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Poesia de Fernando Pessoa
224 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2022
About the author
Fernando Pessoa
1,274 books6,490 followersFernando 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.
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.
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April 21, 2026
Simplesmente incrível. Tanto a antologia de Casais Monteiro - embora um tanto complexa - quanto a cuidadosa (e digo cuidadosa porque efetivamente o é) seleção de poemas, que têm até coerência cronológica, são de louvar. Neste livro encontramos o que de melhor Pessoa escreveu (ainda que possam faltar alguns poemas de grande relevância como é o caso do Opiário, Ode Triunfal, Mar Português), desde a sua fase mais nostálgica, à fase da dor de pensar, à fase do fingimento, contando ainda com pequenos trechos referentes ao ocultismo e à Ordem de Rosacruz (incluindo um poema com o nome do manifesto rosacruciano elaborado por Francis Bacon). Para além dos, ainda que obrigatórios, poemas dos seus mais importantes Heterónimos (refiro-me, naturalmente, a Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis e Álvaro de Campos), este livro conta com traduções, ritmicamente conforme os originais, de Edgar Alan Poe, que eu, ainda que não aprecie tanto quanto a poesia de Pessoa, li prazerosamente. Resta apenas saudar a forma como este livro finda, com a tão célebre carta de Pessoa a Adolfo Casais Monteiro - que, repito, fez um excelente trabalho neste volume - e ainda, as "Notas para a recordação do meu mestre Caeiro" assinadas por Álvaro de Campos, que considero serem uma muito digna forma de terminar este livro, que em tantos aspetos homenageia Pessoa e a sua vastíssima obra.
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