Leonard Bacon's Camões: "Five Years of Monomania"

Abstract

Abstract: The American poet Leonard Bacon (1887-1954) spent more than “five years of monomania” in research for an edition of Os Lusíadas in English translation. Published in 1950 by the Hispanic Society of America (and still in print), his version remains the only American translation of the Portuguese epic to date. Bacon also gave lectures on the subject of Camões at Harvard in 1947 and Berkeley in 1951, reviewed J.D.M. Ford’s 1946 edition of Os Lusíadas and C.M. Bowra’s book on the epic (focusing on his chapter on Camões), and published several fine sonnets on the subject of Camões. He also published “By the Rivers of Babylon,” a translation of what he called “the most superb of all Camões’s lyrical poems.”