Rota Camonis: mixture and disproportion in the presence of the three Virgilian genres in Os Lusíadas

Abstract

The three Virgilian genres, according to the tripartition of the Rota Vergilii, are not present in Os Lusíadas in the same proportion, since this is an epic poem and is inserted in the Aeneid's epic tradition. This project for a research internship at the Centro de Estudos Clássicos e Humanísticos da Universidade de Coimbra, in parallel with the Master's degree research project "Rota Camonis: mapping of the presence of Virgil in Os Lusíadas", will be dedicated to study the presence of the non-epic Virgilian genres in Os Lusíadas. These genres perform necessary poetic function for the whole of the Portuguese epic poem in coexistence with the presence of Virgil's epic, although they appear in lower quantity. In other words, this work's objective is to investigate the generic mixture in Os Lusíadas considering the tripartite reception of the Virgilian genres, in order to demonstrate that it is a functional poetic phenomenon and not an accessory one in Camões' poem. For this purpose, the research report will be elaborated in the form of an analytical catalogue containing the cases where the reception of Virgil is observable, as indicated by the commentators of Os Lusíadas. It will be possible, then, to verify the quantitative proportion of the presence of the other Virgilian genres employed by Camões in his epic, and therefore make critical appreciation of the process of generic mixture and the poetic functions of the non-epic genres in coexistence with the epic one, despite the reduced number in which they appear.