Stephen Basdeo Archives - Reynolds's News and Miscellany
Sport, Masculinity, and the British Empire | Stephen Basdeo
“He is a scout and a pioneer, attacking force and army of occupation, all in one … they go out on long tours through the country, sleeping on the floors of native houses, enduring the most severe physical fatigue, exposed now to great frosts, now to terrible summer heat.”
John Fletcher’s “Tragedy of Bonduca” (c.1609) | Stephen Basdeo
“If Rome be earthly, why should any knee with bending adoration worship her? She’s vicious … Therefore ‘tis fitter I should reverence the thatched houses where the Britons dwell.”
Robert Greene’s “George-a-Greene: The Pinner of Wakefield” (1599) | Stephen Basdeo
The name of the Pinder to Wakefield locals is, as Shakespeare might say, ‘familiar in [their] mouths as household words’. The Pinders Fields, however, reveal an exciting history of rebellion, outlawry, and patriotism; so expressed in Robert Greene’s play in 1599 titled “The Pinner of Wakefield.”
“Elas” Exhibition at the Universidade de Fortaleza (UNIFOR) | Stephen Basdeo
In the university’s Espaço Cultural, there was a special exhibition on titled ‘Elas’ (the feminine plural form of ‘they’) which showcased the works of primarily (though not exclusively) Brazilian women artists from the nineteenth to the twentieth century.
Juana Manso’s “Mistérios del Plata” / “Mysteries of the River Plate” (1852) | Stephen Basdeo
‘In Buenos Aires, everyone wears Rosas’ symbol on their hatbands or buttonholes, the ladies as a ribbon in their hair. This symbol is a folded ribbon, bearing a portrait of the tyrant and the words “Federation or Death! Long Live the Restorer of Laws! Death to the Unitarian Savages!”
Rebellion and Unrest in the Global Medieval World: A Thematic Overview | Stephen Basdeo
“Though a heavy tax, or a requisition order … might not in itself precipitate a rising, it might do so in the context of strained social relationships … This strain is seen by the peasants from an apparently conservative standpoint. They cannot accept the abandonment of traditional roles by any one of the orders of society—whose basic structure they do not, to begin with, challenge.”
The Gringo Gaúcho: A Victorian Boy in Rio Grande do Sul | Stephen Basdeo
The story of how a boy from a poor family in Grimsby got lost in Brazil and became a gaucho.
Popular Tales from Rio Grande do Sul [Contos Populares do Sul] | Stephen Basdeo [Trans.]
One day, however, according to the will of Tupã, the warrior chief became sick and passed away. It was a moment of much pain for all but, after some time, the village elders met to choose, from among the greatest warriors, the new chief. And what luck—the new chief was Obirici’s crush: Itiberê!
Camilo Castelo Branco’s ‘Mysteries of Lisbon’ (1854): Chapter Four | [Trans. Stephen Basdeo]
A man of frightful figure looked at us with a choleric eye. The priest looked directly at him for a moment without moving so much as a muscle, simulating the best feigned indifference I ever saw. He did not forbid me to look at that man—perhaps he thought we would be less suspicious.
“Allegory to Independence” at the Museu de Arte do Rio | Stephen Basdeo
The creator is unknown, though the tapestry is small and simple enough to indicate that it was produced by a commoner. The celebration of independence is not coherent, of course, for the Brazilian monarch guides his country in the direction of that taken by the North American republic of the United States.
Mysteries of the Court of Miracles | Stephen Basdeo
“The blind man ran. The lame man ran. The man with no legs ran. And then, as he penetrated further down the street, the legless, the blind and the halt came swarming around him, together with the one-armed, the one-eyed, and the lepers with their sores….”
Final Issue of “Reynolds’s News and Sunday Citizen” (1967) | Bill Richardson
“…liberty, democracy, equality, and social justice, the brotherhood of man, they are eternal ideals, and other newspapers will yet be born to speak out for them.”
Camilo Castelo Branco’s ‘Mysteries of Lisbon’ (1854): Chapter Three | [Trans. Stephen Basdeo]
And yet my position was already different in the little society I knew. A new lease of life was given to me—a new freedom—more attention was shown to me—I was even placed in a new room! What was all this for? Why wouldn’t D. Antonia, whom I asked with childish idiocy, tell me wherefore? The priest didn’t tell me, but then I wouldn’t have the audacity to ask him.
Álvares de Azevedo’s “Pedro Ivo” | Leandro Machado [Trans.]
The corpse without blessings, unburied,
Thrown to the crows of the uncultivated grassland,
The manly forehead shot through,
To imperial sleep with cold lips
May pass in faded scorn.
Camilo Castelo Branco’s ‘Mysteries of Lisbon’ (1854): Chapter One | [Trans. Stephen Basdeo]
“It has always seemed impossible to me to write the mysteries of a land that has none, and, invented, nobody believes them. I was wrong. It is because I did not know Lisbon, or not able to calculate the power of a man’s imagination.”
Youthful consumption and conservative visions: Robin Hood and Wat Tyler in late Victorian penny periodicals | Stephen Basdeo
“Talk of Robin Hood and Little John, and their dingy imitators in this metropolis described by Dickens and Ainsworth … The same man passes from one form into another – developing, according to the changes in society, from a forester to a mountaineer, thence to a highwayman, thence to an instructor of pickpockets and the receiver of their day’s work in St. Giles.”
The Birth of Police Brutality in England, 1831 | Stephen Basdeo
Who reported police brutality in the 1800s? Was there even a concept of police brutality in the early nineteenth century? I will show how the concept of police brutality was born in England in 1831.
O Nascimento da Brutalidade Policial na Inglaterra, 1831 | Stephen Basdeo e Luiz Guerra
Quem denunciava a brutalidade policial nos anos 1800s? Existia mesmo um conceito de brutalidade policial no início do século XIX? Então este artigo é o resultado de minha reflexão e pesquisa sobre essas questões e vou mostrar como o conceito de brutalidade policial nasceu na Inglaterra em 1831.
“Checking Out Me History”: Medievalism in British Guiana Schools, c.1950–1960 | Stephen Basdeo
This article examines the teaching and reception of British medieval history in Guyana. It takes an interdisciplinary approach by conducting textual analysis of Guyanese school textbooks to determine precisely what aspects of British medieval history were taught, which included events such as the Norman Conquest (1066), King Stephen’s reign, as well as medieval folk talks such as Dick Whittington, Robin Hood, and Old King Cole.
“I am a public thing”: Victor Hugo as Political Symbol | Stephen Basdeo
Hugo worked tirelessly on his self-imposed mission: poetry was so important, Hugo believed, that it should be a part of every aspect of life and had a central role to play in the story of national regeneration.
“Mysteries of Lisbon” (1854) by Camilo Branco | Stephen Basdeo
Mysterymania gripped the world in the 1840s and 1850s. From London and France it spread to USA, Germany, Italy, Brazil, and Portugal. Camilo Branco’s Misterios de Lisboa was part of this thrilling genre.
Eugene Sue’s “Mysteries of the People” (1848): “The Branding Needle” and the First French Commune | Stephen Basdeo
To reign! the ambition of great souls! To reign like the Emperors of Rome! I wish to emulate them in all their sovereign omnipotence!
“The Sonnets of Luis de Camões” (1803) by Viscount Strangford | Stephen Basdeo
What Strangford wanted to do was translate Luis de Camões’s little-known sonnets, and the result was Poems, from the Portuguese of Luis de Camoens.
How Eighteenth-Century Governments Worked | Stephen Basdeo
What a minister needed to succeed in a political career was, therefore, not the confidence of the House of Commons but the confidence of the king.