Proteus' canticle, or the court in the colony in Prosopopéia (1601), by Bento Teixeira

Abstract

Prosopopéia is a Portuguese poetic and rhetorical text written at the turn of the 16th to the 17th century. Since the 19th century, it has been misunderstood in many of its different aspects. Politically, for instance, the text permits us to analyse the roles of Portuguese overseas vassals in the context of Iberian Union. The aim of the present article is to understand the effects of Prosopopéia over its audiences at the time when it was written.

Iberian Union; Portuguese America; Poetics