SOURCE: “A Poet and His Nation: The Foreground Myth of Os Lusíadas,” in Texas Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 4, Winter, 1972, pp. 19-31.

In the following essay, Sousa discusses Camões's role as a poet and a representative of the Portuguese nation in The Lusiads.

My title, “a poet and his nation: the foreground myth of Os Lusíadas,” is quite accurately descriptive of what I have chosen to discuss. What I hope to share with you is a close look at one aspect in the overall structure of Os Lusíadas: Camões' treatment, within his poem, of himself in his role as the celebrator of Portuguese national glory, in his role, then, as the poet—the foreground voice—of the poem we are commemorating. That analysis is best begun with the filling in of a bit of background material, which I shall attempt to do first—in the...