Literature · 2
Portugal's King Sebastian died in 1578 during an invasion of which country, an expedition partly justified using Camões's epic poem?
Answer
Morocco
King Sebastian led a Portuguese army into Morocco in 1578 to support a deposed sultan, and was killed at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir, an invasion he framed using the glorifying imperial vision of Camões's 'Os Lusíadas'.
💡 Did you know?
The Portuguese Lusíadas inspired actual colonial expansion: King Sebastian used Camões's poem as propaganda to justify invading Morocco, where he died in 1578.
Other options people guess
- Algeria
- Tunisia
- Libya
Topics
- epic-poetry
- portugal
- national-identity
- history
Know your literature trivia?
Play a free Literature quiz and see how many you get right — no signup needed to start.
More Literature facts
Literature
What term describes the medieval practice of scraping old text off a manuscript to reuse the material, a fate that nearly erased the Iliad?
The Iliad almost vanished forever: medieval monks recycled Homer's papyri, scraping off text to reuse parchment for religious manuscripts.
Literature
Which dystopian novel's totalitarian regime was modeled by its author on real historical precedents, including Puritan New England and 20th-century authoritarian states?
Margaret Atwood based The Handmaid's Tale's totalitarian surveillance on real historical regimes, yet the novel later inspired activists protesting actual government overreach.
Literature
Which British statesman won the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature, largely for his historical writing and oratory rather than fiction?
The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Winston Churchill for his speeches and histories, not fiction—making him unique among winners for prose celebrating war and politics.
Literature
In Charles Dickens's 'Great Expectations,' what is the name of the wealthy recluse who stops all the clocks and wears a decaying wedding dress?
Dickens may have based Miss Havisham on Eliza Emily Donnithorne, an Australian woman reportedly jilted on her wedding day in 1856 who allegedly left the wedding feast rotting on the table for decades.
Literature
After his release from prison, Oscar Wilde spent his impoverished final years in exile in which country?
Oscar Wilde wrote 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' while imprisoned, then spent his final years in exile too poor to buy the book he'd just published.
Literature
Which Henry James novella centers on a governess narrator whose reliability is so ambiguous that scholars have debated for over a century whether the ghosts she sees are real?
Henry James wrote 'The Turn of the Screw' so ambiguously that for over a century scholars debated whether the ghosts are real or the governess is mentally ill.