COUTINHO, AFRNIO

born March 5, 1911, Salvador, Braz. journalist, essayist, and literary critic who was a faithful proponent of close reading of literary texts for critical purposes. He was influential in introducing the New Criticism to Brazil in the 1950s. Throughout most of his life, Coutinho also carried on an active career in high school and university teaching in the area of literature. During 194247 he lived in the United States, serving on the editorial staff of the Portuguese-language edition of Reader's Digest. He was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1962 and became editor of the literary journal Cadernos Brasileiros. Among his critical publications, the most widely known are Aspectos da literatura barroca (1951; Aspects of Baroque Literature), A filosofia de Machado de Assis (1940; The Philosophy of Machado de Assis), a study of the influence of Pascal on the 19th-century Brazilian literary giant, Por uma crtica esttica (1953; Toward Aesthetic Criticism), Da crtica e da nova crtica (1957; On Criticism and the New Criticism), and Conceito de literatura brasileira (1960; The Concept of Brazilian Literature). He also organized and edited the four-volume A literatura no Brasil (195559; Literature in Brazil) and the Enciclopdia de literatura brasileira (1990; Encyclopedia of Brazilian Literature).