Talk:Os Lusíadas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Portugal Portal
Os Lusíadas is part of WikiProject Portugal, a project to improve all Portugal-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other Portugal-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as High-importance for this Project's importance scale.
Portugal To-do:
Books Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Books. To participate, you can edit the article. You can discuss the Project at its talk page.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary at in the comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

Contents

[edit] Translations

Let me say that Mickle's 1776 English translation is very bad. I´m portuguese, I know the original text, and let me say...the original is much better, and I don´t like that some of his notes criticize Camões original work (if they don´t they look like). I know that a lot of english speakers don´t know portuguese, but Mickle's work has (almost) nothing to do with the original! Sure, it rimes, but he cuts and adds parts! I wish there was a good translater that could translate this masterpiece with the glory that it has and deserves. No wonder Anglo people don´t know well Camões, the translaters are HORRIBLE!!!And the size of the strofes varies too, when in Camõens they are perfectly equal.

there are different translations of os lusiadas in english but most are not very good. there are a couple that may be decent and they are online. but a poem in my opinion is not something that can be translated and done justice to because of the uniqueness of a particular native language and the way the language can be manipulated and molded. the basic idea may be communicated in a englsh translation but the qualities it had in the original language have to be re-written to rhyme or whatever in the new language. so, to me, even if there is ever an english translation of os lusiadas that is great, the translator is creating a new work based on the original and so needs to take partial credit. the lusiads probably wouldnt be the lusiads anymore, in basic idea yes, in essence and beauty of the combination of the original words no, because the words are being changed to suit another language. sokmeone has to learn portuguese to really get it, the same goes for any other language to appreciate a great work done in that language.
Lusitano Transmontano 14:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Query

Sorry if this is a silly question. The lead reads first printed in 1572, this epic poem focuses mainly on a fantastical interpretation of the Portuguese discoveries movement, in the 14th through 17th centuries

If it was first printed in 1572, how can it describe things until the 17th century ? (Portuguese discoveries movement, according to that article, was in the 15th century) Tintin (talk) 16:14, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New article

I translated the portuguese article, since i think it is more developed. Feel free to improve it. I simply translated it, and some parts may not be as neutral as they should, so please, if you have knowledge about this, make it more neutral. Cheers.

[edit] Query - answer

Tintin

The Discoveries lasted until the 17th century, but they began in the 15th. It is not unreasonable to assume that there was plenty to talk about in 1572. I give you the example of Da Gama's discovery of the seaway route to India, which is the most celebrated event in The Lusiads.

[edit] Cleanup

This article needs quite a clean up, particularly with this "the poem tells us" stuff, which I feel is very unencyclopaedic, I have tried to fix it in the first few paragraphs, and have hidden one particularly iffy sentence. Personally I wonder how this article got B status as it is at the moment, no offense intended of course :) I will try to worker on the article further soon SGGH 22:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

A number of points:

  • NO citations! This needs to be fixed.
  • Typing in with the first point, there are a lot of observations/conclusions about the meaning of the text that just seem to be original research. The entire thing reads like an English essay at school rather than an encyclopedic article. Conclusions about the meaning of the text need to be cited to professional publications. It seems to me that the original article may have been lifted from a site which analysed the poem in this way, rather than write about in encyclopedicly.
  • Still some "the poem tells us" things in there which need to be removed, this was further evidence for my theory above, unless it was just the translation, which i doubt.
  • The structure needs work, I don't know enough about the peice to suggest a proper one.
  • Likewise, I have no idea if it covers everything, why merely pick those four cantos?
  • Such a huge volume of direct quotes of the poem, not sure if that is the way to go. They should all be translated also, because if one didnt speak Portuguese then one would have no idea if the quote used to support a point made by the article actually supported it or not.

I would perhaps go so far as to suggest a completely new article, this is so much of an originally researched English University essay with it's own interpretations and conclusions, and so little of an encyclopedic, factual article. It needs some serious citation and rewriting by someone who knows more about the topic than I.

Sorry to sound so negative, it's not like it's anyones fault though. Likly the original article it was translated from has such problems (if it isn't a lift from a site as I mentioned above) though I can't say that for definite, and obviously translating it has induced new errors (unavoidable ones unfortunatly). All in all, it needs an expert to work on it, preferably one who speaks Portuguese (to help with the translation) and who knows where interpretations can be cited. SGGH 20:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Updating the article

I was thinking about updating the article based on the current portuguese article that focuses on more episodes (not just 4 cantos), but seing the reaction above, I don't know if I should. Any oppinions?

Some clean up is needed before adding more content, I think. Want to help out?--Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves talk / contribs (join WP:PT) 18:10, 29 October 2007 (UTC)