Finale allegro, accelerando: revisiting the erratum of "A saída"

Abstract

A reinterpretation of a proclamation by the narrator of Dom Casmurro; instead of taking chapter XCVII at face value as an erratum, I suggest that, rather than constituting a rupture, it constitutes one manifestation of a larger phenomenon within Machado’s works, ushering in and hastening the work’s end. If we agree with the old tenor Marcolini that life is an opera, then, we might label this gesture a “finale allegro”.

erratum; time; pace; ending; literature and music