The Presence of Camões: Influences on the Literature of England, America, and Southern Africa

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University Press of Kentucky, 2021 M12 14 - 200 pages

Of the great epic poets in the Western tradition, Luis Vaz de Camões (c. 1524- 1580) remains perhaps the least known outside his native Portugal, and his influence on literature in English has not been fully recognized. In this major work of comparative scholarship, George Monteiro thus breaks new ground, focusing on English-language writers whose vision and expression have been sharpened by their varied responses to Camões.

Introduced to English readers in 1655, Camões's work from the beginning appealed strongly to writers. The young Elizabeth Barrett's Camonean poems, for example, inspired Edgar Allan Poe to appropriate elements from Camões. Herman Melville's reading of Camões bore fruit in his career-long borrowings from the Portuguese poet. Longfellow, T.W. Higginson, and Emily Dickinson read and championed Camões. And
Camões as epicist and love poet is an éminence grise in several of Elizabeth Bishop's strongest Brazilian poems. Southern African writers have interpreted and reinterpreted Adamastor, Camões's Spirit of the Cape, as both a symbol of a dangerous and mysterious Africa and an emblem of European imperialism.

Recognizing the presence of Camões leads Monteiro to provocative rereadings of such texts as Dickinson's "Master" letters, Poe's "Raven," Melville's late poetry, and Bishop's Questions of Travel.

 

Contents

Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments
Introduction
Tassos Legacy
William Hayleys Patronage
Elizabeth Barretts Central Poem
Poes Knowledge
Melvilles Figural Artist
Longfellows Taste
Higginson and Dickinson Tributes
Elizabeth Bishops Black Gold
The Adamastor Story
Alma Minha Gentil in English
Notes
Index
Copyright

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About the author (2021)

George Monteiro is professor of English and of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University and the author of numerous works dealing with Portuguese and American literature.

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