The Genius of the Shore: Lycidas, Adamastor, and the Poetics of Nationalism

Abstract

A collaboration between poetry and nationalism, exemplified by the tutelary border guard or “genius of the shore,” accounts for the interest of many Renaissance poems; redrawing the map, poets express the myths and grievances that hold their nations together. In “Lycidas,” Milton tries to redeem the fatal voyage of Edward King, his Anglo-Irish friend, by renewing the ideal of a missionary spirit, joining poet, saint, and soldier in a protectorate to bridge Ireland and England. In The Lusiads , Camões personifies the Cape of Storms as the titan Adamastor (“Unconquerable”), who curses the audacity of da Gama's voyagers and predicts their future calamities; hence the figure represents both the glory and the self-pity of Portugal and of its national poet. Though Milton and Camões hope for a bright colonial future, they turn their faces, like Benjamin's Angel of History, toward memories of shipwreck in the past.