http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/Goa-Literature-Reclaiming-Camoes/articleshow/55780273.cms
Back in 1980, a mob of former freedom fighters attacked the statue of Luis de Camoes in Old Goa. They believed the endlessly celebrated Portuguese poet insulted Indians in his famous Lusiads. In fact, the 16th century writer had not used the slurs he was accused of. Still, says Landeg White - brilliant poet, and author of stunning 21st century translations of Camoes into English - the statue was indeed offensive. It misrepresented its subject, just as the mass of Portuguese academia and the establishment stubbornly ignores obvious truths about the man raised to marbled symbol. Tongue-in-cheek, White (here for this week’s Goa Arts and Literature Festival) says the 1980 vandals acted with sound literary instincts. Looking back from the vantage of 2016, and with the advantage of White’s painstaking re-assessment, two overarching ideas blink neon. Almost everything you learned about Camoes is wrong. Also, there’s no one quite like him in the history of world literature, no one comparable at all until modern times. This last because he’s widely acknowledged as the national poet of Portugal, but, as White writes, “spent 15 years in Goa and beyond, plus a further two or three in Africa. They were the best years of his adult life, during which he wrote much of his greatest poetry.” It’s as if Shakespeare wrote most of his canon while cooling heels in colonial Shimla. If Camoes himself wanted to be extricated from the stuffy cocoon of Portuguese hagiography, he probably would have chosen White. Like his subject, the translator is a superb poet. He also travelled far beyond his European birthplace (in Wales) to spend many voyaging years abroad. Another advantage is he’s steeped in post-colonial literature. But, the best qualification is that he’s not Portuguese, thus not raised from infancy knowing Camoes is the statue with its nose in the air, whose poetry is meant to be reflexively genuflected towards. Via White’s translations, Camoes suddenly startles and delights. Now you finally get what the fuss is all about. It is no surprise his measured, truly splendid ‘The Lusiads’ won the Times Literary Supplement translation prize, and is now the Oxford World’s Classics edition. The Portuguese Studies Review voiced a consensus when it said, “This is the best translation of The Lusiads in English and, as it succeeds in bringing it alive as a poem to be read in our time, it is a major literary event.” No less important than the translations is the frankly astounding analysis White has made of Camoes. He writes, “It was the experience of being in India that changed him from being a conventional court poet to one of the most original poets of the period. This is not something the Portuguese will have ever told you. He is revered in Portugal as the national poet. But it’s not good for a poet to be worshipped. It gets in the way of seeing him clearly and taking the real measure of his greatness.” The logical step further, “Is Camoes a poet for contemporary India? It’s up to you whether or not you want to claim him, but if India can take on Kipling, at least selectively, then Camoes should pose no problems.” This is a crucial point. For less than a century - certainly no longer - confused (and always contested) notions about authenticity and nationalism have significantly warped Indian scholarship, particularly in the humanities, and worst of all in literature. Just when things were getting better, another heaving rank of poorly educated, heavily blinkered ideologues is consolidating power in the ministries, institutions and universities. The fallout is entirely disastrous. The best places to study Indian history are Chicago and Oxford, and then 20 other foreign colleges. You would make a big mistake pursuing a doctorate in Indian literature in any state institution. Clearly, White poses a challenge to Portuguese academics. His work shows they don’t get Camões. Their basic assumptions are flawed. But here’s the twist. White’s work also poses a stumper for Indian academics, scholars and literateurs. Are they capable of comprehending Camoes and his significance? Can we at least get it right in Goa? Every year, on June 25, a horde of locals troupes through Motihari in Bihar, heading to lay garlands on a lovingly tended bust of Eric Blair, (aka George Orwell) who was born there in 1903. Unlike Camoes, Orwell never wrote a word in India. His work shows only the barest influence (via Burma) of the subcontinent. Now come back home to Camoes, who was, White says, “made in Goa.” Is it time to raise our own statue?