SOURCE: “The Dark Side of Myth in Camões' ‘Frail Bark’,” in Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2, 1995, pp. 176-90.

In the following essay, Brownlee perceives a double transgression in The Lusiads—Vasco da Gama's violation of epic values and Camões's transgression against the epic voice in writing his poem.

Transgression in epic—its normative role—is one of contrast. The transgressive character or impulse in question is ritualistically eliminated in favor of the cultural values celebrated by the text. Little, if any, space exists for deviation in the matter of epic or the voice that articulates it. In the case of Camões' Lusiads, however, we find operative a surprising double transgression—of his material and his medium. This essay seeks to foreground the calculatedly problematic interpretation that is built into the text by its rich exploitation of mythic discourse.

According to Jorge Luis Borges—one of...