the production of such writers, their application is diverse (PHILLIPOV, 2011). In this regard, this research aims to identify, through a comparative study, how the phenomenon of madness in the 19th century was represented by the aforementioned authors from their characters, as well as discuss the construction of derision around them in their respective texts: O Alienista (1881) and “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” (1845). The present analysis is based on the contributions of Foucault (1978), Carvalho (2018), Schwarz (2000), Botton (2017), Mabbott (1978) among others and draws on these literary works to reflect upon the way in which the political turns what threatens conservative social norms into a pathology by means of institutional power.