The legend of Iara in the poem “Sabina” by Machado de Assis
Keywords:
the legend of Iara, Machado de Assis, nationalism.Abstract
In Brazil, folklore themes have been recreated in the scholarly literature by intellectuals since the nineteenth century. This has been observed in one of the finest narratives found in the Brazilian folklore, the legend of Iara, which is reported in works written by nineteenth-century authors such as José de Alencar, Melo Morais Filho, Juvenal Galeno, Gonçalves Dias, Machado de Assis, etc. These authors articulated the legend to their poetry and considered the ideal of nationalism from that period. The main aim of this study is to analyze the presence of the legend of Iara in the poem “Sabina” by Machado de Assis. For this purpose, we assume the conception of nationalism in his essay “Notícia da Atual Literatura Brasileira - Instinto de Nacionalidade” (1873).