Heteronym
08-Dec-2008, 21:36
The Lusiads is Portugal?s great epic poem. When it was published in 1572, Portugal was becoming a world empire. The poem narrates Vasco da Gama?s voyage from Lisbon to Goa, India, after becoming the first man to sail round the Cape of Good Hope. It?s also a highly patriotic retelling of Portuguese history.
This is an awkward poem. De Cam?es thought, like many Portuguese do nowadays, that the Discoveries of Africa and Asia were the zenith of our history. But it?s difficult to be excited about it in this post-colonialist world, after we know all the misery the empires caused.
It doesn?t help that the narrative isn?t particularly interesting. The poet claims in the first lines that he wants to supplant all other epics, like Aeneid and Orlando Furioso; but those are fictions full of memorable episodes. This one only gets interesting when de Cam?es starys from history to fiction: for instance, there?s an episode in which the sailors meets a Titan called Adamastor, who?s the personification of the Cape; in another one Bacchus convinces Neptune to raise a storm to sink the ships. But every time the Portuguese are in trouble, they just pray to God and are magically saved. It?s not as interesting as Odysseus coming up with the Trojan horse, is it?
As you?ve noticed, Roman mythology plays a role in the poem. The poet has mixed Christian beliefs with classic deities. So for spurious reasons, Venus helps the sailors and Bacchus hinders them. In my favorite episode, Venus asks Cupid to gather Nereids in the Isle of Love, to reward the sailors after they return from India; they just disembark there and get it off with the nymphs. It?s delightfully weird.
The Lusiads remains the most influential book in Portuguese literature. Fernando Pessoa lived in the shadow of Lu?s de Cam?es and wrote Message as an answer to him. Jos? Saramago begins and ends The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis with one of its verses. Ant?nio Lobo Antunes has also taken inspiration from the poem.
Since in 2008 I?ve been reading several classic works of Portuguese literature like The Maias, The Voyages and Adventures of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, and The Book of Disquiet, I decided I should end the year with the greatest classic of them all. It cleared a lot of misconceptions I had about the poem, but it?s not something I?d repeat again out of pleasure.
This is an awkward poem. De Cam?es thought, like many Portuguese do nowadays, that the Discoveries of Africa and Asia were the zenith of our history. But it?s difficult to be excited about it in this post-colonialist world, after we know all the misery the empires caused.
It doesn?t help that the narrative isn?t particularly interesting. The poet claims in the first lines that he wants to supplant all other epics, like Aeneid and Orlando Furioso; but those are fictions full of memorable episodes. This one only gets interesting when de Cam?es starys from history to fiction: for instance, there?s an episode in which the sailors meets a Titan called Adamastor, who?s the personification of the Cape; in another one Bacchus convinces Neptune to raise a storm to sink the ships. But every time the Portuguese are in trouble, they just pray to God and are magically saved. It?s not as interesting as Odysseus coming up with the Trojan horse, is it?
As you?ve noticed, Roman mythology plays a role in the poem. The poet has mixed Christian beliefs with classic deities. So for spurious reasons, Venus helps the sailors and Bacchus hinders them. In my favorite episode, Venus asks Cupid to gather Nereids in the Isle of Love, to reward the sailors after they return from India; they just disembark there and get it off with the nymphs. It?s delightfully weird.
The Lusiads remains the most influential book in Portuguese literature. Fernando Pessoa lived in the shadow of Lu?s de Cam?es and wrote Message as an answer to him. Jos? Saramago begins and ends The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis with one of its verses. Ant?nio Lobo Antunes has also taken inspiration from the poem.
Since in 2008 I?ve been reading several classic works of Portuguese literature like The Maias, The Voyages and Adventures of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, and The Book of Disquiet, I decided I should end the year with the greatest classic of them all. It cleared a lot of misconceptions I had about the poem, but it?s not something I?d repeat again out of pleasure.