Second Attempt

Abstract

Abstract: In his well-known, and often very loose, paraphrase of Psalm 137, Camões suggests that he has “hung on the willow trees / The organs with which I had sung” (11.54-55). This looks prima facie false, since he has already produced at least 53 lines after that event, and will go on to produce many more, to the total of 365. What is the status of a poetic composition that purports to escape the pitfalls of poetry, and, more to the point, what is the use of poetry if not that of perpetuating itself through elaborate excuses for its own emergence?