The literary and cultural resonances of the myth of Henry: The lusiads and pilgrimage

Abstract

Two thematic lines: the omnipresence of the theme of the maritime voyage in Portuguese culture – which António Quadros calls the ‘myth of Henry’, – and its inflections in literature, more specifically, in Camões’s The Lusiads (Os Lusíadas) and Fernão Mendes Pinto’s Pilgrimage (Peregrinação) were examined. Thus, we focus on the state of the art about the topic of Henryism/the maritime voyage, taking into account the perspective of today’s Portuguese scholars, and we look at how this theme is expressed in The Lusiads and Pilgrimage, thereby proving that these Renaissance works remain vital for the actual imaginary of the Portuguese people.