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| Author(s): |
Tais Pagoto Bélo
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas |
| Defense date: | 2014-01-30 |
| Examining board members: |
Pedro Paulo Abreu Funari;
Rita Juliana Sares Poloni;
Renato Pinto;
Marina Regis Cavicchioli;
Claudio Umpierre Carlan
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| Advisor: | Pedro Paulo Abreu Funari |
| Abstract | |
This thesis was intended to study the character of Boudica, a Breton Queen from the Iceni tribe, who led an army against the Roman Empire during the first century before Christ. Boudica is currently held as a polyvalent symbol to the British and she is also stored in their collective memory. The warrior Queen was a feminine representation to powerful women in England, such as Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria, and her image was utilized by suffragists as a fighting insignia, as well as a national reproduction. Tacitus and Cassius Dio described her image at first hand, in the Antiquity. The first author mentioned that, since she was a woman, the government and the leadership did not suit her. Meanwhile, for the second author she was psychologically and physically represented as a masculinized woman, who had the voice, the size and the weapons of a man. However, the information and the writing of the ancient writers were used in the posterity for other artistic works, such as plays, sculptures, books, pictures, politician works and even cartoons, which involved the feminine figure of Boudica, although these works no longer placed the social conception relating those women to the figure of Boudica. Furthermore, this study demonstrates how the Nineteenth and the beginning of the Twentieth century used this image and how it was legitimized by means of a material culture, which is constituted of statues located at the cities of London, Cardiff and Colchester, as well as of a Stained Glass window, which is displayed in the Town Hall of the last city. Nevertheless, the validation of the warrior queen by the governmental power was given by the `tradition¿ concept, in vogue then, to national purposes. Thus, the British utilized the symbols, such as flags, anthems and even a personification of the nation to conceive their own homeland. Such reproductions were linked to government practices, had their own values and rules, were easily accepted by the people and had a connection with the past (Hobsbawm, 1993). Although Boudica has been remembered for almost five centuries and turned into a familiar figure to the English, it does not mean that historians and archaeologists know much about her. On the other hand, it was found, through interviews done in the museums of Norwich, Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, of Colchester, Colchester Castle Museum, of London, Museum of London and of St. Albans, Verulamium Museum, that she is still alive in the collective memory of the British. Thus, it is concluded that the present study had as essence the uses of the past before Boudica, as well as her importance and meaning. And also that objects, patrimonies, statues, pictures and constructions are rooted in the culture and in the history of a group or a nation and are surrounded by feelings, memory, honor, nostalgia and power (AU) | |