Fazendo género

This article discusses the concept of "mixed genres" in a representative sampling of Eça de Queirós' texts. Informed by Derrida's well-known essay on "the law of genre," Reis analyzes several different parasitical forms in Eça's texts. The inclusion/intrusion of dramatic effects, often with a melodramatic overtone in texts such as Os Maias or the modal/textual slide from short-story to novel in the case of A cidade e as serras, are among the examples that support this reading of Eça as a literary "outlaw." The existence of an attempt to adapt Os Maias to the stage, as Reis pertinently recalls, is a case in point. In O crime do Padre Amaro, the insertion of extraordinarily powerful and dramatic dialogs or philosophical essays, illustrates, according to Reis, Eça's defiance of the boundaries inherent to the novel as genre. Likewise, Reis pays special attention in his discussion to the overwhelming presence of short story esthetics and techniques in Eça's paraliterary texts (in particular the chronicle and the epistolary text), that enable Eça to add a transcendental and often a more human dimension to these texts that would otherwise be lacking in that respect

Art · Gender, Sexuality, and Education