De gestis Mendi de Saa

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De gestis Mendi de Saa ( The Deeds of Mem de Sá ) is a work written in Neo Latin by the Jesuit father José de Anchieta (1534–1597), a missionary in Brazil . This first work by Anchieta was published anonymously in Coimbra in 1563 by the royal typographer João Álvares.

Only one copy of the original edition is known: it is in the Évora Public Library ( Biblioteca Pública de Évora ).

In Brazil, a first numbered facsimile edition of 1,050 copies was published in 1997, presented by Eduardo Portella, with an introduction by Paulo Roberto Pereira, published by the Fundação Biblioteca Nacional / Departamento Nacional do Livro in Rio de Janeiro .

content

The work, consisting of over 2900 hexameters , is the first epic poem to be written on the American continent. It was published before the great Portuguese-language epic Os Lusíadas ( The Lusiads ) by Luís de Camões and is considered to be the first epic written in Latin America .

In the form of an epic of Portuguese Renaissance humanism , it tells of the events that took place in the first three years under the Governor General (Viceroy) of Brazil (also Portuguese America), when he fought against the French admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon , who had founded a colony in the Bay of Guanabara , France Antarctique (Antarctic France).

The work of José de Anchieta - the "Apostle of Brazil" (beatified in 1980) - also describes the treatment of settlers and converted natives after they have been captured by indigenous tribes.

literature

  • De gestis Mendi de Saa , published anonymously, apud Ioannem Aluarum Typographum Regium, Coimbra, 1563.
    • Numbered facsimile edition (1050 copies), with original representation and introduction, published by the Fundação Biblioteca Nacional / Departamento Nacional do Livro, in Rio de Janeiro in 1997.
  • José de Anchieta (SJ): De Gestis Mendi de Saa (original companhado da tradução vernácula pelo padre jesuíta Armando Cardoso). Arquivo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro 1958. (Original text accompanied by a vernacular translation by the Jesuit father Armando Cardoso). Rio de Janeiro: National Archives.)
    • Again in: Monumenta Anchietana. Obras completas do Pe. José de Anchieta. Volume 1, São Paulo 1970.
  • Robert Wallisch: Classicism and Exoticism. The Latin Brazil epic by José Anchieta, in: Acta Universitatis Szegediensis: Acta Antiqua et Archaeologica. 30. tom. / 2007, pp. 192–200 ( online )
  • Felix Arias writer Barba: The first epic from America and the Aeneid Virgil: The structure of Anchietas De Gestis Mendi de Saa and the classical epic. Diplomica Verlag 2011, ISBN 978-3-8428-6534-1 , ( partial online view )
  • Fernando Amado Aymoré: The Jesuits in colonial Brazil: Catechesis as cultural policy and social phenomenon (1549–1760). (European university publications / Series 3: Histoire et sciences auxiliaires). 2009 ( partial online view )

See also

Web links

References and footnotes

  1. ↑ cf. Michael JF Suarez, HR Woudhuysen: The Book: A Global History. 2013, p.410 : João Álvares (1536 – c.1587)
  2. ↑ To be precise, the third Governor General of Brazil, from 1558 to 1572, who was also a co-founder of Rio de Janeiro.
  3. ↑ Paulo de Assunção: Convertir la terre brésilienne , in: Cahiers du Brésil contemporain ( EHESS ), No. 32, pp. 19–28 (1997), here p. 25 ( online )
  4. ↑ László Polgár: Bibliography sur l'histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus (1901–1980) vol. 3. Les Personnes A - F . Institutum Historicum SI, Roma 1990, p. 150 ( archive.org [accessed March 28, 2018]).