Popular Culture
In Thomas Hood's poem Faithless Nelly Gray (1826), the protagonist tells Nelly that, "At duty's call I left my legs, In Badajos's breaches."
The plot of both the novel & TV adaptation of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Company, revolves around the events of Badajoz. Richard Sharpe, and his handful of chosen men are finally successful storming the walls and holding them till reinforced, after many other attacks had been repulsed.
The Spanish Bride by Georgette Heyer is a historical novel which opens with the taking of Badajoz (spelled “Badajos” in the novel) and tells the story of the marriage of Juana de los Dolores de León (the Lady Smith after whom the town in South Africa was later named and who died in 1872) and Brigade-Major (as he was then) Harry Smith. The same story formed part of the narrative of "The Other Side of the Hill" by Peter Luke.
In An Act of Courage by Allan Mallinson his hero Matthew Hervey is imprisoned in Badajoz in 1826, and recalls taking part in the siege. The bad behaviour of the British troops is emphasised; indeed, Hervey kills one of them himself.
The siege of Badajoz is also the setting for Old Sam's Christmas Pudding, a humorous monologue by Marriott Edgar featuring Sam Small, the character created by Stanley Holloway.
Ra's al Ghul, a near-immortal supervillain and arch-enemy of Batman claims to have led the siege on Badajoz after being foiled in his search for the Holy Grail, in the Batman comic The Chalice.
Read more about this topic: Siege Of Badajoz (1812)
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The man of large and conspicuous public service in civil life must be content without the Presidency. Still more, the availability of a popular man in a doubtful State will secure him the prize in a close contest against the first statesman of the country whose State is safe.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“If you’re anxious for to shine in the high esthetic line as a man
of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant
them everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your
complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a
transcendental kind.”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)