RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 O dilema do polquista: JF Luso-Brazilian Review JO Luso-Braz Rev FD University of Wisconsin Press SP 115 OP 130 DO 10.1353/lbr.0.0063 VO 46 IS 1 A1 Luís Augusto Fischer A1 Lucia Serrano Pereira YR 2009 UL http://lbr.uwpress.org/content/46/1/115.abstract AB In this essay, we analyze a short story by Machado de Assis, “Um homem célebre,” in which the reader follows the frustrated trajectory of the character Pestana, a pianist and composer of polkas. Our approach is based on two theories that are not obviously compatible: Antonio Candido’s perspective of the formation of Brazilian Literature, and the notion of torsion as outlined by August Ferdinand Moebius and commented by Jacques Lacan. Our aim is to demonstrate that, by maintaining an ironic distance in relation to the events of the story, the narrator performs the formative synthesis of the torsion whose existence the character is unable to perceive.