When Monsters (and the Portuguese) Roamed the Earth: The Production of Alterity in the Works of Camoens
When Monsters (and the Portuguese) Roamed the Earth: The Production of Alterity in the Works of Camoens

Summary/Abstract: In the Middle Ages, India was depicted as a land of thauma (marvels and curiosities). As the farthest geographical zone, it formed a repository for oneiric projections, a place of dreams, inhabited by fantastic men and beasts. India was also portrayed as an earthly paradise, where one could experience bizarre carnal enjoyments and encounter proto-Christians. This ambiguous conception of India continued into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, well after explorers had reached its shores and actual physical encounters with Indian populations had cast the existence of both the monsters and Indian Christians into doubt. Even new-found knowledge would not force Europeans to relinquish their pre-conceived notions. Explorers traveled eastward with an idea of what they would find. Since they knew their classical authors, Christian encyclopedias, natural science treatises, romances, maps, and miracle letters, it is not surprising that the lands they set out to discover would conform to the world previously configured in this literature. This India, divided into antitheses of the civilized and the barbarian and cohabited with saintly heathens, Christians, and monsters, would continue to haunt western consciousness in various forms for years to come. These various figures appear as embodiments of time, feeling, and place. They incorporate fear, desire, and anxiety. Beckoning from the edges of the world, they provide lessons in morality for secular audiences (Cohen 1996: 18).

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