amazon-rainforest.org).Exploitation of the rainforest has been severe; a strategy to move settlers into the Amazon rainforest in the 1970s - during a period when Brazil was ruled by military dictators - caused "considerable damage to vast areas of rainforest" the Web site points out. Indeed, continuing deforestation by cattle ranchers and logging interests is having a negative impact; the Brazilian government's own report in 2005 asserted that upwards of one fifth of the Amazon forests had been cleared due to massive deforestation.
Personal Reflective Response: Meanwhile, the student approaching a research project which embraces the fascinating and powerful country of Brazil, its history and culture and economy, should also be interested in the literature of Brazil. Literature offers a kind of historical review of a nation and its peoples. There are in fact novels written by Brazilian writers that offer good information about the country, which is a very good reason to explore this genre. A brief look at the first novelist in Brazil sheds some light on Brazil. He was Manoel de Macedo, and critic Erico Verissimo - writing in Brazilian Literature: An Outline - insists that the only reason one would read a novel by Macedo is for "literary curiosity" (Verissimo) or to have a look at the middle class in Brazilian society in the late nineteenth century. Macedo describes his characters "without any psychological shading," Verissimo explains, and treats subjects in "sugary and sentimental" ways - always making sure there is a happy ending.
A far more well respected novelist from Brazil is Jose Martiniano de Alencar; although his novels may be "too crammed with improbabilities, sentimentalities" they are also rich with color, beauty and drama, Verissimo claims. Another critic, Isaac...
As good as his novels are - Guarany and Iracema in particular - Brazilians don't speak of his plots, Goldberg explains; they speak of the richness of his descriptive narrative; for example, in Guarany, the love of the Indian prince Pery for the daughter of a Portuguese noble, lays out a theme and plot that has romantic threads woven through the historical tapestry of Brazil.
What I Learned: I learned that Brazil is a powerful, massive nation, with a diversity of people and a history of interesting literature. There are some very dramatic injustices that have taken place in this nation, the most blatant of all being Portuguese colonists who brought slaves from Africa to help exploit a land that didn't really belong to them. Meanwhile, Brazil's rainforest is being deforested and there are many poor people in Brazil, but at the same time it is one of the economic giants in the world.
Works Cited
BBC NEWS. "Country Profile: Brazil." Retrieved May 17, 2007 at http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk.
Goldberg, Isaac. "The Romantic Transformation." Brazilian Literature pp. 72-102, New York:
Alfred a. Knopf, 1922.
Margolis, Maxine L., Enedina, Bezena Maria, & M. Fox, Jason. "Brazil." Ed. Melvin Ember & Carol Ember, pp. 283-301. New York Macmillan Reference USA 2001.
Save the Amazon Rainforest. "Amazon River - Rainforest Animals." Retrieved May 18, 2007, at http://www.amazon-rainforest.org/.
Verissimo, Erico. "My Country Has Palm Trees." Brazilian Literature: An Outline, pp. 37-54.
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1945.
