SOURCE: “Camões' Shipwreck,” in Hispania, Vol. 57, 1974, pp. 213-19.

In this essay, Moser analyzes the shipwreck episodes of The Lusiads, including Camões' references to his own experiences in surviving a sea disaster. The critic argues that Camões uses these episodes to symbolically demonstrate the rewards as well as the dangers associated with human striving.

While exiled in England as a young man, Portugal's foremost Romantic João Baptista de Almeida Garrett wrote his long poem about Camões. To Garrett, Camões seemed another example of how badly society treats the man of genius. Garrett accorded him the poetic justice that he did not experience in reality: he had the most powerful King of Portugal pay homage to the singer, by picturing the ghost of King Manuel as he rose from his tomb to confess his royal ingratitude and hail the poet who had celebrated the...