Moretti Avant la Lettre
the Reading of Os Lusíadas by Borges de Figueiredo
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35699/2317-2096.2026.59144Keywords:
geography, map, landscape, cosmography, itineraryAbstract
The text focuses on the reading and ranking undertaken by Borges de Figueiredo about the epic poem The Lusiads (published in 1572) by Luís de Camões. It discusses the inflectional range attributed by Borges de Figueiredo to the macro-concept “geography” and its corresponding implications, which anticipate a set of modern views on the latter activity – and aspire to transform categories such as “space”, “place”, “landscape”, “itinerary” or “displacement” into hermeneutic possibilities for interaction and mutual shaping, thus redeeming those categories from their classical sense as elements merely available to appreciation and symbolic translation. Borges de Figueiredo’s study (published in 1880) will thus be described as an instance of anticipation of a notion of “geography” which will only become fully operative in the 20th century, under a radical reordering of the scientific field.
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