Luís de Camões (1524-1580) is the national poet of Portugal and one of the greatest literary figures of sixteenth-century Europe. Intellectual and man of action, he was the first major European writer to spend much of his life outside Europe. His most famous work, the epic Os Lusíadas (1572) (The Lusiads) many times translated into English, recounts the first voyage to India of Vasco da Gama (1497-99) in the wider context of the history of Portugal. In this learned, Virgilian epic Camões explores the ambiguities of heroic action and avoids writing a simple eulogy of Portuguese imperial endeavour. As a love poet he was equally successful with the verse forms typical of the late medieval period and with sonnets …
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Citation: Earle, Thomas. "Luís de Camões". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 October 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5587, accessed 18 April 2024.]
