Silvio Romero vs. Machado de Assis: Literary criticism vs. Critic literature

During the 19th century, Brazil struggled for its national identity was based on European ideas and ideologies, specially from France. In a country with very few readers, the literary critics, in an effort to define how should be the Brazilian writers, engaged in polemic debates about those European ideas, failing to take into consideration their role in that society. That would be the case of one of the most important literary critics of that time, Silvio Romero, who constantly attacked Machado de Assis' work. Assis, who was a critic before becoming a writer, understood how senseless those polemics were, decided to abandon literary criticism and dedicate himself to critic literature.