Strangford's Poems from the Portuguese of Luis de Camoens

Abstract

EVEN IN HIS own Portugal, reputation of Luis de has always rested primarily on his epic The Lusiads. Despite fact that he is in no sense inferior as a lyric poet, his numerous canzones, elegies, odes, sonnets, and other short poems have always taken second place to his epic. And although Lusiads, first published in 1572, was early translated into several languages and became known throughout Europe, same is not case with lyrics, published posthumously in 1585. The English came to know Lusiads as early as 1655 with translation of Sir Richard Fanshawe; another translation by William Julius Mickle was published in 1776 and reprinted ten times before end of nineteenth century when a number of new translations appeared. But it was not until 1803 that English readers were made aware of as a lyric poet. This was through small volume of translations by Percy Clinton Sidney Smythe, Sixth Viscount Strangford, Poems from Portuguese of Luis de Camoens. Because of Strangford's translations, American Monthly Anthology said, the minor poems of now attract admiration and applause, which they never before received.1 But Strangford's Poems from Portuguese was something more than just a collection of translations introducing lyrics of to English readers. The volume as a whole, that is, lyrics taken together with Strangford's prefatory Remarks on Life and Writings of Camoens and appended notes to poems, was virtually a romanticized biography of Portuguese poet himself. To a considerable extent it was