Polyglot Lusophilia: Wilhelm Storck’s correspondence with Isabel Burton, Richard Burton, and Tommaso Cannizzaro

Abstract

In this article I discuss the unpublished correspondence of the Camões scholar Wilhelm Storck (1829-1905) with Isabel Burton, Richard Burton and Tommaso Cannizzaro. Whereas in the first two cases only the letters received by Storck have survived, Cannizzaro’s letters and Storck’s are available for examination. In my analysis of the letters (written in four different languages), I focus on discussions of philological and translation-related matters, as well as on some personal affairs. My aim is to draw attention to correspondence between European Lusophiles and to make the case that such exchanges are worth further study. I argue that these scholars, who engaged with the works of Luís de Camões and Antero de Quental, sought through their epistolary exchanges to mitigate the isolation of being a scholar of Portuguese literature at the end of the 19th Century.