Fundamental element of the narrative, space sometimes assumes a symbolic function which
is determinant for the explanation of characters, subject and diegetic structure. The Portuguese
epic poetry of the seventeenth century often favours the symbolic use of space, constructing true
systems of literary allegories where space, characters and action work together to construct the
ideological system that supports the text.
Vasco Mouzinho de Quevedo’s Afonso Africano, an epic poem with twelve chants which
narrates the conquest of Arzilla and Tanger by the Portuguese king Afonso V, is a true paradigm
of this kind of allegoric epic poetry. In the text that precedes the first edition (1611), the poet
explains that Afonso V’s military enterprise stands for man’s conquest of his own soul, a common
idea of contemporaneous holy eloquence.
This study tries to determine how space, as diegetical element intimately connected with
characters, action and the marvellous, is important to understanding the deeper significance of
a Poem that many critics estimate to be the best after Os Lusíadas.