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justfinishedreading · 6 years ago

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Part 2 – Reviewing the Play

Felizmente há luar! is a play inspired by a real event in Portuguese history from 1817. That year there were rumours that the people of Portugal were planning to revolt against the monarchy. An army general named Gomes Freire de Andrade was accused of being the leader of the conspiracy, he was imprisoned and condemned to death, but his guilt was never conclusively proven.

In part 1 I talked about what Portugal was like politically in the 1960s when the play was written; it was a time when the country had been under dictatorship for the last 30 years, a time when freedom of speech and the principals of democracy were oppressed. It could be argued that the author Luís de Sttau Monteiro choose to set his play in 1817 to avoid censorship; he may have tried to camouflage his message by using history, a tactic to mask the fact that he was outright criticising the current government. But the liberal message of the play is pretty clear, and the government banned it anyway. I prefer the idea that Monteiro used events of past history to illustrate how little has changed: how corruption and injustice still thrive and shockingly how many similarities still exist between past and present.

In 1817, (and without getting too deep into history because I did that way too much in Part 1), the king of Portugal, D. João VI, was far away in Brazil looking after the empire, back in Portugal the people were impoverished and hushed whispers of revolution floated in the air.

In the play three characters, without having any concrete evidence, offer up the name of General Gomes Freire de Andrade as a possible conspirator. These three characters, two policemen and a spy, have been pressured by men of power to name a suspect, but they are also blinded by their own ambition for wealth and status. The General was an easy target because of his popularity with the people and his liberal views.

Those in power grab onto the General’s name with relish and bring about his downfall. They are; a Portuguese governor named D. Miguel Forjaz, a ruling member of the catholic church, Principal Sousa, and a British marshal commissioned to lead the Portuguese army, Beresford. The governor is in fact the General’s cousin and has a personal dislike for the man. Sousa is worried that revolution would stray the people away from God… but more importantly away from the power of the church and those who rule it. Regarding the British marshal he has absolutely no love for Portugal or its people and simply wants to keep control long enough to earn himself a good commission. These three men of power choose the General to be a sacrificial lamb. Whether he truly is organizing a revolt or not is unimportant, the important thing is to show the people that liberal ideals are not to be tolerated. These ideals go again God, King and Country.

Truth be told, I don’t actually like Felizmente há luar! Sure it is an important work historically and has, and will continue to be, taught in schools in order to teach new generations of teenagers about politics, corruption, censorship and revolution. It’s even propelled me to do research about my own country and write an essay on Salazar and Portuguese colonialism. All art should educate and entertain, however while Felizmente há luar! covers the ‘educate’ bit very well, for me personally it isn’t good enough on the ‘entertain’ front. It lacks love, I don’t mean romantic love, I mean the love of art, the desire to create art because of the author’s love for art. Felizmente há luar! was created to criticize the dictatorship of the 60s, to criticize censorship and show the audience the true face of corruption. It was in essence: propaganda. Propaganda with a good purpose, but propaganda all the same.

Perhaps the problem is with me; so far what little I’ve experienced of classic Portuguese literature hasn’t meshed well with me. It’s too… melodramatic. But I’ll get to that in a moment. Firstly the things about the play which impressed me: the fate of General is what drives the plot, and yet he is never on stage, he is never heard. The man is conspired against, imprisoned, sentenced to death and yet he never has a chance to defend himself. This was a brilliant idea from the author, it reflects how in the 60s political activists, or even ordinary folk with ideas against the government, were taken away, imprisoned, tortured, hushed up, and made to disappear. Their voices never heard.

A scene which I felt was very poignant in the play was when the General’s “woman”, Matilde, having failed to persuade anyone of power to help her then turns to the common people for help. One of them gives her a coin and explains that when they ask for help, when they are starving and without a home, without a job and begging for help, the upper class feel that giving spare change is enough to ease their own conscience. Now when someone from a higher class asks them to repel against authority, to risk their lives for one man, the only help they are willing to give in return are those same measly coins.

Matilde is the character which gave me the most difficulties to accept. She is the classic heroine: a woman of kindness, eternally devoted to her man. That’s the problem; “good women” in classic literature are those whose main job is to fret over the hero and plead for him when he gets into trouble. Matilde is a one-dimensional character. But she has two potentially positive points. Firstly she’s described as the General’s companion, to me it’s unclear whether she’s his wife or his long-term unmarried lover. From a feminist point of view it would be excellent if they were unmarried, this would challenge the catholic church’s insistence on marriage and the idea that only a wife in holy matrimony or a virgin can be representations of women of virtue. But I’m not sure if Matilde’s position is deliberately ambiguous or if my understanding of the Portuguese language has let me down and they actually are married.

The second point and the reason I warmed up to her character was because I realised that of all the General’s friends and family, she was the only one who tried everything she could think of to save him. Unfortunately all she could do was… beg everyone for help, but the point is that she was the only one who was willing to give up her pride in order to save him.

The last thing I want to talk about is the title Felizmente há luar! which translate as “Luckily there’s moonlight!”. I bought this book during my first year studying in uni in Portugal, at the time I was homesick and would buy books to cheer myself up, but I hated reading in Portuguese so only now, a decade later, am I reading some of them. Felizmente há luar! was a book I bought solely because I liked the cover design and I had mistakenly assumed that the play was a comedy based on the title. The phrase “luckily there’s moonlight!” is uttered twice in the play, both times at very distressing moments. The first is on the night the General is to be executed, burned at the stake. Governor D. Miguel comments “Lisbon will smell all night of burnt flesh, the smell will stay in their memories for many years to come… every time they think of challenging our orders, they will remember this smell… It is true that the execution will last all night, but luckily there’s moonlight…”

Oh how a phrase I thought was associated with a comedy turned so sinister.

The second occurrence is at the very end, Matilde watches the fire consume the General’s body and says “I thought this was the end but it is only the beginning. That fire will ignite this country!” (turns to the crowd) “Look well! Wash your eyes in the light of that fire and open your souls to what it teaches us! Even the night was made for us to see it until the end… luckily – luckily there’s moonlight!”

Review by Book Hamster

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marias-studyblr · 7 years ago

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Olá maria!! Preciso de uma ajudinha tua e de alguns fellow tugas que te sigam, gostava de saber alguns livros bons de autores portugueses, não só porque gostava de ler mais coisas de origem portuguesa mas também porque tenho um trabalho para fazer sobre isso. Obrigada desde já, espero que te continue tudo a correr bem!!

Olá!! igualmente!

Desculpa colocar alguns muito óbvios aqui ahah mas não queria deixar de fora.. também coloquei de todas as épocas e estilos:

O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo - José Saramago

Aparição - Vergílio Ferreira

Os Maias - Eça de Queirós

Memorial do Convento - José Saramago

Mensagem - Fernando Pessoa

Frei Luís de Sousa - Almeida Garrett

O Crime do Padre Amaro - Eça de Queirós

Os Meninos de Ouro - Agustina Bessa-Luís

O Primo Basílio - Eça de Queirós

A Viagem do Elefante - José Saramago

As Intermitências da Morte - José Saramago

A Queda dum Anjo - Camilo Castelo Branco

A Confissão de Lúcio - Mário de Sá-Carneiro

Mau Tempo no Canal - Vitorino Nemésio

O Delfim - José Cardoso Pires

Ensaio sobre a Cegueira - José Saramago

A Selva - Ferreira de Castro

Para Sempre - Vergílio Ferreira

Amor de Perdição - Camilo Castelo Branco

Equador - Miguel Sousa Tavares

Portugal - Miguel Torga

Auto da Barca do Inferno - Gil Vicente

Os Cus de Judas -António Lobo Antunes

Angústia Para o Jantar - Luís de Sttau Monteiro

Quando os Lobos Uivam - Aquilino Ribeiro

Coração, Cabeça e Estômago - Camilo Castelo Branco

A Relíquia - Eça de Queirós

Livro do Desassossego - Fernando Pessoa

Charneca Em Flor - Florbela Espanca

Felizmente Há Luar! - Luís de Sttau Monteiro

Livro de Mágoas - Florbela Espanca

Este livro que vos deixo - António Aleixo

Os Lusíadas - Luís de Camões

A Sibila - Agustina Bessa-Luís

O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis - José Saramago

A Bruxa de Monte Córdova - Camilo Castelo Branco

A República dos Corvos - José Cardoso Pires

A Ilustre Casa de Ramires - Eça de Queirós

há muitos muitos mais, se alguém quiser contribuir com mais livros é bem vindo já que eu também quero descobrir mais :3

espero ter ajudado!

#answered #list #studyblr portugues

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fragadigital · 3 years ago

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Dia Mundial do Teatro - 27 de março

Dia Mundial do Teatro – 27 de março

Destaque da semana Dia Mundial do Teatro A 27 de março, Comemora-se o Dia Mundial do Teatro. A RTP, desde o tempo das emissões experimentais na Feira Popular até aos nossos dias, tem vindo a prestar um valioso contributo na divulgação do teatro. A título de exemplo, sugerimos a visualização da peça “Felizmente há luar”, de Luís de Sttau Monteiro.

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#Agrupamento de Escolas de Ovar #Biblioteca da Escola José Macedo Fragateiro #Destaque da semana #Dia Mundial do Teatro #Dias Comemorativos

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spacekamishibai · 7 years ago

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O Barão, Luís de Sttau Monteiro, Ática, 1974

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nyxbythemoon · 8 years ago

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Todos somos chamados, pelo menos uma vez, a desempenhar um papel que nos supera. É nesse momento que justificamos o resto da vida, perdida no desempenho de pequenos papéis indignos do que somos.

Luís de Sttau Monteiro, Felizmente Há Luar!

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osanecif · 7 years ago

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Opinião: Felizmente há luar

José Fernando Correia

Cumprir-se-ão, no próximo dia 18 de outubro, 200 anos sobre o martírio do General Gomes Freire de Andrade (GFA). Militar de carreira invulgar e homem de extração aristocrática, GFA morre enforcado sob acusação de conjura, ao que parece nunca demonstrada, contra o Rei D. João VI e contra a regência representada, naquele então, pelo militar inglês William Beresford.

A circunstância histórica do início do séc. XIX é, entre nós, assaz complexa. Se por um lado, um módico de patriotismo parecia impor uma tomada de partido pelo aliado inglês, por outro, sabia-se que era de França, o invasor recém-expulso, que sopravam os mais promissores ventos de mudança no que dizia respeito à ultrapassagem do chamado “antigo regime” e ao estabelecimento de um modelo político de base liberal. Esse facto faz com que, de alguma forma, GFA se tenha convertido num mártir do liberalismo político português e é difícil resistir à ideia de que o seu sacrifício abriu caminho para a revolução de 1820.

De todo o modo, a tragédia de GFA ilustra bem como o absolutismo tratava o dissenso ideológico e de como era extraordinária a bravura dos homens que o combateram. Já nos anos 60 do séc. XX, Luís de Sttau Monteiro retoma, na famosa peça de teatro que serve de título a esta crónica, o episódio histórico do julgamento e execução de GFA. No final do texto, Matilde, a viúva de GFA, apela à revolta do povo contra a injustiça acabada de cometer, proclamando que mesmo na negra noite havia um farol de esperança. O luar. Não por acaso, o regime proibiu a representação da peça.

Opinião: Felizmente há luar

#Opinião: Felizmente há luar

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tingstrup · 8 years ago

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#gallery-0-4 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-4 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Lisbon Municipality shows the world that our hotel is in one of the best & most beautiful parts town :-)

And after the renovation it has become even more beautiful. Have look at the video Câmara Municipal de Lisboa published last week.

Graca featured in Portuguese weekly Evasões

Weekly Magazine Evasões has used the newly renovation project of Graca to run a feature about the part of Lisbon where ageless citizens mingles with tourists, students, artist arts and bohemians – our hood ;-)

Rua da Graça

From the 1950s Graca became a cultural center with cinemas, theaters and cultural associations, frequented by intellectuals such as Natalia Correia, Luís de Sttau Monteiro and Sophia de Mello Breyner.

Today it congregates the spirit of all times, bringing together people, artists and tourists in an unusual harmony.

Read the feature: Grace has changed. Stroll along the renovated wide street

Graça – the best location in Lisbon for a hotel like ours

Lisbon Municipality shows the world that our hotel is in one of the best & most beautiful parts town :-)

Graça - the best location in Lisbon for a hotel like ours Lisbon Municipality shows the world that our hotel is in one of the best & most beautiful parts town :-)

#Evasões #Featured #Graca #Media Update

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tingslisbon · 8 years ago

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Lisbon Municipality shows the world that our hotel is in one of the best & most beautiful parts town :-)

And after the renovation it has become even more beautiful. Have look at the video Câmara Municipal de Lisboa published last week.

Graca featured in Portuguese weekly Evasões

Rua da Graça

Today it congregates the spirit of all times, bringing together people, artists and tourists in an unusual harmony.

Read the feature: Grace has changed. Stroll along the renovated wide street

Graça - the best location in Lisbon for a hotel like ours Lisbon Municipality shows the world that our hotel is in one of the best & most beautiful parts town :-)

#Evasões #Featured #Graca #Media Update

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minimo-sou · 11 years ago

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“Os degraus da vida são logo esquecidos por quem sobe a escada…”

Luís de Sttau Monteiro, Felizmente há luar!

#luís de sttau monteiro #felizmente ha luar

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pomba5-blog · 12 years ago

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Luís de Sttau Monteiro Cartoon A portuguese dramatist. 1926 - 1993

#luís de sttau monteiro

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justfinishedreading · 6 years ago

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Part 1 – Historical Background

The most important thing to know about Felizmente há luar! is that it was a product of its time; this play was written in 1961 during the rule of Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, and it is now studied in Portuguese secondary schools because of its themes on politics, corruption and censorship. In researching the historical background of this work I’ve… ended up writing an essay on Salazar and in the process learnt quite a bit about my country. The following is information I found interesting from Wikipedia and which I’ve copy and pasted, and reworded and condensed:

The End of the Portuguese Monarchy

After the revolution in 1910 when the Portuguese monarchy was overthrown, the country fell into chaos with continual anarchy, government corruption, arbitrary imprisonment and religious persecution. The next 18 years saw the inauguration of 8 presidents, 44 cabinet re-organisations and 21 revolutions. According to official police figures, 325 bombs burst in the streets of Lisbon between 1920 and 1925. The public began to view political parties as elements of division and become more tolerant to the idea of being governed by an authoritarian regime.

António de Oliveira Salazar

Salazar became Minister of Finance in 1928, before that others had tried to persuade him to enter politics, but he found the state of parliament so chaotic that he refused. He finally agreed when the state of Portugal become too dire to be ignored. He agreed under the condition that he would have a free hand to veto expenditure in all government departments, not only his own. Within a year Salazar balanced the budget and stabilised Portugal's currency.

In 1932 he became Prime Minster. Now Salazar is quite an interesting figure to study, he did a lot of good for Portugal, but every good sentence written about him can be countered with something bad. He brought order to a country in chaos, but he did not believe in democracy, he used censorship and a secret police to crush opposition and ensure that he continued to be Prime Minister from 1932 until 1968.

World War II

Salazar had lived through the hard times of World War I, in which Portugal participated, so when it came to World War II Salazar kept Portugal neutral. From the very beginning Salazar was convinced that Britain would suffer in the war but remain undefeated and that the United States would step in and the Allies would win. However because Portugal was neutral, the country was forced to supply materials used for military purposes to both the Allies AND the Axis. In May 1943, the USA wanted to take control of Portuguese islands for strategic military use, the British responded that forceful measures weren’t necessary, Salazar would honour the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance. In August of that year when the British requested military use of those islands, Portugal allowed it.

Salazar’s upbringing was religious, he studied at a seminary for eight years and considered becoming a priest. He was a devote catholic and nationalist but argued that Portuguese nationalism did not glorify a single race because such a notion was pagan and anti-human. In 1938, he sent a telegram to the Portuguese Embassy in Berlin, ordering that it should be made clear to the German Reich that Portuguese law did not allow any distinction based on race, and that therefore, Portuguese Jewish citizens could not be discriminated against. On 26 June 1940, four days after France's surrender to Germany, Salazar authorised the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in Paris to transfer its main office to Lisbon.

In July 1940, the civilian population of Gibraltar was evacuated due to imminent attacks expected from Nazi Germany. At that time, Portuguese Madeira agreed to host about 2,500 Gibraltarian refugees, mostly women and children, who remained there until the end of the war. Portugal, particularly Lisbon, was one of the last European exit points to the USA and a few hundred thousand to one million refugees found shelter in Portugal and escaped through there.

Portuguese Colonial Rule

Portugal can be proud of its action during the Second World War, but not so much of its colonial rule (…can any country ever be proud of colonialism?). Portugal had an extensive colonial empire that included Cape Verde, São Tomé e Príncipe, Angola (including Cabinda), Portuguese Guinea, Mozambique in Africa, Portuguese India in South Asia, and Macau and Timor in the Far East.

In 1947, Captain Henrique Galvão, a Portuguese parliamentarian, submitted a report disclosing the situation of forced labour and precarious health services in the Portuguese colonies of Africa. The natives, it said, were simply regarded as beasts of burden. All African men had to pay a tax in Portuguese currency, the government created a situation in which a large percentage of men in any given year could only earn the amount needed to pay the tax by going to work for a colonial employer. In practice, this enabled settlers to use forced labour on a massive scale, frequently leading to horrific abuses. Galvão's courageous report eventually led to his downfall, and in 1952, he was arrested for subversive activities.

Following the Second World War, the colonial system was subject to growing dissatisfaction, and in the early 1950s the United Kingdom launched a process of decolonization. Belgium and France followed suit. Unlike the other European colonial powers, Salazar attempted to resist this tide and maintain the integrity of the empire. In order to justify it and Portugal's alleged civilising mission, Salazar ended up adopting Gilberto Freyre's theories of Lusotropicalism, which propose that the Portuguese were better colonizers than other European nations because they had a special talent for adapting to environments, cultures and the peoples who lived in the tropics, this talent helped them build harmonious multiracial societies and promote pro-miscegenation.

Side note, we Portuguese are very proud of our history during the 15th century, the age of discovery, when we set out to map the world, many consider it our golden age. Less talked about is our involvement in the slave trade, the first European to actually buy enslaves was Antão Gonçalves, a Portuguese explorer in 1441 AD. The Spanish were the first Europeans to use enslaved Africans in the New World. I’ve just done a little googling to try to find out how many slaves the Portuguese took from Africa, it’s not easy finding a straight answer, about 20 websites later I find three that agree that officially the total number of Africans shipped by the Portuguese is conservatively put at 4.2 million. However this excludes the millions that died crossing land to get to the Portuguese slave ships or during the horrible Atlantic passage. Just to be clear these facts are regarding Trans-Atlantic Slavery, unfortunately the concept of slavery has existed in all societies long before that.

Anyway that’s a bit of a digression from the main topic of Salazar, moving forward to 1960-1, armed revolutionaries and scattered guerrillas were starting to become active in Mozambique, Angola, and Portuguese Guinea. The Portuguese just about managed to keep control in some parts but the Portuguese military warned the government that this was not a long term solution, the military would not be able to keep order for long.

1961

And now finally I’ve reached 1961, the year Felizmente há luar! was written. For the western world the 60s were the decade of cultural revolution: ‘Make Love, Not War’, just like the American hippies were protesting against the Vietnam war, the Portuguese were protesting against colonial wars they could not win and which were wrong to begin with. This was an age of liberalism, of drug and sexual experimentation, of artistic creativity. And yet those liberals and free thinkers were being governed by a 72-year-old Salazar, a conservative, nationalist and catholic whose motto was "Deus, Pátria e Familia" (meaning "God, Fatherland, and Family"). There was no free speech, anyone opposing the dictatorship was imprisoned and tortured. Portuguese laws and government procedures were changed to enable those in power to stay in power. Felizmente há luar! was written by Luís de Sttau Monteiro and censored, prohibited from ever being performed. That is until 1975, the year after the government was overthrown.

Wrapping Up Part 1

Phew, I haven’t even started reviewing Felizmente há luar! yet, I could have just written ��the play was written during a time of great oppression of freedom of speech and during a reign of political dictatorship” and left it at that. But, it’s curious to know how things came about, extreme political movements don’t just suddenly manifest, they are born out of circumstance, and it is important to understand what gives raise to the systems that change our lives.

In Part 2, I’ll actually review Felizmente há luar! By the way it’s actually set in 1817, when real life general Gomes Freire de Andrade was accused of leading a revolt against the Portuguese government – so... yay even more history XS

Most of this text on Salazar was taken from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/António_de_Oliveira_Salazar

Review by Book Hamster

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