The Epic Unity in Os Lusíadas: Revisiting Bacchus, Adamastor and the Restelo’s Old Man

Abstract

Our intention is to analyze the poetry of Camões, which should not be understood as a reflection of his world, because it transformed contents of various times and places. The poet of the 16th century did not know the free competition, the aesthetics of Kant and Hegel, the literature as an autonomous practice apart from the republic. The reading acts were mimetic and ordered by poetic’s precepts. Our intention is analyzing three resources of the Camonian epic: the warnings of the Restelo’s old man, the post-factum prophecies of the giant Adamastor and the antagonism of Bacchus.