Fernando Pessoa From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa (pron. IPA [fɨɾ'nɐ̃du pɨ'soɐ]) (b. June 13, 1888 in Lisbon, Portugal — d. November 30, 1935 in the same city) was a poet and writer. Critic Harold Bloom referred to him in the book The Western Canon as the most representative poet of the twentieth century, along with Pablo Neruda. Pessoa is unique as an author due to the importance of heteronyms in his writing.
Biographical overview
Pessoa's statue in front of famous Lisbon café "A Brasileira".When Pessoa was five years old, his father died of tuberculosis. A year later, his brother also died and his widowed mother was remarried to the Portuguese consul in Durban, South Africa; the family moved to the city in 1896. The young Pessoa received his early education in Durban and Cape Town [1], becoming fluent in the English language and developing an appreciation for English poets such as William Shakespeare and John Milton.
He then went back to Lisbon, at the age of seventeen, attending a "Curso Superior de Letras" in a Portuguese university. A student strike soon put an end to his studies, however, and Pessoa chose to study privately at home for a year. His term of study ended and Pessoa found a job working as an assistant for a businessman, where he was charged with writing correspondence and translating documents. In 1914, he and other artists and poets such as Almada Negreiros and Mário de Sá Carneiro, created the literary magazine Orpheu that would introduce modern literature in Portugal. Pessoa died of cirrhosis in 1935, almost unknown to the public and with only one book published: "Mensagem" (Message). On the centenary of his birth, in 1988, his remains were moved to the Jerónimos Monastery, in Lisbon, the same place where one can find the tombs of Vasco da Gama, Luís de Camões, and Alexandre Herculano.
Pessoa's image was on the 100-escudo banknote.
Sexuality Some literary critics and analysts of Pessoa's work have suggested that Pessoa may have been homosexual or bisexual. However, the evidence for this is largely circumstantial — some of his "English Poems" were homoerotic, and he reportedly broke off his engagement to Ophelia Queiroz by telling her "My destiny belongs to a different law, whose existence some do not even suspect." However, there is no clearly documented evidence of Pessoa's sexual preference, and his use of heteronyms makes it difficult to verify whether the homosexual subtext in some of his work documents his own experience or that of a character. Whatever his sexual orientation was, he was mainly asexual, as he (as Bernardo Soares) seems to state in the Book of Disquietude.
Heteronyms Pessoa's earliest heteronyms were Charles Robert Anon and Alexander Search; these were eventually succeeded by others, most notably: Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis and semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares. The heteronyms possess distinct temperaments, philosophies, appearances and writing styles. According to Pessoa, the heteronym closest to his personality was Bernardo Soares, the author of Book of Disquiet Alberto Caeiro Não tenho ambições nem desejos, Ser poeta não é a minha ambição, É apenas a minha maneira de estar só ______________________________________ I have no ambitions and no desires. Being a poet is not my ambition, It's just my way of being alone. Alberto Caeiro: 'The Keeper of Sheep' Alberto Caeiro was Pessoa's first great heteronym; summarized by Pessoa, writing: "He sees things with the eyes only, not with the mind. He does not let any thoughts arise when he looks at a flower... the only thing a stone tells him is that it has nothing at all to tell him... this way of looking at a stone may be described as the totally unpoetic way of looking at it. The stupendous fact about Caeiro is that out of this sentiment, or rather, absence of sentiment, he makes poetry."
What this means, and what makes Caeiro such an original poet is the way he apprehends existence. He does not question anything whatsoever; he calmly accepts the world as it is. The recurrent themes to be found in nearly all of Caeiro's poems are "wide-eyed child-like wonder at the infinite variety of nature", as noted by a critic. He is free of metaphysical entanglements. Central to his world-view is the idea that in the world around us, all is surface: things are precisely what they seem, there is no hidden meaning anywhere.
He manages thus to free himself from the anxieties that batter his peers; for Caeiro, things simply exist and we have no right to credit them with more than that. Our unhappiness, he tells us, springs from our unwillingness to limit our horizons. As such, Caeiro attains happiness by not questioning, and by thus avoiding doubts and uncertainties. He apprehends reality solely through his eyes, through his senses. What he teaches us is that if we want to be happy we ought to do the same. Octavio Paz called him "the innocent poet". Paz made a shrewd remark on the heteronyms: "In each are particles of negation or unreality. Reis believes in form, Campos in sensation, Pessoa in symbols. Caeiro doesn't believe in anything. He exists."
Poetry before Caeiro was essentially interpretative; what poets did was to offer an interpretation of their perceived surroundings; Caeiro does not do this. Instead, he attempts to communicate his senses, and his feelings, without any interpretation whatsoever.
Caeiro attempts to approach Nature from a qualitatively different mode of apprehension; that of simply perceiving (an approach akin to phenomenological approaches to philosophy). Poets before him would make use of intricate metaphors to describe what was before them; not so Caeiro: his self-appointed task is to bring these objects to the reader's attention, as directly and simply as possible. Caeiro sought a direct experience of the objects before him.
As such it is not surprising to find that Caeiro has been called an anti-intellectual, anti-Romantic, anti-subjectivist, anti-metaphysical...an anti-poet, by critics; Caeiro simply--is. He is in this sense very unlike his creator Fernando Pessoa: Pessoa was besieged by metaphysical uncertainties; these were, to a large extent, the cause of his unhappiness; not so Caeiro: his attitude is anti-metaphysical; he avoided uncertainties by adamantly clinging to a certainty: his belief that there is no meaning behind things. Things, for him, simply--are.
Caeiro represents a primal vision of reality, of things. He is the pagan incarnate. Indeed Caeiro, Richard Zenith tells us, was not simply a pagan but 'paganism itself'.
The critic Jane M. Sheets sees the insurgence of Caeiro--who was Pessoa's first major heteronym-- as essential in founding the later poetic personas: "By means of this artless yet affirmative anti-poet, Caeiro, a short-lived but vital member of his coterie, Pessoa acquired the base of an experienced and universal poetic vision. After Caeiro's tenets had been established, the avowedly poetic voices of Campos, Reis and Pessoa himself spoke with greater assurance."
Ricardo Reis Desde que sinta a brisa fresca no meu cabelo E ver o sol brilhar forte nas folhas Não irei pedir por mais. Que melhor coisa podia o destino dar-me? Que a passagem sensual da vida em momentos De ignorancia como este? ___________________________________________________ As long as I feel the full breeze in my hair And see the sun shining strong on the leaves, I will not ask for more. What better thing could destiny give me Than the sensual passing of life in moments Of ignorance like this? Ricardo Reis Reis sums up his philosophy of life in his own words, admonishing: 'See life from a distance. Never question it. There's nothing it can tell you.' Like Caeiro, whom he admires, Reis defers from questioning life. He is a modern pagan who urges one to seize the day and accept fate with tranquility. 'Wise is the one who does not seek', he says; and continues: 'the seeker will find in all things the abyss, and doubt in himself.' In this sense Reis shares essential affinities with Caeiro.
Believing in the greek gods, yet living in a Christian Europe, Reis feels that his spiritual life is limited, and true happiness cannot be attained. This, added to his belief in Fate as a driving force for all that exists, as such disregarding freedom, leads to his stoic philosophy, which entails the avoidance of pain, defending that man should seek tranquillity and calm above all else, avoiding emotional extremes.
Where Caeiro wrote freely and spontaneously, with joviality, of his basic, meaningless connection to the world, Reis writes in an austere, cerebral manner, with premeditated rhythm and structure and a particular attention to the correct use of the language, when approaching his subjects of, as characterized by Richard Zenith,'the brevity of life, the vanity of wealth and struggle, the joy of simple pleasures, patience in time of trouble, and avoidance of extremes'.
In his detached, intellectual approach, he is closer to Fernando Pessoa's constant rationalization, as such representing the ortonym's wish for measure and sobriety and a world free of troubles and respite, in stark constrant to Caeiro's spirit and style. As such, where Caeiro's predominant attitude is that of joviality, his sadness being accepted as natural ('My sadness,' Caeiro says, 'is a comfort for it is natural and right.'), Reis is marked by melancholy, saddened by the impermanence of all things.
Ricardo Reis is the main character of José Saramago's 1986 novel The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis.
Álvaro de Campos Não sou nada. Nunca serei nada. Não posso querer ser nada. À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo. _____________________________________________________ I am nothing. I will always be nothing. I cannot wish to be anything. Apart from that, I hold inside myself all the dreams of the world. Álvaro de Campos: 'The Tobacco Shop' ('Tabacaria') Álvaro de Campos manifests, in a way, as an hyperbolic version of Pessoa himself. Of the three heteronyms he is the one who feels most strongly, his motto being 'to feel everything in every way.' 'The best way to travel,' he wrote, 'is to feel.' As such, his poetry is the most emotionally intense and varied, constantly juggling two fundamental impulses: on the one hand a feverish desire to be and feel everything and everyone, declaring that 'in every corner of my soul stands an altar to a different god '(alluding to Walt Whitman's desire to 'contain multitudes'), on the other, a wish for a state of isolation and a sense of nothingness.
As a result, his mood and principles varied between violent, dynamic exultation, as he fervently wishes to experience the entirety of the universe in himself, in all manners possible (a particularly distinctive trait in this state being his futuristic leanings, including the expression of great enthusiasm as to the meaning of city life and its components) and a state of nostalgic melancholy, where life is viewed as, essentially, empty.
One of the poet's constant preoccupations, as part of his dichotomous character, is that of identity: he does not know who he is, or rather, fails at achieving an ideal identity. Wanting to be everything, and inevitably failing, he despairs. Unlike Caeiro, who asks nothing of life, he asks too much. In his poetic meditation 'Tobacco Shop' he asks:
How should I know what I'll be, I who don't know what I am? Be what I think? But I think of being so many things! Fernando Pessoa-himself O poeta é um fingidor Finge tão completamente Que chega a fingir que é dor A dor que deveras sente _____________________________ The poet is a pretender He pretends so completely That he even pretends that it is pain The pain that he truly feels Fernando Pessoa-himself: Autopsychography (autopsicografia) 'Fernando Pessoa-himself' is not the 'real' Fernando Pessoa. Like Caeiro, Reis and Campos-- Pessoa 'himself' embodies only aspects of the poet. Fernando Pessoa's personality is not stamped in any given voice; his personality is diffused through the heteronyms. For this reason 'Fernando Pessoa-himself' stands apart from the poet proper.
'Pessoa' shares many essential affinities with his peers, Caeiro and Campos in particular. Lines crop up in his poems that may as well be ascribed to Campos or Caeiro. It is useful to keep this in mind as we read this exposition.
The critic Leland Guyer sums up 'Pessoa': "the poetry of the orthonymic Fernando Pessoa normally possesses a measured, regular form and appreciation of the musicality of verse. It takes on intellectual issues, and it is marked by concern with dreams, the imagination and mystery."
Richard Zenith calls 'Pessoa' '[Pessoa's] most intellectual and analytic poetic persona.' Like Álvaro de Campos, Pessoa-himself was afflicted with an acute identity crisis. Pessoa-himself has been described as indecisive and doubt plagued, as restless. Like Campos he can be melancholic, weary, resigned. The strength of Pessoa-himself's poetry rests in his ability to suggest a sense of loss; of sorrow for what can never be.
A constant theme in Pessoa's poetry is Tedio, or Tedium. The dictionary defines this word simply as 'a condition of being tedious; tediousness or boredom.' This definition does not sufficiently encompass the peculiar brand of tedium experienced by Pessoa-himself. His is more than simple boredom: it is from a world of weariness and disgust with life; a sense of the finality of failure; of the impossibility of having anything to want.
'The impossibility of having anything to want': this is Tedio for Pessoa-himself. It is one thing to have nothing to do or want, but to be deprived even of this...is tedium. Kierkegaard tells how if asked to choose between the two; between a perpetual state of boredom, or eternal bodily pain; he would choose--eternal bodily pain. Pessoa-himself, it would seem, would concur with the melancholy Dane.
Summaries of selected works
[edit] Mensagem Mensagem (Message) is a very unusual twentieth century book: it is a symbolist epic made up of 44 short poems organized in three parts or Cycles:
The first, called "Brasão" (Coat-of-Arms), relates Portuguese historical protagonists to each of the fields and charges in the Portuguese coat-of-arms. The first two poems ("The castles" and "The escutcheons") draw inspiration from the material and spiritual natures of Portugal. Each of the remaining poems associates to each charge a historical personality. Ultimately they all lead to the Goldean Age of Discovery.
The second Part, called "Mar Português" (Portuguese Sea), refers the country's Age of Portuguese Exploration and to its sea-borne Empire that ended with the death of King Sebastian at El-Ksar el-Kebir (in 1578). Pessoa brings the reader to the present as if he had woken up from a dream of the past, to fall in a dream of the future: he sees King Sebastian returning and still bent on accomplishing a Universal Empire, like King Arthur heading for Avalon...
The third Cycle, called "O Encoberto" ("The Hidden One"), is the most disturbing. It refers to Pessoa's vision of a future world of peace and the Fifth Empire. After the Age of Force, (Vis), and Taedium (Otium) will come Science (understanding) through a reawakening of "The Hidden One", or "King Sebastian". The Hidden One represents the fulfillment of the destiny of mankind, designed by God since before Time, and the accomplishment of Portugal.
One of the most famous quotes from Mensagem is the first verse from O Infante (belonging to the second Part), which is Deus quer, o homem sonha, a obra nasce (which translates roughly to "God wants, man dreams, the deed is born"). That means 'Only by God's will man does', a full comprehension of man's subjection to God's whealth.
Literary essays In 1912, Fernando Pessoa wrote a set of essays later collected under the designation The New Portuguese Poetry for the literary journal A Águia, (The Eagle), founded in Oporto in December 1910. The first series of two articles engage the issue 'The new Portuguese poetry viewed sociologically' (nos. 4 and 5 ); the second series of three articles is entitled 'The psychological aspect of the new Portuguese poetry' (nos. 9,11 and 12). The articles disclose him as a connoisseur of modern European literature and an expert of recent literary trends. On the other hand, he does not care too much for methodology of analysis and problems of history of ideas. He states his confidence that Portugal would soon produce a great poet -a 'super-Camoens' as he calls him – pledged to make an important contribution for European culture, and indeed, for humanity.
Philosophical essays The philosophical notes of young Fernando Pessoa, mostly written between 1905 and 1912, illustrate his debt to the history of Philosophy more through commentators than through a first-hand protracted reading of the Classics, ancient or modern. The issues he engages with pertain to every philosophical discipline and are dealt with a large profusion of concepts, creating a vast semantic spectrum in texts whose length oscillates between half a dozen lines and half a dozen pages and whose density of analysis is extremely variable; simple paraphrasis, expression of assumptions and original speculation.
Pessoa sorted the philosophical systems thus:
Relative Spiritualism and relative Materialism privilege “Spirit“ or “Matter“ as the main pole that organizes data around Experience. Absolute Spiritualist and Absolute Materialist "deny all objective reality to one of the elements of Experience". The materialistic Pantheism of Spinoza and the spiritualizing Pantheism of Malebranche, “admit that experience is a double manifestation of any thing that in its essence has no matter neither spirit". Considering both elements as an illusory manifestation", of a transcendent and true and alone realities, there is Transcendentalism, inclined into matter with Schopenhauer, or into spirit, a position where Bergson could be emplaced. A terminal system “the limited and summit of metaphysics” would not radicalize - as poles of experience one of the singled categories - matter, relative, absolute, real, illusory, spirit. Instead, matching all categories, it takes contradiction as “the essence of the universe“ and defends that “an affirmation is so more true insofar the more contradiction involves". The transcendent must be conceived beyond categories. There is one only and eternal example of it. It is that cathedral of thought -the philosophy of Hegel. Such Pantheist Transcendentalism is used by Pessoa to define the project that “encompasses and exceeds all systems“; to characterize the new poetry of Saudosismo where the “typical contradiction of this system“ occurs; to inquire what are the social and politic results of its adoption as the leading cultural paradigm; and, at last, he hints that metaphysics and religiosity strive “to find in everything a beyond“.
Bibliography Books The Book of Disquietude, tr. Richard Zenith ISBN 0-14-118304-7 Fernando Pessoa & Co: Selected Poems ISBN 0-8021-3627-3 The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa ISBN 0-8021-3914-0 A Centenary Pessoa ISBN 0-415-96961-1 Poems of Fernando Pessoa, tr. Honig & Brown ISBN 0-87286-342-5 Fernando Pessoa: Photographs (Pocket Archives Series) ISBN 2-85025-538-6 Selected Poems by Jonathan Griffin - Penguin Poetry ISBN 0-14-018845-2 A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems, tr. Richard Zenith ISBN 0-14-303955-5 Essays George Monteiro: Biography John Gray: Assault on Authorship Harold Bloom: Fernando Pessoa Jonathan Griffin: Introduction Mendo Castro Henriques: The Philosopher-Poet Jose Augusto Seabra: Overview Fernando Pessoa: Origin of Heteronyms Michael Wood: Mod & Great John Hollander: Quadrophenia Dror Poleg: 'Incredulity towards Postmodernism: Baudrillard, Pessoa, and the Simulacra of Precession' Criticism Books Portuguese writers (Gale Group) / Rector, Monica; Clark, Fred M., 2003 Atlantic Poets: Fernando Pessoa's turn in Anglo-American Modernism / Santos, Maria Irene Ramalho Sousa., 2003 Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds / Bloom, Harold., 2002 Spanish and Portuguese literatures and their times: The Iberian peninsula / Moss, Joyce., 2002 Modernism's Gambit: Poetry Problems and Chess Stratagems in Fernando Pessoa and Jorge Luis Borges / Peña, Karen Patricia., 2000 Fernando Pessoa and nineteenth-century Anglo-American literature / Monteiro, George., 2000 Pessoa's Alberto Caeiro / (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth)., 2000 Dreams of dreams: and, The last three days of Fernando Pessoa / Tabucchi, Antonio., 1999 The presence of Pessoa: English, American, and Southern African literary responses / Monteiro, George., 1998 Modern art in Portugal: 1910-1940 : the artist contemporaries of Fernando Pessoa / Serra, Joao., 1998 An Introduction to Fernando Pessoa: Modernism and the Paradoxes of Authorship / Sadlier, Darlene., 1998 A Centenary Pessoa / Pessoa, Fernando., 1997 Fernando Pessoa: photographic documentation and caption / Lancastre, Maria Jose de., 1997 Fernando Pessoa: Voices of a Nomadic Soul / Kotowicz, Zbigniew., 1996 The Western Canon / Bloom, Harold., 1994 The Continuing Presence of Walt Whitman: the Life after the Life / Martin, Robert., 1992 Fernando Pessoa: the Bilingual Portuguese Poet / Terlinden-Villepin, Anne., 1990 Three Persons on One: A Centenary Tribute to Fernando Pessoa / McGuirk, Bernard., 1988 Fernando Pessoa, a Galaxy of Poets / Carvalho, Maria Helena Rodrigues de., 1985 Fernando Pessoa's The Mad Fiddler: A Critical Study / Terlinden-Villepin, Anne., 1984 The Man Who Never Was: Essays on Fernando Pessoa / Monteiro, George., 1982 Fernando Pessoa: the genesis of the heteronyms / Green, J. C. R., 1982 Spatial Imagery of Enclosure in the Poetry of Fernando Pessoa / Guyer, Leland Robert., 1979 The Role of the Other in the Poetry of Fernando Pessoa / Jones, Marilyn Scarantino., 1974 Selected Poems of Fernando Pessoa / Rickard, Peter., 1972 Studies in modern Portuguese literature / Faria, Almeida., 1971 Three Twentieth-Century Portuguese Poets / Parker M., John., 1960 Articles (The following articles are located on the Gale website (Galenet.com) --note: password is required for access. Ask your public librarian for a password...More essays can be located in the Gale Criticism Anthologies; these are also found in your public library.)
Wood, Michael, "Mod and Great" in The New York Review of Books, Vol. XIX, No. 4, September 21, 1972, pp. 19-22. Hollander, John, "Quadrophenia," in New Republic, September 7, 1987, pp. 33-6. Eberstadt, Fernanda, "Proud of His Obscurity," in The New York Times Book Review, Vol 96, September 1, 1991, p.26. Dyer, Geoff, "Heteronyms" in The New Statesman, Vol. 4, December 6, 1991, p. 46. Haberly, David T., "Fernando Pessoa: Overview" in Reference Guide to World Literature, second ed., edited by Lesley Henderson, St. James Press, 1995. Rosenthal, David H., "Unpredictable Passions," in The New York Times Book Review, December 13, 1987, p. 32. Sheets, Jane M., "Fernando Pessoa as Anti-Poet: Alberto Caeiro," in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Vol. XLVI, No. 1, January 1969, pp. 39-47. Reprinted in Poetry Criticism, Vol. 20. Severino, Alex, "Fernando Pessoa's Legacy: The Presença and After," in World Literature Today, Vol. 53, No. 1, Winter, 1979, pp. 5-9. Reprinted in Poetry Criticism, Vol. 20. Sousa, Ronald W., "The Structure of Pessoa's Mensagem," in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Vol. LIX, No. 1, January 1982, pp. 58-66. Reprinted in Poetry Criticism, Vol. 20. Guyer, Leland, "Fernando Pessoa and the Cubist Perspective," in Hispania, Vol. 70, No. 1, March 1987, pp. 73-8. Reprinted in Poetry Criticism, Vol. 20. Cruz, Anne J., "Masked Rhetoric: Contextuality in Fernando Pessoa's Poems," in Romance Notes, Vol. XXIX, No. 1, Fall, 1988, pp. 55-60. Reprinted in Poetry Criticism, Vol. 20. [br[a target=_blank href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa"" Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 18 May 2007, 17:42 UTC. [/a]
