A fantastic poem
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Por essa já eu esperava; entretanto o lance não deixa de ser dramatico; a historia de teos amores com a tal fada mysteriosa vae tomando visos de um poema phantastico.
I expected as much; nevertheless the episode is not without its drama; the story of your love for that mysterious fairy is taking on the airs of a fantastic poem.
Dr. Geraldo, the sceptic, keeps the self-conscious literary frame going: Álvaro's romance is 'tomando visos de um poema phantastico', taking on the look of a fantastic poem. The joke is that they are all inside exactly such a work, and the doctor's amused literary criticism is the novel winking at its own genre — the Romantic tale of the hidden maiden, the chance rescue, the fated love. But 'phantastico' carries an edge: a poem is invented, unreal, and Geraldo's word half-suggests he does not quite believe it. His scepticism, which will not let the fairy-tale be simply a fairy-tale, is precisely the instinct that keeps probing toward the truth beneath 'Elvira'. The men laugh at a poem; the reader waits for the moment the poem is revealed to be a case of law, a woman's life at stake.
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A Escrava Isaura 10.41 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/escravaisaura/10.41/