With this stamp issue marking the fifth centenary of the birth of Luís de Camões, the greatest poet of the Portuguese language, CTT Correios de Portugal makes its own valuable contribution to the official programme of commemorations celebrating the poet’s life, at the same time enriching Portuguese philately.
These stamps are postal documents of incalculable value to the country’s heritage. They combine contemporary graphics with classical typography, in a harmonious palette of soft and appealing colours. Not only are they a treat for the eyes, but they also reflect the beauty and musicality of some of the most significant verses of Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads).
Luís de Camões lived at a time of confrontation between human beings and the world around them, marked by new experiences and the new challenges stimulated by the Renaissance period. He stands apart from other great poets of the period for combining a vast culture with his exceptional travel experiences, which took him to Africa and the East, where he spent around 17 years. He received literary tradition, creating a new poetry for it and through it, as a challenge that allowed him to forge dialogue between experience and knowledge, disappointments and dreams, confusions and victories. An epic poet and a lyrical poet, the author of theatre plays and prose letters, he appears to have been an unsatisfied soul. But that restlessness asserted itself as a privileged means of exploring both the great contradictions buried within him, and the paths of the vast world that opened before him.
The language that Camões shaped and perfected in his unusually refined verses is now one of the most widespread in the world, used by roughly 280 million speakers around the globe. The link between the poet, the Portuguese language and the people who use it is so strong that Portugal Day, celebrated on 10 June, the date of the poet’s death, is also officially the day of Camões and of the Portuguese Communities.
This philatelic tribute gives continuity to one of CTT Correios de Portugal’s own traditions, that of, for the last hundred years, devoting exquisite stamp issues to Luís de Camões and his work. Dating from 1924 to the present day, they continue to transform the milestones of Camões’ life into a celebration that extends beyond a mere date. Indeed, each collection becomes a piece of history that will reach into the future, for generations to come, through a legacy able to share with an ever-growing audience the name of Luís de Camões.
This gives us more than enough reason to be grateful to CTT Correios de Portugal for reviving a tradition that projects the poet’s exceptional worth by bringing him into the contemporary world.
Rita Marnoto
Commissioner of the Commemorations of the 5th Centenary of the Birth
of Luís de Camões
