A Centenary Pessoa

by Fernando Pessoa, Translator Richard Zenith (Translator), Bernard McGuirk (Translator)

This book brings us Pessoa, the angel and the monster of modern his life, his works, and the works of art he inspired.

Genres: Portugal, Poetry, Literature

335 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa was a poet and writer.

It is sometimes said that the four greatest Portuguese poets of modern times are Fernando Pessoa. The statement is possible since Pessoa, whose name means ‘person’ in Portuguese, had three alter egos who wrote in styles completely different from his own. In fact Pessoa wrote under dozens of names, but Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Álvaro de Campos were – their creator claimed – full-fledged individuals who wrote things that he himself would never or could never write. He dubbed them ‘heteronyms’ rather than pseudonyms, since they were not false names but “other names”, belonging to distinct literary personalities. Not only were their styles different; they thought differently, they had different religious and political views, different aesthetic sensibilities, different social temperaments. And each produced a large body of poetry. Álvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis also signed dozens of pages of prose.

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.

Reviews

[Nadiya · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 stars for the selection of poetry. 3 stars for the prose part of the book.

[Mayta Quix · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this quasi anthology book before, during and after reading Saramago's book "The Year Of The Death Of Ricardo Reis" to really appreciate and know better the main characters of the book, which are the interchangeable separate entities Ricardo Reis and Fernando Pessoa, one is the creator of other, whoever that is..

Although my personality dictates that it is very difficult for me to fully enjoy this seemingly jumbled collection of what I may term as Pessoanism, I have to say that it serves well as an introduction of sorts to the poet, putting some of his texts together (verses and proses) and suggesting context to them, including commentaries, altogether creating a bust-like impression of an artist who is very elusive and whose works are bewilderingly diffuse...

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, wide-ranging overview of Pessoa's poetry, prose and criticism. Well illustrated and supplemented with a brilliant Introduction by Octavio Paz, which offers an invaluable guide to Pessoa's many styles and personas. A generous selection of the poetry allows us to pick out favourite homonyms and discern the way in which Pessoa's whole body of poetry works within itself. The prose and ciriticism sections are also well-stocked and make one wish for more translations of his work.

[Alamgeer]

It's like an omnibus selected all poems from his four pseudo-pen manes of four different style of poems and very many biographical events ! and also selection of his famous mental search of soul , excerpted from the book of solitude! and sketches and photo's of my favourite writer A beautiful read

[Toni Wu · Rating 4 out of 5]

自述那部分看得我GC了