Luís de Camões Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Norwood Andrews, Jr.

Critical Essay by Norwood Andrews, Jr.

SOURCE: “Toward an Understanding of Camões' Presence as a Lyric Poet in the Nineteenth-Century American Press,” in Luso-Brazilian Review, Vol. 17, No. 2, Winter, 1980, pp. 171-85.

In the following essay, Andrews details the vogue of interest in Camões and his poetry in nineteenth-century America.

Luís Vaz de Camões was highly visible on the American literary scene very early in the 1800s, thanks to his having become so even earlier on that of Great Britain. He was, insofar as the English language is concerned, a British discovery, as a lyricist and as an epicist. His American presence is a direct result of the avidity and rapidity with which American publishers—of the periodical press as well as of books—supplied an American public eager for British materials. American piracy of British publications on a scale nothing less than grand has been studied to a degree which renders further documentation unnecessary here, where...
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