Fernando Pessoa

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Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa
Portrait of Fernando Pessoa by João Luiz Roth.
Born	June 13, 1888(1888-06-13) Lisbon, Portugal
Died	November 30, 1935 (aged 47) Lisbon, Portugal
Occupation	Poet, writer and translator
Language	Portuguese, English
Nationality	Portuguese
Influences Edgar Allan Poe, Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Charles Maurras, Marinetti, Walt Whitman, António Nobre
Influenced Almada Negreiros, Giannina Braschi, José Saramago, Mário de Sá Carneiro, Gao Xingjian, Antonio Tabucchi

Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (Portuguese pronunciation: [fɨɾˈnɐ̃du pɨˈsoɐ]; b. June 13, 1888 in Lisbon, Portugal — d. November 30, 1935 in the same city) was a Portuguese poet and writer. He was also a literary critic and translator. The 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. He was bilingual in Portuguese and English, and fluent in French.

Early years in Durban

In 1893, when Pessoa was five, his father died of tuberculosis. The following year his younger brother, aged only one, died too and his mother married again in 1895. In the beginning of 1896, he moved with his mother to Durban, capital of the former British Colony of Natal, where his stepfather was appointed Portuguese consul. The young Pessoa received his early education at St. Joseph Convent School, a catholic school run by Irish and French nuns. He moved to the Durban High School in April, 1899, becoming fluent in English and developing an appreciation for English literature. With the "Matriculation Examination", for admission to the University of Cape Town, in November, 1903, he was awarded the "Queen Victoria Memorial Prize", recently created, for the best paper in English. While preparing to enter university, he also attended the Durban Commercial School, during one year, in the evening shift. This technical knowledge would be a very important background to his future life, in Lisbon. Meanwhile he started writing short stories in English, some under the name of David Merrick, that unfortunately he left unfinished ^[1].

At the age of sixteen, The Natal Mercury (July 9, 1904 edition) published his poem "Hillier did first usurp the realms of rhyme...", under the name of Charles Robert Anon, along with a small introductory text: "I read with great amusement...". In December, The Durban High School Magazine published his essay «Macaulay» ^[2]. From February to June, 1905, in the section "The Man in the Moon", The Natal Mercury also published at least four sonnets by Fernando Pessoa: "Joseph Chamberlain", "To England I", "To England II" and "Liberty" ^[3]. Joking with the name Anon, short for anonymous author, the young Pessoa revealed a fine sense of humour that he would keep during his lifetime.

In 1905, at the age of seventeen, he sailed for Lisbon via the Suez Canal on board the "Herzog", leaving Durban for good. This journey inspired the poems "Opiario" (dedicated to his friend, the poet and writer Mario de Sa-Carneiro) published in March, 1915, in Orpheu nr.1 ^[4] and "Ode Maritima" (dedicated to the futurist painter Santa Rita Pintor) publishd in June, 1915, in Orpheu nr.2 ^[5] by his heteronym Alvaro de Campos.

Return to Lisbon

Pessoa's statue in front of famous Lisbon café "A Brasileira".

While his family remained in South Africa, Pessoa returned to Lisbon in 1905, to study diplomacy. After a period of illness, and two years of poor results, a student strike put an end to his studies and in August, 1907, he started working at R.G. Dun & Company, an americam mercantile informations agency (currently D&B - Dun & Bradstreet). His grandmother died in September and left him a small inheritance that he spent on setting up his own publishing house, the «Empreza Ibis». The venture was not a success and closed down in 1910. Ibis, the sacred bird in the Ancient Egypt would remain an important symbolic reference for him. Meanwhile, Pessoa worked in a number of Offices as free-lance commercial translator and correspondent in Portuguese/French/English. In 1912, Fernando Pessoa entered the literary world as a critic, with an article published in the cultural review A Águia, that triggered one of the most important literary debates in the Portuguese intellectual world of the XX century: the polemic «super-Camoens». in 1915, a group of artists and poets, in which Fernando Pessoa, Almada Negreiros, Mário de Sá-Carneiro and others, created the literary magazine Orpheu ^[6], that introduced modernist literature in Portugal.

He also founded the literary review Athena (1924-1925), that published the heteronym Ricardo Reis. Along with his activity of free-lance commercial translator, Fernando Pessoa maintained an intense activity as a writer or literary critic, contributing to reviews such as A Águia (1913), A Renascença (1914), Exílio (1916), Portugal Futurista (1917), Contemporânea (1922-1923), Presença (1927-1934) and Sudoeste (1935). He also published as political analyst and literary critic in magazines and newspapers such as Teatro (1913), O Jornal (1915), Acção (1919), Diário de Lisboa (1924-1935), Revista de Comércio e Contabilidade (1926) and Fama (1932-1933).

In his early years, Pessoa was influenced by English Classics such as Shakespeare, Milton and Spenser; Romantics like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats. Back in Lisbon, in 1905, the young Pessoa was influenced by his stepuncle Henrique dos Santos Rosa, a retired general, himself a poet too, that introduced him to Portuguese poetry. He was also influenced by French symbolists Charles Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé, mainly by Portuguese poets such as Antero de Quental, Camilo Pessanha, Cesário Verde, Antonio Nobre and Teixeira de Pascoaes, and modernists such as Yeats, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, among many other writers ^[1].

During World War I, Pessoa wrote to a number of British publishers, in order to print his collection of English verse The Mad Fiddler (unpublished during his lifetime), but it was refused. However, in 1920 the prestigious literary review Athenaeum included one of those poems. Once the British publication failed, in 1918 Pessoa published in Lisbon two slim volumes of English verse: Antinous ^[7] and 35 Sonnets ^[8], received by the British literary press without enthusiasm ^[9]. Along with two associates, he founded another publishing house, «Olisipo», which published in 1921 a further two English poetry volumes: English Poems I-II and English Poems III by Fernando Pessoa.

Pessoa translated into English a number of Portuguese books and from English the poems "The Raven", "Annabel Lee" and "Ulalume"^[10] by Edgar Allan Poe which, along with Walt Whitman, strongly influenced him. He also translated into Portuguese a number of esoteric books by leading Theosophists such as C. W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant ^[11]. His interest in occultism led Pessoa to correspond with Aleister Crowley. He later helped Crowley plan an elaborate fake suicide when he visited Portugal in 1930 ^[12]. Pessoa translated Crowley's poem "Hymn To Pan" into Portuguese, and the catalogue of Pessoa's library shows that he possessed copies of Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practice and Confessions. Pessoa also wrote on Crowley's doctrine of Thelema in several fragments, including Moral ^[13].

Pessoa and Lisbon

After his return to Lisbon in 1905, Pessoa barely left his beloved city, which inspired the poems "Lisbon Revisited" (1923 and 1926). If Franz Kafka is the writer of Prague, Fernando Pessoa is certainly the writer of Lisbon. In The Book of Disquiet, his heteronym Bernardo Soares describes some typical places of Lisbon's downtown and its "atmosphere". Bernardo Soares was supposedly an accountant, working at Vasques's office, the boss, in Douradores Street, and living in the same downtown street. It was an world that Pessoa knew quite well, during his long career (around 35 years), as free lance correspondence translator in a number of firms. He was a frequent client at Martinho da Arcada a centennial coffee house downtown, almost an "office" for his private business and literary issues. He also frequented other coffee shops, bars and restaurants, a number of which no longer exist. The statue of Fernando Pessoa (above) can be seen outside A Brasileira, one of the places where he would meet friends, writers and artists during the period of Orpheu. This coffee shop, in the aristocratic district of Chiado, is quite close to Pessoa's birthplace: 4, Largo de São Carlos (in front of the Opera House) ^[14], one of the most elegant neighborhoods of Lisbon ^[15]. Pessoa wrote a guidebook to Lisbon in English, but it remained unpublished until 1992 ^[16].

Pessoa died of cirrhosis in 1935, at the age of forty-seven, almost unknown to the public and with only one book published in Portuguese: "Mensagem" (Message). He left a lifetime of unpublished and unfinished work (over 25,000 pages manuscript and typed that have been housed in the Portuguese National Library since 1988). The heavy burden of editing this huge work is still in progress. In 1988 (the centenary of his birth), Pessoa's remains were moved to the Jerónimos Monastery, in Lisbon, where Vasco da Gama, Luís de Camões, and Alexandre Herculano are also buried. Pessoa's portrait was on the 100-escudo banknote.

Heteronyms

Pessoa's earliest heteronym, at the age of six, was the Chevalier de Pas. Other childhood heteronyms included Dr. Pancrácio and David Merrick ^[17], followed by 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. Translator Richard Zenith notes that Pessoa eventually established at least seventy-two heteronyms ^[17]. 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 The Book of Disquiet.

Alberto Caeiro

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.»^{[citation needed]}

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.» ^[18].

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 was not simply a pagan but «paganism itself» ^[19].

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.» ^[20].

Ricardo Reis

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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.'^{[citation needed]} 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 epicureanist philosophy, which entails the avoidance of pain, defending that man should seek tranquility 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 contrast 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

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

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'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."^{[citation needed]}

Richard Zenith calls 'Pessoa' '[Pessoa's] most intellectual and analytic poetic persona.'^{[citation needed]} 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 Tédio, 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 Tédio for Pessoa-himself.^{[citation needed]} 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

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Mensagem

Mensagem (Message), (from the Latin "MENS AGitat molEM", which means, "The Mind moves/commands the Matter) is a very unusual twentieth century book: it is a symbolist epic made up of 44 short poems organized in three parts or Cycles ^[21]:

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 seaborne 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 line from O Infante (belonging to the second Part), which is Deus quer, o homem sonha, a obra nasce (which translates roughly to "God wills it, man dreams it, it is born"). That means 'Only by God's will man does', a full comprehension of man's subjection to God's wealth. Another well-known quote from Mensagem is the first line from Ulysses, "O mito é o nada que é tudo" (a possible translation is "The myth is the nothing that is all"). This poem refers Ulysses, king of Ithaca, as Lisbon's founder (recalling an ancient Greek myth) ^[22].

Literary essays

In 1912, Fernando Pessoa wrote a set of essays (later collected as The New Portuguese Poetry) for the cultural journal A Águia (The Eagle), founded in Oporto, in December 1910, and run by the republican association «Renascenca Portuguesa» ^[23]. In the first years of the Portuguese Republic, this cultural association was started by republican intellectuals led by the writer and poet Teixeira de Pascoaes, Philosopher Leonardo Coimbra and historian Jaime Cortesão, aiming the renewal of Portuguese culture trough the aesthetic movement called «saudosismo» ^[24]. 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). These writings were strongly encomiastic to «saudosist literature», namely the poetry of Teixeira de Pascoaes and Mário Beirão. The articles disclose Pessoa 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» – pledged to make an important contribution for European culture, and indeed, for humanity ^[25].

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.^{[citation needed]} 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:

1. Relative Spiritualism and relative Materialism privilege "Spirit" or "Matter" as the main pole that organizes data around Experience.
2. Absolute Spiritualist and Absolute Materialist "deny all objective reality to one of the elements of Experience".
3. 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".
4. 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.
5. 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".

List of works

Books by Fernando Pessoa

• Collected Poems of Álvaro de Campos, Vol. 2, 1928–1935, Translated from the Portuguese by Chris Daniels, Exeter (UK): Shearsman Books, 2009. ISBN 9781905700257
• Lisbon - What the Tourist Should See, Exeter (UK): Shearsman Books, 2008. ISBN 978190570752
• The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro, Translated from the Portuguese by Chris Daniels, Exeter (UK): Shearsman Books, 2007. ISBN 9781905700240
• Selected English Poems, Exeter (UK): Shearsman Books, 2007. ISBN 9781905700264
• Message, Translated from the Portuguese by Jonathan Griffin, Exeter (UK): Shearsman Books, 2007. ISBN 9781905700271
• Selected English Poems , ed. Tony Frazer, Exeter (UK): Shearsman Books, 2007. ISBN 1905700261
• The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro, tr. Chris Daniels, Exeter (UK): Shearsman Books, 2007. ISBN 1905700245
• A Centenary Pessoa, tr. Keith Bosley & L. C. Taylor, foreword by Octavio Paz, Carcanet Press, 2006. ISBN 1857547241
• A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems, tr. Richard Zenith, Penguin Classics, 2006. ISBN 0-14-303955-5
• The Education of the Stoic, tr. Richard Zenith, afterword by Antonio Tabucchi, Exact Change, 2004. ISBN 1878972405
• The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa, tr. Richard Zenith, Grove Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8021-3914-0
• Sheep's Vigil by a Fervent Person: A Translation of Alberto Caeiro, tr. Eirin Moure, House of Anansi, 2001. ISBN 0887846602
• Selected Poems: with New Supplement tr. Jonathan Griffin, Penguin Classics; 2nd edition, 2000. ISBN 0141184337
• Fernando Pessoa & Co: Selected Poems, tr. Richard Zenith, Grove Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8021-3627-3
• Poems of Fernando Pessoa, anthology ed. & tr. Edwin Honig & Susan M. Brown, City Lights Publishers, 1998. ISBN 0-87286-342-5
• The Keeper of Sheep, bilingual edition, tr. Edwin Honig & Susan M. Brown, Sheep Meadow, 1997. ISBN 1878818457
• Message, tr. Jonathan Griffin, introduction by Helder Macedo, Menard Press, 1992. ISBN 190570027X
• The Book of Disquietude, tr. Richard Zenith, Carcanet Press, 1991. ISBN 0-14-118304-7
• The Book of Disquiet, tr. Iain Watson, Quartet Books, 1991. ISBN 0704301539
• The Book of Disquiet, tr. Alfred Mac Adam, New York NY: Pantheon Books, 1991. ISBN 0679402349
• The Book of Disquiet, tr. Margaret Jull Costa, London, New York NY: Serpent's Tail, 1991, ISBN 1852422041
• Fernando Pessoa: Self-Analysis and Thirty Other Poems, tr. George Monteiro, Gavea-Brown Publications, 1989. ISBN 0943722144
• Always Astonished, tr. Edwin Honig, San Francisco CA: City Lights, 1988. ISBN 9780872862289
• Selected Poems by Fernando Pessoa, tr. Edwin Honig, Swallow Press, 1971. ISBN B000XU4FE4
• ENGLISH POEMS by Fernando Pessoa, 2 vol. ( vol. 1 part I - Antinous, part II - Inscriptions; vol. 2 part III - Epithalamium), Lisbon: «Olisipo», 1921 (vol. 1 - 20 p., vol. 2 - 16 p., 24 cm). http://purl.pt/13967
• 35 SONNETS by Fernando Pessoa, Lisbon: Monteiro & Co., 1918 (20 p., 20 cm). http://purl.pt/13963
• ANTINOUS: a poem by Fernando Pessoa, Lisbon: Monteiro & Co., 1918 (16 p., 20 cm). http://purl.pt/13961

See also

• Portuguese Poetry
• Universidade Fernando Pessoa

References

Further reading

Books

• Embodying Pessoa: corporeality, gender, sexuality / Klobucka, Anna. 2007
• Portuguese writers (Dictionary of Literary Biography) / Rector, Mónica. 2004
• 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
• An Introduction to Fernando Pessoa: Modernism and the Paradoxes of Authorship / Sadlier, Darlene. 1998
• Modern art in Portugal: 1910-1940 : the artist contemporaries of Fernando Pessoa / Serra, Joao. 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
• Modern Spanish and Portuguese literatures / Marshall J Schneider. 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

• Riccardi, Mattia, "Dionysus or Apollo? The heteronym Antonio Mora as moment of Nietzsche's reception by Pessoa" in Portuguese Studies 23 (1): 109-+ 2007
• Suarez, Jose, "Fernando Pessoa's acknowledged involvement with the occult" in Hispania 90 (2): 245-252 MAY 2007
• De Castro, Mariana, "Oscar Wilde, Fernando Pessoa, and the art of lying" in Portuguese Studies 22 (2): 219-+ 2006
• Beyer, Bethany, "Borges and Pessoa : Authorial voices and esoteric reflections", M.A. Dissertation, Brigham Young University., 2006
• Ribeiro AS, "A tradition of empire: Fernando Pessoa and Germany" in Portuguese Studies 21: 201-209 2005
• Hale, Michelle, "Ironic multiplicity: Fernando's "pessoas" suspended in Kierkegaardian irony", M.A. Dissertation, Brigham Young University., 2004
• McNeill PODS, "The aesthetic of fragmentation and the use of personae in the poetry of Fernando Pessoa and W.B. Yeats" in Portuguese Studies 19: 110-121 2003
• Muldoon P, "In the hall of mirrors: 'Autopsychography' by Fernando Pessoa" in New England Review 23 (4): 38-52 FAL 2002
• Bloom, Harold, "Fernando Pessoa", in Genius: a mosaic of one hundred exemplary creative minds: Pub. New York: Warner Books., 2002
• Stevens, Dana Shawn, "A local habitation and a name heteronymy and nationalism in Fernando Pessoa", PhD Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley., 2001
• Wallace, James, "Camões, Pessoa, Bloom and the poetry of heteronomy as solution for the anxiety of influence", M.A. Dissertation, Brigham Young University., 2000
• Bamforth I, "An introduction to Fernando Pessoa: Modernism and the paradoxes of authorship" in Parnassus 24 (1): 286-303 1999
• Bamforth I, "The presence of Pessoa: English, American and Southern African literary responses" Parnassus 24 (1): 286-303 1999
• Hicks J, "The Fascist imaginary in Pessoa and Pirandello" in Centennial Review 42 (2): 309-332 SPR 1998
• Mahr G, "Pessoa, life narrative, and the dissociative process" in Biography 21 (1): 25-35 WIN 1998
• Haberly, David T., "Fernando Pessoa: Overview" in Reference Guide to World Literature, second ed., edited by Lesley Henderson, St. James Press, 1995.
• Lopes JM, "Cubism and intersectionism in Fernando Pessoa's 'Chuva Obliqua" in Texte(15-16): 63-95 1994
• Zenith, Richard, "Pessoa, Fernando and the Theater of his Self" in Performing Arts Journal(44): 47-49 MAY 1993
• Anderson, RN, "The Static Drama of Pessoa, Fernando" in Hispanofila (104): 89-97 JAN 1992
• Brown, SM, "The Whitman Pessoa Connection" in Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 9 (1): 1-14 SUM 1991
• 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.
• Monteiro G, "The Song of the Reaper-Pessoa and Wordsworth" in Portuguese Studies 5: 71-80 1989
• Cruz, Anne J., "Masked Rhetoric: Contextuality in Fernando Pessoa's Poems", in Romance Notes, Vol. XXIX, No. 1, Fall, 1988, pp. 55–60.
• Hollander, John, "Quadrophenia", in New Republic, September 7, 1987, pp. 33–6.
• Rosenthal, David H., "Unpredictable Passions", in The New York Times Book Review, December 13, 1987, p. 32.
• Guyer, Leland, "Fernando Pessoa and the Cubist Perspective", in Hispania, Vol. 70, No. 1, March 1987, pp. 73–8.
• Bunyan, D, "The South-African Pessoa, Fernando 20th Century Portuguese Poet", in English in Africa 14 (1): 67-105 May 1987
• Seabra JA, "Pessoa, Fernando Portuguese Modernist Poet", in Europe 62 (660): 41-53 1984
• Severino AP, "Pessoa, Fernando - A Modern Lusiad", in Hispania 67 (1): 52-60 1984
• Howes RW, "Pessoa, Fernando, Poet, Publisher, and Translator", in British Library Journal 9 (2): 161-170 1983
• Sousa, Ronald W., "The Structure of Pessoa's Mensagem", in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Vol. LIX, No. 1, January 1982, pp. 58–66.
• Severino, Alex, "Fernando Pessoa's Legacy: The Presença and After", in World Literature Today, Vol. 53, No. 1, Winter, 1979, pp. 5–9.
• Wood, Michael, "Mod and Great" in The New York Review of Books, Vol. XIX, No. 4, September 21, 1972, pp. 19–22.
• Sheets, Jane M., "Fernando Pessoa as Anti-Poet: Alberto Caeiro", in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Vol. XLVI, No. 1, January 1969, pp. 39–47.
• Cuadrivio: Darío, López Velarde, Pessoa, Cernuda / Paz, Octavio / Mexico: J. Mortiz, 1965

Portuguese

• Dicionário de Fernando Pessoa e do Modernismo Português : coordenação de Fernando Cabral Martins., 2008 ISBN 978-972-21-1985-6
• MENSAGEM / Fernando Pessoa / Lisboa : Parceria António Maria Pereira, 1934., (edição fac-símilada) 2007 ISBN 978-972-8645-39-7
• De Luto por Existir : a melancolia de Bernardo Soares à luz de Walter Benjamin / Ricardina Guerreiro., 2005 ISBN 972-37-0974-0
• Esoterismo, mitogenia e realismo político em Fernando Pessoa : uma visão de conjunto / Brunello De Cusatis., 2005
• Fernando Pessoa : outramento e heteronimia / António Azevedo., 2005
• Pessoa e Nietzsche: subsídios para uma leitura intertextuel de Pessoa e Nietzsche / António Azevedo., 2005
• Fernando Pessoa : almoxarifado de mitos / Carlos Felipe Moisés., 2005
• Fernando Pessoa : outra vez te revejo / Cleonice Berardinelli., 2004
• Realidade e ficção : para uma biografia epistolar de Fernando Pessoa / Manuela Parreira da Silva., 2004
• O lugar do anjo : ensaios pessoanos / Eduardo Lourenço., 2004
• T.S. Eliot e Fernando Pessoa : diálogos de New Haven : ensaios / Ricardo Daunt Neto., 2004
• Fernando Pessoa e os mundos esotéricos / José Manuel Anes., 2004
• Fernando Pessoa e a comunicação social / João Alves das Neves., 2003
• Fernando Pessoa : resposta à decadência / Haquira Osakabe., 2002
• Poesía e metafísica : Camões, Antero, Pessoa / Eduardo Lourenço., 2002
• Dois estudos pessoanos / Ermelinda Ferreira., 2002
• Lisboa nos Passos de Pessoa : Lisbon in Pessoa's Footsteps / Marina Tavares Dias. Lisboa : Quimera., 2002 ISBN 972-589-131-7
• Pessoa revisitado : leitura estruturante do drama em gente / Eduardo Lourenço., 2000
• Actas (IV Congresso Internacional de Estudos Pessoanos) / Almir de Campos Bruneti., 2000
• Differença e negação na poesia de Fernando Pessoa / José Gil., 2000
• Pessoa / António Carlos Carvalho., 1999
• Vôo transverso : poesia, modernidade e fim do século XX / Maria Esther Maciel., 1999
• A modernidade da poesia de Fernando Pessoa / Linhares Filho., 1998
• Fernando Pessoa, vozes de uma alma nómada / Zbigniew Kotowicz., 1998
• O pensamento maçónico de Fernando Pessoa / Jorge de Matos., 1997
• Pensar Pessoa / Luís Filipe B Teixeira., 1997
• Ensaios : Saramago, Fernando Pessoa e Eça de Queirós / Salma Ferraz., 1997
• Para compreender Fernando Pessoa : uma aproximação a Fernando Pessoa e heteronimos / Amélia Pinto Pais., 1996
• O coração do texto = Le coeur du texte : novos ensaios pessoanos / José Augusto Seabra., 1996
• O esoterismo de Fernando Pessoa / Dalila L Pereira da Costa., 1996
• Um Fernando Pessoa / Agostinho da Silva., 1996
• Um medo por demais inteligente : autobiografias pessoanas / Américo Lindeza Diogo., 1995
• Fernando Pessoa, a biblioteca impossivel / Teresa Rita Lopes., 1995
• O espaço interior / José Gil., 1994
• Fernando Pessoa, um místico sem fé / Andrés Ordóñez., 1994
• O poetar pensante : Fernando Pessoa, Martin Heidegger / Cleonice Berardinelli., 1994
• A vivência do tempo em Fernando Pessoa e outros ensaios pessoanos / Maria Vitalina Leal de Matos., 1993
• Textos de Crítica e de Intervenção / Fernando Pessoa., 1993 ISBN 972-617-017-6
• O nascimento do homem em Pessoa : a heteronímia como jogo da demiurgia divina / Luís Filipe B Teixeira., 1992
• Literatura & heteronímia : sobre Fernando Pessoa / Américo António Lindeza Diogo., 1992
• Fernando Pessoa : poesia, transgressão, utopia / Fernando Segolin., 1992
• Fernando Pessoa, o desconhecido de si mesmo / Octavio Paz., 1992
• Literatura portuguesa moderna e contemporânea / Carlos António Alves dos Reis., 1990
• O tabuleiro antigo : uma leitura do heterônimo Ricardo Reis / Maria Helena Nery Garcez., 1990
• Diversidade e unidade em Fernando Pessoa / Jacinto do Prado Coelho., 1990
• Fernando Pessoa : retrato-memória / João Gaspar Simões., 1989
• Sob o ramo da bétula : Fernando Pessoa e o erotismo vitoriano / Yara Frateschi Vieira., 1989
• Fernando Pessoa : o espelho e a esfinge / Massaud Moisés., 1988
• Nos passos de Pessoa : ensaios / David Mourão-Ferreira., 1988
• Fernando Pessoa : um detetive-leitor e muitas pistas / Salete de Almeida Cara., 1988
• Pessoa, metade de nada / Ernesto Manuel de Melo e Castro., 1988
• Mensagem : uma tentativa de reinterpretação / Onésimo Teotónio Almeida., 1987
• Microleituras de Alvaro de Campos : e outras investigações pessoanas / Joaquim-Francisco Coêlho., 1987
• O alibi infinito : o projeto e a prática na poesia de Fernando Pessoa / Ettore Finazzi-Agrò., 1987
• Fernando, rei da nossa Baviera / Eduardo Lourenço., 1986
• O heterotexto pessoano / José Augusto Seabra., 1985
• A poesia de Fernando Pessoa / Adolfo Casais Monteiro., 1985
• Fernando Pessoa, o poeta singular e plural / João Alves das Neves., 1985
• Fernando Pessoa e o momento futurista de Alvaro de Campos / Maria de Alcântara., 1985
• Eça e Pessoa / Beatriz Berrini., 1985
• Os dois exílios : Fernando Pessoa na Africa do Sul / HD Jennings., 1984
• Fernando Pessoa, um "interlúdio" intertextual / Maria Heloísa Martins Dias., 1984
• Fernando Pessoa—Ricardo Reis : os originais, as edições, o cânone das odes / Silva Bélkior., 1983
• Saudade e profetismo em Fernando Pessoa : elementos para uma antropologia filosófica / Alfredo Antunes., 1983
• Poesia e metafísica : Camões, Antero, Pessoa / Eduardo Lourenço., 1983
• Fernando Pessoa : breve história da sua vida e da sua obra / João Gaspar Simões., 1983
• Camões e Pessoa, poetas da Utopia / Jacinto do Prado Coelho., 1983
• Fernando Pessoa : aquém do eu, além do outro / Leyla Perrone-Moisés., 1982
• A "outra coisa" na poesia de Fernando Pessoa / Linhares Filho., 1982
• A metáfora e o fenómeno amoroso nos poemas ingleses de Fernando Pessoa / Catarina T F Edinger., 1982
• Fernando Pessoa, cidadão do imaginário / Joel Serrão., 1981
• Fernando Pessoa revisitado : leitura estruturante do drama em gente / Eduardo Lourenço., 1981
• Estudos sobre Fernando Pessoa / Georg Rudolf Lind., 1981
• Vida e Obra de Fernando Pessoa : história duma geração — 4.ª edição novamente revista, acompanhada de um novo esclarecedor prefácio e de uma tábua bibliográfica actualizada — 1.ª ed. 1954, 2.ª ed. 1971, 3.ª ed. 1973, / João Gaspar Simões., 1980

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Fernando Pessoa

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Wikisource has original works written by or about: Fernando Pessoa

This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (September 2009)

• Fernando Pessoa's Biography at Shearsman Books
• Fernando Pessoa at Enotes
• Fernando Pessoa at Astrotheme
• Casa Fernando Pessoa (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa)
• Multipessoa
• Arquivo Pessoa
• Poets.org Biography
• The Lonely Crowd
• Excerpts from The Book of Disquiet, in English
• Poem of Pessoa on a fort just off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• John Gray: Assault on Authorship
• John Hollander: Quadrophenia
• Dror Poleg: 'Incredulity towards Postmodernism: Baudrillard, Pessoa, and the Simulacra of Precession'
• Luis Filipe Teixeira: Pessoa essays in Portuguese
• Nos Jardins do Ofício: Pessoa e a Alquimia do Verbo
• Narciso e o Espelho. Virtualidade e Heteronímia ou as viagens pessoanas de Alice
• Corporeidades heteronímicas do Eu: Breve reflexão em torno da Estética pessoana
• A Casa e o Mundo
• Camões/Pessoa: Poetas da Viagem Utópica
• Pessoa's House
• Kirjasto Biography
• The Retired Major
• Fernando Pessoa in English, by himself and Jonathan Griffin
• Pessoa revisited (intertextuality)
• Poems of Fernando Pessoa
• Review of The Book of Disquiet
• Instituto de Estudos sobre o Modernismo / FCSH - UNL
• Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal
• Poems of Fernando Pessoa read in English and Portuguese