Combined and Uneven Styles in the Modern World-System: Stylistic Ideology in José de Alencar, Machado de Assis and Thomas Hardy

Abstract

The stylistic discontinuities that are a widely recognised feature of literature from the world-systemic periphery can also be located in literature at the intra-core periphery: that is, those cities, regions or macro-regions within a core state that have been peripheralised by capitalist centralisation processes. Engaging with Franco Moretti’s theory of world literature, Roberto Schwarz’s influential readings of José de Alencar and Machado de Assis, as well as Raymond Williams on Thomas Hardy, this essay tries to make visible the extent to which peripheral writers actively stylise their combined and uneven linguistic and cultural situations. Whilst aligning itself with theories of world-literature premised on the combined and uneven development of the modern capitalist world-system, the essay argues against an understanding of world-literature as a passive ‘reflection’ or ‘registration’ of this system. It suggests that an expanded definition of style – one which emphasises ‘stylistic ideologies’, the self-conscious stylistic projects writers develop – could help avoid such underestimations of the political and literary agency of writers at the periphery. It concludes with some remarks on the problem of historical temporality shared by peripheral styles and theories of style alike.