N.b. The text below has been translated by A. Vazquez. The original Portuguese version can be found here: Representações Divinas de D. João V
This post was written by Ruth dos Santos Silva, who received her Bachelor’s degree in Portuguese and Italian Literature at the Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil, where she is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Classical Literature, with a special interest in Neo-Latin literature in Portuguese America. She is a member of the research group LIMES – Fronteiras Interdisciplinares da Antiguidade e suas Representações [‘Interdisciplinary Frontiers of Antiquity and its Representations’].
Between Apollo and God: King João V in Portuguese-American Poetry
by Ruth dos Santos Silva
Senado Federal, public domain.
It may be surprising to some to learn that the European colonies of early modern America were not monolingual. On the contrary, multilingualism was the defining linguistic feature of a populace that itself was fundamentally multifaceted. Among various vernacular languages, Latin was also being used: it was the language of the religious orders, the language of education, information, and of the arts. Literary histories of the 19th century emphasised a single national language in order to construct a narrative of the development of nationhood, but in doing so, they obfuscated the presence of other languages, including Latin, in the panorama of literary production in the Americas. Beginning in the 20th century, researchers have worked to recover the multilingual texts of this early period, which reveal a different literary reality, in which the very same authors read and wrote in more than one language, establishing a dialogue across linguistic boundaries.
From these works, I will focus on the Panegyric Account of Funerary Honors, in memory of the quite noble and quite powerful Lord King, the most Faithful, King João V (Relação Panegyrica das Honras Funeraes, que às memórias do muito alto, e muito poderoso senhor Rey Fidelíssimo D. João V), a eulogy written in Brazil in praise of Dom João V, King of Portugal (1707-1750). The Panegyric Account contains poems written in Portuguese, Latin, and Spanish, and is the collected work of multiple authors. Although there is a variety of languages and poetic genres in this work, the subject matter is fundamentally the description of the character of the deceased king and the grief of the Luso-Brazilians. In their composition, the authors of the work recuperate rhetorical genres and poetic forms from antiquity, in conformity with early modern literary practices, but adapted to the needs and tastes of their particular historical moment. One example of this was the selection of deities utilised to associate the figure of King João V with the divine. However exaggerated such comparisons may seem, this kind of approximation was encouraged, and even prescribed, by manuals on poetic composition.
In the Latin poetry, and especially the epigrams, of the Panegyric Account, Apollo is the divinity most associated with the king of Portugal. The death of King João V is represented by the setting of the sun, an image which implies a darkness into which the whole Portuguese Empire is plunged: the absence of the king is like the dissipation of Apollo’s rays. Even as the approximation of the monarch to Apollo equates these two figures in terms of power and strength, there is simultaneously the recognition of the mortality of King João V, that is to say, of his fundamental humanity. This type of comparison frequently appears in antiquity, as when Pliny, in his Panegyric of Trajan, attributes a certain divinity to the emperor, while acknowledging his mortality.
The comparison between Apollo and King João V, designating the monarch as the Lusitanian sun, is also a reference to the metaphor by which the sun represents royal power. This comes about because the reign of King João V was marked by immense innovations, made possible by the discovery of gold in the lands of Minas Gerais. In addition, the ruler incentivised the pursuit of knowledge and philosophical ideas which circulated beyond the borders of Portugal, so that his reign came to be known as much for the enthusiasm for gold as for its intellectual character. These connections underlie the comparison which the authors of the Panegyric Account bring to the foreground in their use of sun imagery.
This kind of comparison is not restricted to Latin texts. In the poems written in Portuguese, King João V is compared to a divine figure: the Christian god, rather than Apollo. A key difference, however, is that the king is no longer equal in strength and power to God, because according to Christian theology, God alone reigns supreme. This fact, however, does not diminish the image of King João V, because the comparison between the deity and the king is achieved through the grace which the monarch receives when he ascends to the dwelling place of Christ and thereby enjoys his heavenly company for eternity. If, on the one hand, the comparison of King João V to Apollo sustained the idea of the monarch as the Lusitanian sun, alluding to the royal power of the king, on the other hand, to approximate the king to figure of the Christian god is to imply that the ruler enjoyed a noble death marked by the righteousness of his exercise of virtues in life. In the poems written in Portuguese, it is quite evident that the image of King João V was constructed as one by which his Christian life, evidenced by his actions prior to his death, secured his place in heaven; while his earthly glory had come to an end, he had achieved a truly immortal glory with God. Thus, the approximation of the Lusitanian monarch to God reinforces the characterisation of the virtuous king, a divine instrument in favour of the Portuguese, whose actions guaranteed for him everlasting tranquility.
The appropriateness of the deities in Latin and Portuguese poems is just one example of how the reception of antiquity in the work as a whole is not only a demonstration of linguistic competence, but simultaneously a rhetorical performance. The literary production of the Americas appropriated traditional rhetorical elements, adapting them to the time and place of composition; in this way, the subjects of the Portuguese Crown in the Americas demonstrate, with their works, that they possess enough erudition and familiarity to produce a competent, multilingual work, which would be agreeable to the Portuguese court.