Abstract
This paper analyses how Machado de Assis utilized rumors as a compositional procedure for his chronicles. The chronicler highlights the use of rumor, seeking a definition to what they are and organizing his comments about everyday news based on such a definition. To understand both the definition and the use of rumors in the chronicles, we propose establishing a dialogue with Jean-Noël Kapferer (1993), who investigated different functions of rumors, as a way to understand both the definition and the use of rumors in Machado’s chronicles, considering rumors as cross-functional that go beyond the truth-lie binary to be a black market of information or, as in Machado de Assis’s definition, news that runs in whispers.
rumors; chronicle; Brazilian literature; Machado de Assis; Jean-Noël Kapferer