Camões the Sonneteer

Although Camões is principally known as an epic writer, he also produced a significant number of remarkable sonnets in the Petrarchan mode, some of them Petrarchan in inspiration but others that deal with historical and elegiac themes. Camões's strength as a sonneteer lies not only in his limpid vocabulary and exquisite sense of cadence, but also in his exploration of the most obscure reaches of human consciousness, especially in the delineation of states of battlement and anxiety. His technical command is supreme, and his range of stylistic experimentation-whether allegorical, pastoral, or erotic-continually exciting

Chemistry · Literature, Culture, and Criticism