A Felicissima Victoria de Corte-Real: enredo e esquecimento

Abstract

Written in Spanish by a Portuguese author, the Felicissima Victoria («The Most Fortunate Victory»), an epic poem (1575-1578) by Jerónimo Corte-Real, has been generally read, by the few who have done so in recent times, as direct, solid and monophonic praise of Philip II’s Spanish Empire in its greatest moment of triumph (the battle of Lepanto). Every textual and contextual detail has seemed to agree with this. Another element added in this study which would apparently confirm the predominant view is a demonstration of the poem’s early (in Iberian terms) deliberate search for unity of plot, neoclassical completeness and harmonious totality, involving gods and men. However, as this article hopes to show, the Felicissima also engages in other forms of representation, suggesting an undercurrent of uncontained doubt and anxiety about its heroes and actions. This can appear equally well in heroic speeches, ghostly dreams and visions, anonymous voices and the unanswered sarcasm of a Muslim general’s words. The most disturbing aspect of this undercurrent may indeed be the way it seems to be planned and articulated also as a narrative unit, rather than as single episodes or extemporaneous titbits. This suggests that narrative unity and closure, however strict and triumphant, can still be unsettled and disrupted within themselves, without the need for paratactic wandering. The epic’s winners can also be its losers.