The Complex Problem of the Canon of the Lyrical Work by Camões: Some Theoretical Perspectives

Abstract

The lyrical work of Camões, as a repository of an implicit poetic theory, represents a particular case in Portuguese literary production. Due to the comprehensiveness with which the poet, at the individual and collective level, gave expression to some of the characteristics that define the existential drama of the Portuguese man, and also due to the dimension of the civic pedagogy that he tried to print in it, his work is assumed as a pillar of Portuguese culture in the last four centuries. However, a complex problem emerges when trying to delimit the "canon" of the lyric, that is, the set of works that can effectively be attributed to it, which is due to a phenomenon of reception based on erroneous sources and influenced by multiple agents. Through the study of the role played by 16th century documents in the constitution of the lyrical canon of the poet, the process of constitution of the corpus in subsequent centuries was explained, confirming the historical-literary complexity of this process.