‘This is how I explain the universality of Xenophon’: Machado de Assis, Brazilian Republic and theCyropaedia

Abstract

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839–1908), considered by many the greatest Brazilian author, was once called a Greek of the golden days due in part to his frequent use of classical allusions. This article analyses the reception of Xenophon's Cyropaedia in his novel Esau and Jacob (1904). Its narrator quotes the Greek author’s reflection on the instability of all political regimes and his conclusion that man is the most difficult animal for man to govern. In a chronicle published in 1894, Machado de Assis had already mocked Xenophon’s perceived universality focusing on this same passage, which he finds contradictory. This is also highlighted in the novel where the quote reflects on the transition from monarchy to republic in late nineteenth-century Brazil. The use of classical references is characteristic of Machado’s unreliable narrator who both reveals political differences quite specific to Brazilian public life and who is himself a product of that society; it follows that ancient political ideals are reinterpreted to mirror this modern Latin American democracy.