Diplomacy and literature in the academic correspondence: Machado de Assis and Oliveira Lima

Abstract

Through the correspondence exchanged between Machado de Assis and M. de Oliveira Lima (1900-1908), this research analyses the relations among the Academia Brasileira de Letras and the Ministério das Relações Exteriores. It deals with Pierre Bourdieu and Domenico de Masi's theoretical and methodological reference of social area for analysing the inter-relations of these spaces of sociability from the perspectives of literary and historical creation, power sources and lidership styles, and conflict reasons and solutions. Its conclusion is the Academia has constituted a political arena by the manipulation of consecration in literary world as a resource for State visibility and legitimation on its proposal to organize the republican nation