Poesia épica novilatina no periodo Filipino - o Pro Elisabetha Regina Lusitanorum Poema epicum (1626) do P. Francisco Macedo SJ

Abstract

Composed at the University of Coimbra to celebrate the canonization (1625) of Saint Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal, the poem «Pro Elisabeth...» was published in «Poeticum Certamen» in 1626. After a brief presentation of Francisco Macedo, S.J., the author of the 500 hexameters, a study of the poem follows. It consists of a depiction of the poet's mystical vision as he contemplates the glorification of the newly canonized Queen. Such glorification includes poetic moments like the procession of the Portuguese monarchs, to the last of whom – King Sebastião, the one who was lying defeated in the battlefield – Saint Elizabeth gives back the crown and his kingly sovereignty. Having translated a few significant passages of the poem, in her critical review the A. remarks that the poem does not display a narrative form, even though Macedo qualifies his work as «epics», and despite his use of the metrics conventionally associated with the «heroic» verse. Finally, the A. proposes a connection between the poem and early XVII century's Portuguese political context, during which generalized unrest due to the union of the two Iberian Crowns brought about literary forms of prophetic speculation such as the «Sebastianism».