| Abstrakt: |
Portuguese epic poetry of the 16th and 17th centuries was born and composed under the influence of the classics, especially the Latin classics, in both aspects: the choice of the matter and the form under which to treat it. 1572 is the year of the publication of Os Lusiadas (The Lusiads, i.e., The Portuguese), the most famous epic written in Portugal and unanimously judged the best epic produced in Europe during the Renaissance. In its structure - the choice of the episodes, the begining in medias res, the prophecies, the narrative of past events through a speech by the hero, - as also in the poetic technique - the style, the images, metaphors and similes, in a word, the poetic diction of Camoes, the whole poem is a successful recreation of Vergil’s Aeneis. In fact it is quite impossible to enjoy Camoes’ poem without the background which is implied both in its broad structure as well as in its details. Unfortunately for other poets, The Lusiads is simultaneously the first in date and the best in quality, exactly as its model (Vergil’s work) is also the best possible model for an epic. On the other hand, the historical event chosen by the poet as the central action of the poem - that is, Vasco da Gama’s arrival in India by sea - was the crowning achievement of the Portuguese expansion. So the other poets of the 16th century were forced to choose as subject-matter for their works less momentous events than Gama's voyage, and as models for their poems less important classics than Virgil. So it is that we find among the works produced in both centuries two kinds of epics: - historical narrative poems about some more or less important facts of Portuguese history, such as those by Luis Pereira Brandao about the defeat of King Sebastian in Morocco, by Jeronimo Corte-Real and Francisco de Andrade about, respectively, the second and the first sieges imposed on the fortress of Diu (India) or Corte-Real’s long poem about the shipwreck and death in South Africa of the Portuguese nobleman Manuel de Sousa Sepulveda, an episode which Camoes treated in only three stanzas of The Lusiads- mythological poems remotely related to Portuguese history, such as Gabriel Pereira de Castro’s Ulyssea or Antonio de Sousa Macedos Ulyssipo, both about the legendary foundation of Lisbon by Ulysses, and Bras Garcia de Mascarenhas’ Vinato Tragico, about a Lusitanian hero who distinguished himself in the fight against the Roman invaders of Lusitania, or not related at all like Manuel de Galhegos’ Gigantomachia. Both kinds of poems look for inspiration to Latin poetry, not in the noble poetry of Virgil, but in the late epics such as Lucan’s Pharsalia, Statius' Thebais and Silius Italicus Punica. In general these poems are long narratives whithout real epic substance composed in a melifluous style quite out of measure whith the subject. Nevertheless, they are not totally contemptible works, for they kept alive, though in the narrow circles of the upper classes, the classical tradition and, on the other hand, had an important ideological function, in the same circles, during the years of the Spanish occupation of Portugal. |
