The President of the Republic considered this Monday that Camões is never up to par and that the poet is never properly celebrated, referring to how over time he was used for propaganda, with his words distorted.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa spoke at the evocative solemn session that marked the start of the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Luís de Camões, at the University of Coimbra, included in the official program of the Day of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese Communities.
“We never live up to the greatness of Camões, nor the greatness of an idea from Portugal, we never quote or celebrate correctly or sufficiently, we never have in mind the exact meaning of the verses and history, or of the verses in history”, he stated.
For the head of state, however, it should not be allowed that any skepticism “can affect concrete or abstract celebrations”, nor “the poet in himself”, of whom, he noted, little is known, “and the who no longer affects anything”.
“There are so many labyrinths and fascinations in Camões, that we would be wrong to accentuate the fascination of the obvious or the apparently obvious. Just as we would be wrong if we got lost in the textual, exegetical or ideological labyrinths”, he advised.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa spoke before the president of the Assembly of the Republic, the prime minister, the presidents of the Supreme Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors, the president of the Municipal Chamber of Coimbra and the general secretary of the PS and the ministers of State and Foreign Affairs and Culture, among others.
At the beginning of his speech, he spoke of Camões’ political use over time, with his words distorted and quoted out of context.
“Politics, it is said, uses Camões as a kind of accreditation, a dictionary, in defense of certain ideas. So we had the independentist Camões, the devout Camões, the Romantic Camões, the Camões of the republicans during the monarchy, the colonial Camões of the Estado Novo, and so on”, he said.
According to the President of the Republic, the ambiguity and complexity of poetic language means that the attempt to use “Os Lusíadas” as propaganda “reduces whoever does it, leaving the poem intact”.
At the end of his speech, he argued that “perhaps everyone’s Camões is not celebrated in public”, but that “everyone’s Camões” should be celebrated: “In our language, which he valued so much, in our memory, that he cared so much about, or in the ancient certainty that we are, at the same time, citizens of the world and Portuguese”.
“Camões since the 16th century, which is essential for Portugal. Portugal since the 12th century, which is essential for Camões. May the University of Coimbra forever live, Camões forever live, the Portuguese language forever live, Forever live Portugal”, he concluded.
Commissioner Rita Marnoto remembered an author “capable of surprising his own time and disturbing five centuries of historyâ€
“Perhaps the most generous act of sharing in this search by Luís de Camões and the Portugal of his time was the Portuguese language, the language that the poet modeled and perfected in verses of rare finesse”, said this Monday Rita Marnoto , the general commissioner of the mission structure responsible for the celebrations of the fifth centenary of the birth of Luís de Camões.
The professor, also a professor at the University of Coimbra, was speaking in the Sala dos Capelos of the University of Coimbra, at the starting ceremony of the celebrations of the fifth centenary of the birth of Camões, an initiative that is part of the official program of the 10th of June .
In front of an audience including the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the president of the Assembly of the Republic, José Aguiar-Branco, and the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, Rita Marnoto highlighted the projection of the work by Camões, both in time and space, placing the poet at the “level of classics”, of the great authors “capable of surprising their own time and of continuing to question and disturb, in this case, five centuries glasses of history, even today”.
In her speech, the professor also highlighted the way in which the Atlantic Ocean began to be navigated, over five centuries, “through the Portuguese language”, through the journeys of poets, namely of Camões.
However, Rita Marnoto did not forget that these trips of “experience and knowledge” in that ocean were also “tragic trips of slavers, of human trafficking and privateering, of deportation and of suffering.”
“Travels of ‘morabeza’ [regionalismo do crioulo cabo-verdiano associado a amabilidade] and of longing, in which arrival never cuts the ties of departure”, he added.
In her intervention, the general commissioner also highlighted the way in which Camões was a “dissatisfied being”, who inquired about the “intricacies of intimacy, between dreams and disappointments” and who stood out for reflecting on the confrontation “between opposites or errancy”.
Rita Marnoto also noted the way in which the poet contaminates literary tradition, whether when he sets “a woman, Venus” to find Vasco da Gama’s fleet, at the end of his journey, or when he sets This calls into question the idea of beauty, traditionally based on a “blonde and fair-skinned” woman.
“Bárbara’s dark hair and her arrogance are irreconcilable with literary standards”, said the expert, considering that Camões’ fascination is such that it leads him to ” operate an inversion of the ideal of beauty”.
“Her black hair is so beautiful that we have to reconsider the opinion that gives priority to blondes, and the color of her skin makes snow want to change color”, he noted.
Before the general commissioner, the rector of the University of Coimbra, Amílcar Falcão, spoke, who highlighted the connection that the poet had with the city, which is “a strong candidate to be recognized as place of training for the greatest Portuguese-speaking poet”.
In his intervention, Amílcar Falcão considered that “Camées’ homeland was not so much the real Portugal, but the dreamed Portugal”.
“Portugal became the world on the island of love. On this island without time and without place, where only those who overcome their fears and overcome themselves can reach”, he stressed.
The rector of the University of Coimbra also highlighted the “cause of the Portuguese language” as one of the causes that the poet served, underlining that one of the great themes of Camões’ work was “the search for knowledge, and the certainty that this will be always an unfinished search.”
