Luís Vaz de Camões

Luís Vaz de Camões or Luís (Vaz) de Camoëns (c. 1524-1580), one of the greatest Portuguese poets, whose principal work, Os Lusíades (1572; trans. 1655), is considered Portugal's national epic. Camões, whose life was one of high adventure, was probably born in Lisbon. He was apparently educated at the University of Coimbra. Subsequently, he became a tutor at the court of John III, from which he was banished in 1546 because of a love affair with one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, Caterina de Ataíde; she was presumably the inspiration of his love poetry.

Virtually an exile, Camões pursued a military career and in 1547 lost an eye in battle in Morocco. In 1550 he returned to Lisbon, was imprisoned after a street brawl, and, upon being pardoned in 1553, sailed for India. It is thought that he may already have begun work on Os Lusíades; at any rate, the central theme of the poem is the discovery of the sea route to India by the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama.

After fighting in India, Camões was posted to Macao, but in 1558 was accused of extortion and ordered back to India. Surviving shipwreck, he made his way home to Lisbon via Mozambique in 1570, with the manuscript of his epic intact. Two years later it was published. Despite a small royal pension and the beginnings of world fame, Camões's last years were spent in obscurity, and he died in poverty in Lisbon on June 10, 1580.

Os Lusíades, written in ten cantos in ottava rima, was patterned after both the Aeneid, the Latin epic of Virgil, and Orlando furioso by the Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto. Woven into the story of Vasco da Gama's voyage are lively narrative and prophetic references to other events in Portuguese history, as well as certain Christian and humanist concepts. Although the work extols the achievements of the sons of Lusus—that is, the Lusiads, or Portuguese—it also reflects the poet's bitterness about the punitive aspects of Portuguese colonialism. The same vein of pessimism pervades many of his lyrics and his few surviving letters.

Camões's fame rests also on his substantial number of posthumously published shorter poems: odes and sonnets, elegies, and canzoni. In addition, he also wrote three plays, two of which were based on classical models. The main theme of his verse is the conflict between passionate, sensual love and the Neoplatonic ideal of spiritual love. It is noted for its formal perfection and simplicity, expressive of deep sentiment, and for introducing a new theme to Portuguese literature, Saudade-Soledade (“yearning fraught with loneliness”).