Machado de Assis colloquial-cult style in Quincas Borba

Abstract

This paper intends to detect in the style of Machado de Assis the colloquial marks inserted in the learned standard Portuguese. The narrator speaks directly to the reader, through vocatives, questions, imperative and exclamative sentences, so that the narrator’s talk as well as the dialogues between the characters are an excellent model of literary elaboration, in spite of the tone of simplicity and spontaneity which permeates them