Revealing flames: Saint Elmo’s fire and other natural phenomena in Portuguese travel literature

Abstract

In this text, I analyze the descriptions and interpretations of various natural phenomena that appear in the Portuguese travel literature from of the 16th and 17th centuries: waterspouts, St. Elmo’s fire, bioluminescence, and lunar halos. This text employs D. João de Castro’s Roteiro de Lisboa a Goa as an outline, comparing Castro’s descriptions to those in Os Lusíadas, História trágico-marítima, and Antonio Pigaphetta’s The first voyage round the world, among others. By analyzing these historical and literary sources, I intend to show that the tone used in describing the natural phenomena can be a clear indication of each author’s purpose in his text — a microcosm of the approach adopted and of the arguments created by the author, reflecting his political or social outlook in sixteenth or seventeenth-century Portugal.