On the myth of the invincibility of lantern in the press: the case of the carioca newspaper a noite(1931)

• Grant number: 18/09484-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2019
• End date: December 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Francisco Claudio Alves Marques
• Grantee: João Paulo Aparecido Leme
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The modernist writer Mário de Andrade published in the magazine Nova, in São Paulo, the essay entitled Romanceiro de Lampião, in which he cites a series of cordel leaflets describing the feats and exploits of the cangaceiro Lampião and his band inside the Brazilian Northeast. It is, therefore, a caricature and idealized construction of the myth founded on a certain imaginary current on Virgulino Ferreira, who, having assumed the leadership of heavily armed men in the context of republican Brazil, now takes on the armor of the paladins of France, in defense of the less favored, sometimes embodies the figure of the cruel and fearsome bandit, haunting the communities of the Northeast where he passed. Although many studies credit the popular novelist with the belief in the invincibility and immortality of the cangaceiro, in this work we intend to demonstrate that, during the period studied by Mário de Andrade, 1928-1932, such construction was often fomented by the press, considering him a fool at times praising his invincibility. For this research, we selected the Carioca newspaper A Noite, which ran from 1930 to 1931, more than a thousand notes and news about the cangaceiro.