Bocage - portuguese poet from the 18th century

[nelson8874]

Man, I really wanted to talk you about Bocage. A portuguese Poet borned in 1765. He used to write poetry, sometimes in a very filthy way, like Morrison (thinking about (Lament to my cock, think's like that , but in a funnier way). I wished i knew more about english language to translate it.

Copyed from wikipedia:
"Free translation of a poem where Bocage draws his self portrait.

Free translation in English:

Thin, blue eyes, tanned face,
His fair share of feet, middling height,
Sad face and figure,
High nose in the middle, and not small;

Incapable of staying in just one place,
Quicker to anger than tenderness;
Drinking in his pale hands, out of a dark cup,
From hellish enthusiasms a lethal poison;

Burning incense to a thousand divinities
(I mean, a thousand girls) in a single moment,
Loving the priests only at the altar,

This is Bocage, in whom some talent shines;
He himself wrote these truths,
On a day when he was bored."

[Silver Forest]

Hey nelson, nice from you to remember Bocage.



Frankly, I cannot evaluate Bocage poetry because I know little or nothing about. Yet, I never thought about him as being at the level of the two giants from Portuguese Culture: Camões and Fernando Pessoa.

People here are probably not aware but these two Poets are on the same level of the greatest Poets this world has ever produced. I'm not joking or exagerating. It is something that is being progressively recognized in universitary and cultural circles.

Camoes is from the XVI century so his work is hard to read. Our national day holds his name and he is considered today probably the most remarkable Portuguese that ever lived.



Pessoa is from the XX century and he produced an extense work with this interesting feature of creating different personnas (heteronims) to justify completely different writing and subject styles in his poetry.
His work is amazingly talentous and complex and it covers not only Poetry but also Philosophy, Psicology, and many other areas.



Particularly at the end of his life he was also interested in the occult and he was friend (?) of Aleister Crowley or at least they had some close contact and there's some interesting mysteries behind these contacts:



But back to Bocage he might be a minor poet but he sure is an interesting historic figure.
He was represented in our old coin: escudos

He received some notoriety not only because of his poems but because there was some jokes around him and his living. And that last till our present days although I felt in the past there was more (adult) jokes being told about him.



But the guy has been also used for some products like a coffee brand:


I guess at some point these Poets ended up being public domain and used for... whatever. We will not be here but if the world survives the Euro crisis, I wonder if Jim Morrison will ended up in some strange weird products. I cannot think about him being is some weird products like for instance (converse) shoes. I can't, I really can't.