Luís Vaz de Camões: Portugal’s National Poet at the Library of Congress

The following is a guest post by Henry Granville Widener, the Portuguese Language Reference Librarian, Hispanic Reading Room, Latin American, Caribbean, and European Division

What does it mean to elevate someone to the status of national poet? On one hand, it places an author at the height of a nation’s literary achievement, offering the possibility of a meeting point between the individual poet’s skill and the artistic ambitions and collective memory of generations who claim a culture, a language, or a land as their own.

The title of national poet also enables the works of an author to move far beyond the nation that claims them. National poets are often found on bookshelves the world over, providing the initial literary points of contact for those learning about a new culture.

Wherever we are from, whatever the language we speak, to read poets such as Walt Whitman or William Shakespeare is to take part in a tradition, to interact with the stories and the characters that have shaped their respective cultures for centuries.

As Portugal’s national poet, Camões has maintained a presence in the Portuguese-speaking world for almost four hundred and fifty years. The influence of Camões appears in the books of such writers as Eça de Queiroz, Fernando Pessoa, José Saramago, Manuel Bandeira, and Gonçalo Tavares, just to name a few. Those visiting Lisbon will inevitably encounter plaques or images of the poet throughout the city and may very well find themselves at the Praça Luís de Camões for a relaxing place to take in the scenery.

For the 500^th anniversary of the birth year of Luís de Camões, the Library of Congress offers several opportunities to explore the life and works of Portugal’s national poet and his impact on world literatures.

A recently published StoryMap ‘Time and Fame together glide along’: Luís de Camões in the United States follows Camões through his life of travel, from his youth at Coimbra and his stints at the Portuguese royal court in Lisbon, to North Africa, Mozambique, India, and Macau, highlighting how these places have appeared in both his epic Os Lusíadas and his vast collection of lyric poetry.

The StoryMap then traces Camões’ introduction to English-language readerships through the works of three British authors. First, we see how William Julius Mickle’s The Lusiad; or, The discovery of India. An epic poem. Translated from the original Portuguese of Luis de Camoëns (1776) brought the epic of Portugal’s eastward sea voyage to a British public engaged in its own colonial project in India.

Then, we consider how the Lord Viscount Strangford’s Poems, from the Portuguese of Luis de Camoens: with remarks on his life and writings (1803) gave its English-language audience a sample of Camões’ lyric poetry and helped build the poet’s image as lovelorn and misunderstood by society.

Finally, we show how Elizabeth Barrett Browning identified with and built upon Camões’ fabled, tragic love affair with Catarina de Ataíde in A drama of exile : and other poems (1845) and later in Sonnets from the Portuguese, which has enjoyed decades of reprints since its first appearance in 1850.

The StoryMap ends by pointing out several examples of Camões’ impact on the literature of the United States. This impact is clearest in the works of Herman Melville, who drew inspiration from and deeply identified with the works of the Portuguese poet throughout his literary career. Melville’s White-Jacket; or, The World in a Man-of-War, first published in 1850, makes frequent references to Camões through the character Jack Chase, who reveres the Portuguese poet as both a sailor and the author of “the man-of-war epic of the world” (1855, p. 318).

On November 7, the Hispanic Reading Room at the Library of Congress hosted a talk on the Library’s expansive Camões collections by Library staff members Henry Widener and Beatriz Haspo, as well as Professor Glória Alhinho and Dr. Maria Espada. The talk focused on the Carvalho Monteiro Collection and its many journeys throughout Europe and within the Library’s collections. Originally the personal library of Portuguese-Brazilian businessman António Augusto Carvalho Monteiro, the Carvalho Monteiro Collection contains over 30,000 items on Portuguese history and culture, the flora and fauna of Brazil and Portugal, and 19th century decorative arts and architecture.

During the event, the Hispanic Reading Room displayed materials from across the Library’s collections, including several items from the Carvalho Monteiro Collection’s rich camoniana, or collection of works by and about Luís de Camões. The display began with items from the Library’s Portuguese Manuscript Collection, including manuscript translations of Camões’ works into Arabic (p. 24, n. 78), English (p. 24, n. 79), French (p. 26, n. 88), Italian (p. 26, n. 90), Russian (p. 25, n. 82), and Swedish (p. 25, n. 84).

Works displayed from the Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections included Sir Richard Fanshawe’s The Lusiad, or, Portugals historicall poem (1655). Diplomat and polyglot, Fanshawe boasted many achievements, including diplomatic service in Spain and Portugal, and translating into English the works of Horace, the Italian Battista Guarini’s Il pastor fido, and works by Spanish Golden Age authors such as António Hurtado de Mendoza. From 1653-1654, Fanshawe took up residence in Tankersley Park, Yorkshire, where he experienced brief stability and a burst of literary energy which resulted in the first translation into English of Camões’ Os Lusíadas. Fanshawe’s translation faired poorly in both sales and critical reception, with criticism from later translators like William Julius Mickle for its excessively literal style.

The event display also featured reprints of Mickle and Strangford’s translations from across the English-speaking world. Operating from Dame Street, John Archer was one of the most prominent booksellers in 18^th-century Dublin, a bustling center of politics, commerce, and learning. Archer’s 1791 reprint of Mickle’s Lusiad was among the hundreds of titles supplied to a distinguished clientele that included much of the Ireland’s landed gentry. Early nineteenth century reprints of Mickle and Strangford from Baltimore, Boston, and Philadelphia also attest to a market for Camões in the newly founded United States of America.

Lord Strangford’s translation of the lyric poetry of Camões also reached the early American household through song. The Library’s collection of Early American Sheet Music gives us a window into the domestic entertainment of early-nineteenth-century American families with the means to own a piano or harpsichord. By putting music to the poetry of the Portuguese Renaissance, Blighted love shall never blow stands out among its peers in this collection, which more often commemorated important historical events in the young nation’s history or popular European works by composers such as Mozart and Schubert. Published by Carrs Music Store, which would publish the first edition of the Star-Spangled Banner in 1821, this piece places Camões comfortably in the parlors of the early American home.

Lastly, the following more recent works on Luís de Camões will be displayed in the Hispanic Reading Room until early December. Kalandraka Editora’s 2021 edition of the Os Lusíadas includes notes by Rita Marnoto and illustrations by contemporary artists such as Amanda Baeza and Joana Estrela. Maria Vitalina Leal de Matos’ heavily annotated Obras completas continues the work of compiling and publishing the body of Camões’ lyric poetry which, over four hundred years, has resulted in as many as 600 poems credited to the Portuguese bard.

As Hernâni Cidade explains in his Camões em Lisboa e Lisboa nos Lusíadas (1972), Lisbon holds a place of indisputable importance in the life and works of Camões. From Camões’ dalliances at the royal court, his nocturnal exploits in its streets and alleyways, and his custody at the Tronco jail, Camões saw many sides of the bustling port city. Maria Leonor Machado de Sousa’s Camões em Inglaterra (1992) explores centuries of the Portuguese poet’s impact in England.

While choosing not to recreate the rhyme or rhythm of the original Portuguese, Landeg White’s 2008 English translation of the Lusiad provides a wealth of annotations which enable readers to more fully understand one of the most important literary achievements of the Renaissance. 2022 Pulitzer Prize Finalist Richard Zenith’s Sonnets and other poems (2009) brings Camões’ life and poetry into the 21st century. Zenith presents Camões’ lyric poetry as the perfection of a life lived with “close-range and full-title engagement” (p.14). While Zenith’s translations abandon the rhyme schemes of the original Portuguese, they capture the “complexly elegant explorations” of the poet’s “anguished and bitter experience” (p.15).

Finally, both George Monteiro’s The presence of Camoes: influences on the literature of England, America, and Southern Africa (1996) and Norwood Andrews’s Melville’s Camões (1989) provide a wealth of examples of the influence of Camões on the literature of the United States. Please keep in mind that the items on display in the Hispanic Reading Room come from the Library’s general collections, so you are encouraged to pick them up and read them!

While Luís de Camões is so closely associated to Portugal and the Portuguese language, his work has had an international impact on literature for centuries.

LEARN MORE

Follow Camões through his life of travel and the influence of his work on English literature in the StoryMap ‘Time and Fame together glide along’: Luís de Camões in the United States.

Explore more Portuguese poets and authors in the PALABRA Archive.

Camões and his Lusíadas even appear in the Handbook of Latin American Studies, a bibliography of research on Latin America made up of works selected and annotated by scholars.

Listen to the November 7th talk Luís de Camões at the Library of Congress. Glória Alhinho and Maria Espada joined Library staff to present the Library’s vast and unique collections by and about Camões.