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Description
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.
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.
"Monteiro skillfully weaves an immense array of details into essays that are as compelling to read as they are informative."—College Literature
"Monteiro's rich readings and assessments of this presence in all the English-language writers he considers make this book an original contribution to intercultural studies."—Choice
Publication Date
1996
Publisher
The University Press of Kentucky
Place of Publication
Lexington, KY
ISBN
9780813119526
eISBN
9780813156866
Keywords
Luís de Camões, Portugal, Portugal in literature, Comparative literature, Southern African literature
Disciplines
Spanish Literature
Series
Recommended Citation
Monteiro, George, "The Presence of Camões: Influences on the Literature of England, America, and Southern Africa" (1996). Spanish Literature. 27.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_spanish_literature/27
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