Adamastor “Re dell’acque profonde”

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to study the celebrated Adamastor’s episode in Camoens’ Lusiads as it was translated and imitated by Italian poets and writers: among them, Monti, Gioberti and Leopardi (in the Operette morali). The most important popularization of Adamastor is in the melodrama by Meyerbeer L’Africaine; Scribe’s libretto was better known in Italy because of the fine translation by the poet Marco Marcelliano Marcello (1818-1865) and is still quoted in poetry by Eugenio Montale, a passionate lover of melodrama, and in prose by eminent journalists and writers like Orio Vergani.