Guerra dos mascates, crônica dos tempos coloniais de Alencar: um antimodelo do romance histórico oitocentista

The novel A guerra dos mascates, published by José de Alencar in two volumes (1873-1874), was considered by the author’s contemporaneous critics as roman à clé and is included in the literary historiography as a minor work. Nonetheless, if read without taking the romantic historical novel as a paradigm, the perception is different. This reading proposes to apprehend the elements of comedy that appear in the narrative, as well as some common procedures in late-nineteenth century historical fiction.