“I Saw, Clearly Seen, Life”. The Classics in Camoens’ work

Abstract

As any educated man of his time, Camoens knows and admires the Ancients, encountering in them themes and perspectives that require assiduous reading. Nevertheless, fully aware of living in a new period, he does not allow this admiration to lead to the mere recuperation of ideals of previous times. The responses that he finds in the classics do not fulfill him entirely, either in the field of science and the interpretation of the physical world, or in what pertains to the conception of both man and society. Like the “rude sailors” or the “experienced captain” who, in Os Lusíadas, observe foreign realities they do not understand, yet know to exist, so Camoens stresses the truth of life’s conflicting events, which are entirely at odds with the teachings of the “ancient philosophers”. This text stresses the integration of Camoen’s works in the critical moment of articulation of the intrinsic value of the individual and the dig- nification of Poetry. As far as Camoes is concerned, philosophical sys- tematization does not assure the unification of experience that allows for the justification of personal mishap: for him it is Poetry that opens the doors to the understanding of human nature, imposing upon those men in possession of a “fuller faculty of judgement” the coherence of complex and even contradictory attitudes.