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Camões and Quevedo: some instances of similarity and influence

1982; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 59; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1475382822000359106

1469-3550

D. Gareth Walters,

Early Modern Spanish Literature

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Mentioned by E. B. Williams, From Latin to Portuguese (Philadelphia 1962), 15. 2. This is the contention of E. Asensio, 'España en la épica filipina', RFE, XXXIII (1949), 66–109. 3. See J. Ares Montes, Góngoray la poesía portuguesa del siglo XVII (Madrid 1956); Hernâni Cidade, however,warns against placing undue stress on Góngora's influence on seiscentista poetry: 'Tal designação pode induzir, e acada passo induz, no erro de se considerarem como influenciados por Gôngora trechos em que nem a sua técnicanem o seu espírito se projectam—e ainda no erro de englobar na mesma categoria atitudes e processos diferentes aoponto de se oporem' (A poesia lírica cultista e conceptista, 3rd edn [Lisbon 1963], x). 4. Estudios hispano-portugueses (Valencia 1957), vii–viii. 5. See A. Valbuena Prat, 'Camões y Garcilaso', Estudios eruditos 'in memoriam' de Adolfo Bonilla y San Martín, II (Madrid 1930), 469–78; Hernâni Cidade, Luís de Camões. 0 lírico, 4th edn (Lisbon 1967), 163–67; Luis Rosales, 'Garcilaso, Camoens y la lírica española del siglo de oro', in Lírica española (Madrid 1972), 11–140, esp. 17–37. 6. See F. de Figueiredo, 'Camões e Lope', RLC, XVIII (1938), 160–71. 7. See, for instance, the index of A. Vilanova, Las fuentes y los temas del 'Polifemo' de Góngora (Madrid 1957). 8. Printed in his Obras completas I. Poesía original, ed. J. M. Blecua, 2nd edn (Madrid 1968), 178. Subsequentreferences are to this edition and appear in parentheses after the quotation. J. O. Crosby thinks the poem should bedated 1601–1603. He also repeats A. Rodríguez-Moñino's misgivings about the wisdom of attributing a Portuguesepoem to Quevedo (En torno a la poesía de Quevedo [Madrid 1967], 100–01). 9. See E. Prestage, D. Francisco Manuel de Mello (Oxford 1922), 13–14, 83; J. Colomés, 'Sur les relations de D.Francisco Manuel de Melo avec Quevedo', Arquivos do Centro Cultural Português, II (1970), 573–77. 10. 'Para las fuentes de Quevedo', RFH, I (1939), 373–75. 11. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos has shown that the author of this sonnet is D. Manuel de Portugal('Investigações sobre sonetos e sonetistas portugueses e castelhanos', RHi, XXII [1910], 560). No modern edition of Camões's works has this sonnet. 12. 'Sonetos atribuídos a Quevedo', in Ensayos sobre poesía española (Madrid 1944), 175–76. 13. Obras completas, ed. Hernâni Cidade, I (Lisbon 1946), 232. Future references appear in parentheses after the quotation and, unless otherwise indicated, are from the first volume. 14. Il Canzoniere, ed. Dino Provenzal (Milan 1954), 181. There are sonnets by both Camões and Quevedo that reveal more similarities with Petrarch's 'Pace non trovo' than the two that have been discussed. These are Camões's sonnets 'Tanto de meu estado me acho incerto' (198) and 'Coitado! que em um tempo choro e rio' (255) and Quevedo's sonnet 'Si en el loco jamás hubo esperanza' (376). 15. Cancionero, ed. Augusto Cortina (Madrid 1929), 152. 16. A sonnet by Camões beginning 'Sete anos de pastor Jacob servia' (194) is the model for a sonnet once attributed to Quevedo but certainly not by him. See J. G. Fucilla, 'Some imitations of Quevedo and some poems wrongly attributed to him', RR, XII (1930), 234; for a wider discussion of the Biblical theme treated by this sonnet and its popularity, see Michaëlis, 594–605 and Rosales, 96–99. A sonnet from Quevedo's Heráclito cristiano beginning 'Después de tantos ratos mal gastados' (38) is a close imitation of one by Diogo Bernardes that mistakenly appeared in the first (1595) edition of Camões's works, as I have shown in my article, 'Three examples of Petrarchism in Quevedo's Heráclito cristiano', BHS, LVIII (1981), 21–30. 17. As, for instance, in the first line of the Quevedo sonnet quoted above: 'Aguarda, riguroso pensamiento' (378). 18. The dream was commonly viewed by Petrarchan love-poets as a safety-valve affording the only means by which union with the beloved could be achieved. See Leonard Forster, The Icy Fire (Cambridge 1969), 12. For a treatment of the theme in Quevedo, see Francisco Ayala, 'Sueño y realidad en el barroco. Un soneto de Quevedo', Ínsula, XVII, 184 (1962), 1 and 7, and my article, 'The theme of love in the romances of Quevedo', in Studies of the Spanish and Portuguese Ballad, ed. N. D. Shergold (London 1972), 97–100. 19. Quevedo ridicules Cupid in other sonnets, for instance in 'Si tu país y patria son los cielos' (347), '¿Tú, dios, tirano y ciego amor?' (359) and 'Si dios eres, Amor, ¿cuál es tu cielo?' (534). 20. Compare the conclusion of Quevedo's sonnet to Lisi beginning 'Los que ciego me ven de haber llorado' (492): La agua y el fuego en mí de paces tratan; y amigos son, por ser contrarios míos; y los dos, por matarme, no se matan. 21. A variant of this line reads 'Minguando a idade vai, crescendo o dano'. 22. I refer to the first version of the poem which appeared in the 1595 edition. The variant from the 1616 edition (not printed in the Cidade edition) has less in common with Quevedo's expression of the slow passing of time.There is a clear affinity between the view of time described in the poems of Camões and Quevedo to which I have referred and the second stanza of a sonnet by Herrera, 'Voi siguiendo la fuerça de mi hado' (Obra poética, ed. J. M. Blecua [Madrid 1975], I, 296): 23. There is a clear affinity between the view of time described in the poems of Camões and Quevedo to which I have referred and the second stanza of a sonnet by Herrera, 'Voi siguiendo la fuerça de mi hado' (Obra poética, ed. J. M. Blecua [Madrid 1975], I, 296): Crece el camino i crece mi cuidado, que nunca mi dolor pone en olvido: el curso al fin acaba, aunqu' estendido, pero no acaba el daño dilatado. Such a view is very unusual, however, both in Herrera and his contemporaries. Camões and Quevedo are alone among the major poets of the Peninsula in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in focussing so intently upon this tragic and paradoxical view of experience. 24. Notably in the sonnet 'Cerrar podrá mis ojos la postrera' (511), but see also the sonnets 'Si hija de mi amor mi muerte fuese' (503) and 'Diez años de mi vida se ha llevado' (510). 25. Compare Garcilaso, sonnet XXXVIII (Obras completas, ed. E. L. Rivers [Madrid 1964], 175): y si quiero subir a la alta cumbre, a cada paso espántanme en la vía exemplos tristes de los que han caydo; sobre todo, me falta ya la lumbre de la esperança, con que andar solía por la oscura región de vuestro olvido. 26. See also his sonnets beginning 'Leda, serenidade deleitosa' (221), 'Aquela fera humana que enriquece' (228), 'Que modo tão sutil da Natureza' (249), 'Tal mostra dá de si vossa figura' (253), 'Sempre a Razão vencida foi de Amor' (254), 'Onde mereci eu tal pensamento' (295), and 'Todas as almas tristes se mostravam' (301). 27. The theme of reason being overcome by love or, more specifically, by the lady's beauty is a very common one in Golden-Age love poetry with roots in both the cancionero and Petrarchan traditions. Analogies with the idea, expressed in the Camões sonnet, of the glory experienced by the conquered lover are to be found, for example in Medrano's sonnet II ('Tus ojos, bella Flora, soberanos') and sonnet V ('Vine y vi, y sujetóme la 'ermosura'). A stanza from Quevedo's quintillas 'Si os viera como yo os vi' (444) interestingly has both the idea of the lady's indifference, expressed in his own sonnet, and that of the lover's paradoxical victory which is the conclusion of Cōames's sonnet: Fui también luego vencido de quien, aun para despojos, no estima lo que he perdido, mas de tan valientes ojos es vitoria el ser rendido. There appears to be a clear connection between this poem and Medrano's sonnet V in that they both paraphrase the words attributed to Julius Caesar: 'veni, vidi, vici'. See D. Alonso and S. Reckert, Vida y obra de Medrana, II (Madrid 1958), 23, 48. 28. The contrast between the greatness of the soul and the apparent insignificance of the physical attributes that defeat it are discussed by Emilia N. Kelley, La poesía metafísica de Quevedo (Madrid 1973), 71, and at greater length by Lorna Close, 'Petrarchism and the cancioneros in Quevedo's love-poetry: the problem of discrimination', MLR, LXXIV (1979), 841–43. 29. Contrast his detailed, Petrarchan description of the lady in, for instance, the canção I: Fermosa e gentil Dama, quando vejo A testa de ouro e neve, o lindo aspeito, A boca graciosa, o riso honesto, O colo de cristal, o branco peito … (II, 260).