The year 2024 marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of Luís de Camões (1524-1580), Portugal’s national poet and author of the epic poem Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads, 1572).

On November 6, 2024, we will celebrate the quincentennial by bringing together two renowned scholars to provide a fresh view of Camões and his near contemporary, William Shakespeare (1564-1616).

Professor Frederico Lourenço (Coimbra) and Professor Jonathan Culpeper (Lancaster) will cover Camões and Shakespeare, respectively. Their short presentations will be followed by moderated discussion and audience Q&A. The event concludes with a reception.

The event is organized by Lancaster’s Camões Institute Chair for Multilingualism and Diversity, with support from the Portuguese Consulate in Manchester. This event is part of the Consulate's #Camoes500 Road Map (Roteiro #Camoes500, in Portuguese).

Professor Frederico Lourenço is Professor of Classics at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He is Portugal’s most renowned classicist, and a best-selling author and translator of major Greek and Latin literature. In 2016, Professor Lourenço was the recipient of the prestigious Pessoa Prize (Prémio Pessoa), which recognizes outstanding cultural and scientific merit in Portuguese society. Most recently, he has published an annotated anthology of Camões’ poetry.

Professor Jonathan Culpeper is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Lancaster University. He recently finished his period as Head of the Department of English Language and Linguistics, a period in which the Department became third in the world for Linguistics (QS World Subject Rankings, 2024). He has (co-)authored around 140 publications, covering pragmatics, stylistics and the history of English. He is a Fellow of the English Association, and one of the Top 2% Scientists in the Stanford/Elsevier rankings.

The event is free to attend, but registration is required. Please register by following this link (closes Friday, October 25).

To find out more, please visit the webpage of the Camões Institute Chair or email Professor Patrick Rebuschat. We will circulate a more detailed schedule to registered participants.

A fresh view of the classics: Camões and Shakespeare revisited

Time: 14.00 to 16.00

Venue: County South PDR

Camões on his 500th Anniversary

Frederico Lourenço, University of Coimbra, Portugal

Like Shakespeare in the Anglophone world or Dante in Italy, Luís de Camões (1524-1580) is Portugal’s most famous writer. Having lived and written at a time when Portugal was trying to run a vast empire, Camões spent nearly twenty years of his life in India, the Far East and East Africa. The only book Camões published in his lifetime was Os Lusíadas (‘The Lusiads’), an epic poem which ostensibly glorifies Portuguese imperialism, but is also full of undercurrents that present Portugal’s presence overseas in a critical light. This talk aims to explore some of these undercurrents and to discuss other interesting issues pertaining to Camões’s life and poetry.

Myths about Shakespeare’s Language

Jonathan Culpeper, Lancaster University, UK

Did Shakespeare invent a huge number of English words? Is his language universal? In fact, is Shakespeare’s greatness just a myth?

We all have beliefs about language, but whether they are empirically true or not is another matter. Since the mid-nineteenth century, myths about Shakespeare’s language – fuelling its standing in the English language as a whole – have increased dramatically. In this talk, I will examine some of those myths, using evidence derived from corpus-based research.

The talk draws on work undertaken as part of the £1 million AHRC-funded Arden Encyclopedia of Shakespeare's Language project. The first two volumes of the encyclopedia, comprising a dictionary, were published in 2023.