The Lusiad; or, The Discovery of India, the translation of Camões's Os lusíadas by the Scottish poet William Julius Mickle, published in Oxford in 1776, was a success in its time and in the ensuing century, and is to this day the most widely read and quoted among all the poetic translations of Os lusíadas into English. This paper aims to demonstrate that Mickle's translation (and the paratextual elements added to it) is a re-enactment of the medieval theory of translatio studii et imperii(the transfer not only of imperial power, but also of knowledge and culture from East to West). Mickle adapted Camões's epic for the late eighteenth-century British audience, labelled it as "The Epic Poem of Commerce" and added ideologically charged paratexts. By manipulating the original poem both poetically and ideologically, Mickle transformed Os lusíadasinto a narrative at the service of the British Empire and contributed, as other "poets of commerce" who celebrated the growth of Britain's wealth and power, to forge a poetic and cultural identity for the British Empire.
translation and ideology; manipulation; Translation Studies