Espaço e alegoria na poesia épica portuguesa seiscentista

Abstract

Fundamental element of the narrative, space sometimes assumes a symbolic function which is determinant for the explanation of characters, subject and diegetic structure. The Portuguese epic poetry of the seventeenth century often favours the symbolic use of space, constructing true systems of literary allegories where space, characters and action work together to construct the ideological system that supports the text. Vasco Mouzinho de Quevedo’s Afonso Africano, an epic poem with twelve chants which narrates the conquest of Arzilla and Tanger by the Portuguese king Afonso V, is a true paradigm of this kind of allegoric epic poetry. In the text that precedes the first edition (1611), the poet explains that Afonso V’s military enterprise stands for man’s conquest of his own soul, a common idea of contemporaneous holy eloquence. This study tries to determine how space, as diegetical element intimately connected with characters, action and the marvellous, is important to understanding the deeper significance of a Poem that many critics estimate to be the best after Os Lusíadas.