Solitude, Narrative and Imagination in Fin-de-Siècle: History and sensibility by chronicles

Abstract

This text reflects the feeling of having lived during the late 19th century by means of chronicles written by Alcindo Guanabara, Adelino da Fontoura, Raul Braga and Valerio Mendes, which were published by the Rio de Janeiro’s press between 1883 and 1898. They go from Edgar Allan Poe’s spleen and Charles Baudelaire until the decadent “Fin-de-Siècle”. The chronicles presented in this article describe the end-of-thecentury feelings related to melancholy, pessimism and morbidity. The objective of this article is to study loneliness through the narrator’s sensibility and his perceptions about the city.