Poetry
O Lima
Not translated into English
Diogo Bernardes · 1596
Synopsis
A collection of eclogues and verse letters. In the eclogues, shepherds sing of their loves and sorrows on the banks of the Lima, the river of the poet's native region; the letters are addressed to poet friends, Sá de Miranda, António Ferreira, Pero de Andrade Caminha, and to the author's brother, himself a poet and a religious, with whom he exchanges thoughts on life, writing and retreat.
Context
The collection appeared in Lisbon in 1596, from Simão Lopes, dedicated to the Duke of Aveiro, eighteen years after the battle of Alcácer Quibir, where its author, official poet of King Sebastian's expedition, had been taken prisoner. It followed by two years a first book of religious poetry. In the seventeenth century, Manuel de Faria e Sousa accused Bernardes of having plundered Camões; scholars, beginning with Carolina Michaëlis, have since rejected most of these attributions.
Who it is for
A collection of pastoral and epistolary poetry, in Portuguese; the eclogues assume the conventions of the genre are known, a genre inherited from Virgil and brought back into fashion by Italy.
Prizes and reception
Reprinted in 1761, in 1820 and in 1945; its author is regarded as one of the great names of Portuguese poetry of his century.
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