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The Sugar–Cane Cycle of Jose Lins do Rego
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
In commenting upon the importance of works of fiction the historian finds himself in strange waters, but with familiar tools at his command. Except as signs of the times, few novels would merit such a serious approach, but the exceptions can be most rewarding. The importance of fiction, both for good and for bad, has long been recognized. It does not have to be great literature to be significant: it has to be popular. Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the fictional output of the “Muckrakers” have had profound influences on the thought and history of the United States. The popularity of Captain Marryat’s sea novels changed the regulations of the British Navy. Kipling almost “set” the accepted concept of relations between the East and West in his manifold descriptions of the “White Man’s Burden” —again because of his popularity as a writer. These are but a few of the examples that can be culled from an examination of the fiction to be found in the English language, and there are many others equally significant. Fiction can establish patterns of thought on past and present problems that should make biographers, essayists, and historians jealous, as established patterns of thought can go far toward making or changing history.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1958
References
1 Freyre, Gilberto, Brazil: An Interpretation (New York, 1945), p. 166.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as Freyre, Brazil.
2 The engenho is a sugar plantation equipped with simple (water, steam, or manual) machinery for processing sugar cane. The end products are crude sugar, sugar syrup, and sometimes alcohol. The crude machinery results in considerable wastage.
3 The usina is basically a sugar refinery. It can refine the crude products of the engenho and also can refine raw sugar-cane at every stage more efficiently than an engenho can. Usinas tended to buy nearby engenhos to insure their supplies of raw materials.
4 Freyre, Gilberto, The Masters and the Slaves (New York, 1946), p. 35.Google Scholar
5 Senzala is a Brazilian word meaning the quarters of slaves or workers on an estate.
6 Smith, T. Lynn, Brazil: People and Institutions (Baton Rouge, 1947), pp. 62–65.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as Smith, Brazil. This reference describes an usina in São Paulo, but is equally applicable to the Paraíba usinas.
7 The eastern upland plateau regions of Brazil, usually less developed and more arid than the coastal region.
8 Smith, Brazil, p. 124.
9 Ibid., pp. 516–517.
10 Putnam, Samuel, Marvellous Journey (New York, 1948), p. 216.Google Scholar
11 Freyre, Brazil, p. 178.
12 Verissimo, Erico, Brazilian Literature (New York, 1945), p. 151.Google Scholar
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Sodré, Nelson Werneck, Orientações do Pensamento Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1942), p. 12.Google Scholar
16 Ibid., pp. 53–54.