Maiden in Brazil

Dear students, I’m almost gone to Curitiba. There’s no way I am going to miss Iron Maiden playing the songs I used to rock with, when I was a teen myself and couldn’t afford air tickets nor going to concert venues .

Maybe studying English isn’t as fun as Maiden concerts, but we can learn a lot from their symbols and lyrics. Bruce himself has an historian’s degree under his belt and this is reflected in most of his songs which talk about History and Literature, often mixing both.

Here Eddie dresses as an English Redcoat in the cell phone snapshot taken while the group played “the trooper”, this song is a direct reference to the poem The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson, and readers of the first with a working knowledge of British History will firmly place the song in the context of the War of Crimea. The song differs from the poem though, in that it is brutally focused on the sheer waste of British lives in the Battle of Balaclava, whereas the poem merely hints at that in far greater elegance.

The Redcoat became intimately associated with the British Empire to the point of being somewhat akin to a national symbol. Not to be liked by all, however. If Lord Tennyson praises the British soldiery with

“When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered. Honour the charge they made!”

The American colonials held the “King’s men” in much more contempt and defiance, as their folk lore attests:

“Why come ye hither, Redcoats, your mind what madness fills? In our valleys there is danger, and there’s danger on our hills (…) soon you’ll know the ringing of the rifle from the tree.”

See you next week!

The Call of Literature

This is my all-time favorite bit of literature:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human
mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance
in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should
voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto
harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge
will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position
therein, that we shall either go mad from the relevation or flee from the
deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

What do you think?

Historic Notes on a Trip to Ilha do Mel

The fortress “Nossa Senhora dos Prazeres” is shown in the photo below, which I took when I visited it a few days ago. Located in Ilha do Mel, district of Paranaguá, the fortress was built by the portuguese in the 18th century, and has seen real action when Brazil was an infant nation and an Empire. There the people of Paranagua plus a token garrison of the imperial army joined battle against England, in a half-hour exchange of fire between the fortress and the HMS Cormorant.

This was probabbly the peak of mounting tensions between the Brazilian and English Empires. Since the passing of the Bill Aberdeen the Royal navy had been raiding and harassing brazilian shipping in order to force the country out of the atlantic slave trading market. The Royal Navy had been capturing brazillian merchants off the coast, but the HMS Cormorant maybe too boldly entered shallow waters, capturing and sinking a number of vessels in the narrow channels between the islands next to the coast of Paraná. The local merchants and the general populace were enraged at such an affront and at the lack of response from the local authorities. A large group of civilians stormed into the almost-abandoned fortress, reading twelve pieces of artillery overnight.

As the Cormorant passed on its way back pulling its prizes, the fortress opened up a ferocious bombardment. The ship sustained significant damage plus casualties, and limped away to Serra Leoa for repairs.

Two months later Brazil passed a law withdrawing from the atlantic slave trafficking in order to avoid a fully-fledged war against victorian England; Fourteen years latter an ambicious Paraguay would attack both Brazil and Argentina thus initiating the devastating War of the Triple Alliance.

If you visit the fortress you’ll find a metal plate next to its gates with the following inscription:

“A primeiro de Julho de 1850 nesta fortaleza da barra de Paranaguá bravos filhos da cidade auxiliados por aderentes dedicados salvaguardaram a honra do Brasil resistindo à passagem do cruzador Cormorant, com as três presas feitas no porto. Em comemoração ao primeiro centenário do combate. Ilha do Mel, primeiro de Julho de 1950.”

(this entry was partly based on an excellent article by Guilherme Poggio, which can be found here: http://www.naval.com.br/historia/geopolitica_poder_naval/dipl_canhoneiras.htm )

CEI-F-3-01 AKA “Spin Doctors”

I know the present perfect often has my students’ heads spinning, but this time I got them to spin in quite a more literal manner; We chose to celebrate the time we’ve been together for the summer course at the Ferris Wheel placed in Copacabana.

The jovial mood of when we decided to treat us to an amusement park of sorts was a little subsided by the inevitable desertions: some were going to travel, others had to work extra shifts, yet another got sick, but a sizeable group still made it to the Ferris Wheel and spread itself over two booths.

It was definitely worth our while. Many screams, laughs and pictures later each of us went our separate ways, inevitable as it would be. I’m sure I’ll certainly run into some of them in the future, as I’m also sure many of them are bound to meet again throughout their future courses.

Until then, I’ll surely miss each person from this group!