SOURCE: “Camões' Égloga dos Faunos,” in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Vol. LIII, No. 3, July 1976, pp. 225-31.

In this essay, Hart discusses the influences on Camões' Seventh Eclogue, including the impact of Neoplatonism on the poet's thought. He also focuses on Camões' atypical, ambiguous use of the satyr figure.

Camões' Seventh Eclogue, traditionally known as the Égloga dos Faunos, is perhaps the one in which he moves farthest from the models provided by his immediate predecessors, Garcilaso and Sannazaro. There are, I believe, good reasons for considering it the finest of the eight eclogues generally accepted as authentic by modern editors. In it Camões treats a number of themes which will recur repeatedly in his most mature works, notably the transience of happiness and the power of love to transform the lover. He does so, moreover, with a wealth of sensual detail and a...