Beyond the grave (or the author’s death and the machadiana ruse in Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas)

The main topic of this paper is to reflect on some of the proposals discussed by criticism in dealing with the author’s death closely with Memórias póstumas - Machado's work of recognized importance. Thus, from Meyer’s reading to denude the underground man in Machado de Assis under the Cubas’ mask, in an attempt to show the author's ulterior subterfuge - which undoubtedly takes us to the model of criticism that was made at the time of Gustave Lanson and Sainte-Beuve, when it were produced the famous theses X, l'homme et l'oeuvre, - it comes to the formulation of Barthes and Foucault, influenced by the notion of disappearance of the I professed by Mallarmé and Blanchot.