Luiz Gama Rewrites Luís de Camões

Luiz Gama Rewrites Luís de Camões

In this presentation, Dr. Fraga examines the intertextual and paratextual relationship between Afro-Brazilian poet, lawyer, and journalist Luiz Gama (1830-1882) and Portuguese poet Luís de Camões (c. 1524-1580). Through a careful analysis of Gama’s poems and epigraphs, this presentation will situate Gama within an Iberian poetic tradition centered on the woman of color, in dialogue with popular folksong and Renaissance poetry. In participating in these traditions three centuries after Camões, Luiz Gama appropriates and re-signifies tropes born out of the first instances of the Iberian colonial project at a moment when the institution of slavery in Brazil was being increasingly disputed.