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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Camoens

 

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Luis Vaz de Camoens : Lusiads

'In this letter [to Boswell from Mr Mickle] he relates his having, while engaged in translating the "Lusiad", had a dispute of considerable length with Johnson, who, as usual, declaimed upon the misery and corruption of a sea life, and used this expression:--"It had been happy for the world, Sir, if your hero Gama, Prince Henry of Portugal, and Columbus, had never been born, or that their schemes had never gone farther than their own imaginations". "This sentiment, (says Mr. Mickle,) which is to be found in his "Introduction to the World displayed", I, in my Dissertation prefixed to the "Lusiad", have controverted; and though authours are said to be bad judges of their own works, I am not ashamed to own to a friend, that that dissertation is my favourite above all that I ever attempted in prose. Next year, when the "Lusiad" was published, I waited on Dr. Johnson, who addressed me with one of his good-humoured smiles:--'Well, you have remembered our dispute about Prince Henry, and have cited me too. You have done your part very well indeed: you have made the best of your argument; but I am not convinced yet'."

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson      Print: Book

  

Luis Vaz de Camoens : Lusiads

'[william Mickle said] Dr. Johnson told me in 1772, that, about twenty years before that time, he himself had a design to translate the "Lusiad", of the merit of which he spoke highly, but had been prevented by a number of other engagements'.

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson      Print: Book

  

Luis Vaz de Camoëns  : The Lusiad

Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 23-27 April, 1796 'The Poetry of Spain & Portugal wants taste, & generally, feeling. I should have thought Camoens deficient in feelings if I had only read his Lusiad — but the Sonnets of Camoens are very beautiful. those given by Hayley in his notes to the Essay on Epic P. tho among the best are but a wretched specimen to the English reader. the translations are detestable — & the originals so printed as to be unintelligible. I bought some ballads in Spain in remembrance of Rio Verde — but they prove bad enough. but six months after my return I will tell you more.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

Luis Vaz de Camoëns  : Sonnets

Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, 23-27 April, 1796 'The Poetry of Spain & Portugal wants taste, & generally, feeling. I should have thought Camoens deficient in feelings if I had only read his Lusiad — but the Sonnets of Camoens are very beautiful. those given by Hayley in his notes to the Essay on Epic P. tho among the best are but a wretched specimen to the English reader. the translations are detestable — & the originals so printed as to be unintelligible. I bought some ballads in Spain in remembrance of Rio Verde — but they prove bad enough. but six months after my return I will tell you more.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

Luis Vaz de Camoëns  : ‘Babylon and Sion’

Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 1-7 January, 1797: '...the view is bounded by the accursed smoke of London. methinks like Camoens I could dub it Babylon & write lamentations for the “Sion” of my birth place, having like him no reason to regret the past [words scored out] except that it is not the present. it is the country I want. a field thistle is to me worth all the flowers of Covent Garden.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

Camoens : 

Harriet, Countess Granville, to her sister Lady Georgiana Morpeth, 12 August 1818: 'Yesterday evening Granville [husband], Hart [her brother, the Duke of Devonshire] and I looked over books. A beautiful edition of Camoens, brown and gold, with D. and the coronet inlaid in diamonds. It is like a book in a fairy tale. The Duchess of Devonshire's editions of Horace's journey. The prints are from beautiful drawings, one by herself.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Duke of Devonshire and Lord and Lady Granville (his brother-in-law and sister)     Print: Book

 

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