Concerning Fernando Pessoa

[MaybeSomeone]

Does anyone know who Fernando Pessoa is? Without going to wikipedia... thanks for wasting time answering. I would like to know (if you know some is work) your opinion about, with would be cool to exchange some thoughts. Thanks again

[MaybeSomeone]

If you have not read any of his works try "the book of disquiet", other literary does not get to be more darker than this and does not get to be as brilliant as this. He is one of the most talent writters of all time.

[stlukesguild]

A fascinating writer... or rather "writers". I'm quite intrigued by the idea of his heteronyms and the idea of eliminating the usual accepted single "true" voice of the poet. Just a Shakespeare and Chaucer could invent characters each having their own unique voice, Pessoa does this with poetry. I was quite enamored of his book, The Keeper of Sheep written under the name of Alberto Caeiro... but honestly he is a writer I want to... need to... explore in greater depth.

[MaybeSomeone]

Yes indeed! At school school I studied his most important heteronym's, Alvaro de campos (try the poems: Ode triunfal (its written in portuguese), and or Ultimatum, just to get a grasp of this one. Ricardo Reis is really good to, Alberto Caeiro is awesome, his simplicity is marvellous... If you want to read directly in english, you can find easily poems on the internet of his english heteronym Alexander Search(he wrote in many languages), but the best is the "Book of Disquiet", everyone should read this one at least once ( this war written by his semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares). If you want to see the movie concerning this book search for The film of disquiet or you can download it on the internet since it comes with english subtitles. You can his ortonym (Fernando Pessoa) poem "Tabacaria" its great, or some philosophy articles, you'll find out that his philosophy his really profound and original...

[MaybeSomeone]

Autopsychography







by Fernando Pessoa (himself)








The poet is a faker
Who’s so good at his act
He even fakes the pain
Of pain he feels in fact.

And those who read his words
Will feel in what he wrote
Neither of the pains he has
But just the one they don’t.

And so around its track
This thing called the heart winds,
A little clockwork train
To entertain our minds.

This a grasp of one of the ortonyms poems, I toke the liberty to show you here because it can be difficult to find ( or not..) . :)

[MaybeSomeone]

FERNANDO PESSOA / ÁLVARO DE CAMPOS




TABACARIA
Tobacco Shop




I am nothing.

Never I'll be anything.

I cannot wish to be anything.
Aside from this, I have within me all the dreams of the world.




Windows of my bedroom,

Of my bedroom of one of the world's millions nobody knows who is

(And if they knew who is, what would they know?)

Give access to the mystery of a street constantly crossed by people.
To a street inaccessible to all of thoughts,

Real, impossibly real, certain, unknowingly certain,




With the mystery of things beneath the stones and beings,

With death putting dampness in the walls and men's white hairs,

With Destiny driving the wagon of everything through the road of nothing.




Today I am defeated, as if I knew the truth.

Today I am lucid, as if I were about to die

And had no more brotherhood with things

Than a goodbye, becoming this house and this streetside

A row of train wagons, and a whistled departure

From inside my head,

And a jolt of my nerves and a grind of bones on the going.




Today I am perplexed, as one who wondered and found and forgot.

Today I am divided between the loyalty I owe

To the Tobacco Shop on the other side of the street, as external real thing,

And to the feeling that everything is a dream, as inward real thing.




I have failed in everything.

And since I had no purposes, maybe everything was nothing.

The learning they gave me,

I go down from this by the window at the back of the house.

I went to the open country with grand purposes.

But there I found only grass and trees,

And when there were people, they were just as other.

I move away from the window, I sit in a chair. What shall I think about ?




What know I about what I will be, I who don't know what I am?
To be hat I think? But I think to be many things!
And there are many people thinking they are the same thing then
cannot be possible there are many!
Genius? At this moment




Hundred thousand brains conceive themselves in dream as geniuses like me,
And the History won't mark, who knows?, not even one,
No, I don't believe in myself.
In all of madhouses there are madpersons insanes with so many sureties!
I, who I have not any surety, am more sure or less sure?
No, not even in myself...




In how much garrets and no-garrets of the world
At this moment are there geniuses-for-themselves dreaming?
How much high and noble and lucid aspirations -
Yes, truly high and noble and lucid -,
And who knows if realizable,
Never they will see the real sun's light nor will find people's ears?
The world is for the one who that is born to conquest it
And not for the one who dreams might can conquest it, even
the one have reason.




I have dreamed more than Napoleon did.

I have held tight to the hypothetical chest more humanities than Christ,

I have secretly created philosophies which no Kant has ever written.

But I am, and maybe always should be, the one from the garret

Although I don't live in it;

I shall always be the one not born for this;

I shall always be the one who just had qualities;

I shall always be the one who has waited for a gate to open to him
near a doorless wall


And sang the ballad of the Infinite in a poultry yard,

And heard God's voice in a covered well.

Believe in myself? No, nor in anything.

May Nature be spilled on my feverish head

Her sun, her rain, the wind that finds my hair,

And the rest, let it come if it must, or not come.

Heartly slaves to the stars,

We have conquered the whole world before leaving our beds;

But we were awakened and it was opaque,

We rose and it was indifferent,

We left the house and it was the whole earth,

Moreover the Solar System, the Milky Way and the Indefinite.




(Eat chocolates, little one;

Eat chocolates!

Know there are no metaphysics in the world but chocolates.

Know that all religions don't teach more than confectionery.

Eat, dirty little one, eat!

If only I could eat chocolates with the same truth as you do!

But I think and, when I lift the silver paper of a tin-foil leaf,

I let everything fall to the ground, as I have lost to my life.)




But, at least, remains from the bitterness of what I will never be.
The speedy calligraphy of these verses,
Broken portico to the Impossible.




But, at least, I devote to myself a despisal without tears,
Noble, at least, in this wide gesture with I throw
The dirty clothes that I am, without roll, to the course of things,
And I stay in home without shirt.




(You, who consoles, not exists and so console,
Or greek goddess, conceived as a living statue,
Or roman patrician, impossibly noble and nefast,
Or princess of minstrels, very gentil and colorful,
Or marquess of eighteenth century, décolleté and very so far,
Or famous cocote of the time od our fathers,
Or modern thing I not know – I not know what -
all of this, be what will be, what you are, if you can inspire then inspire!
My heart is a poured out bucket.
As that ones invocating spirits invocate spirits I invocate
Myself and I find nothing.
I come close to the window and I see the street with a absolute clearness.
I see the shops, I see the sidewalks, I see the passing cars,
I see the dressed living ones crossing by themselves,
I see the dogs also existing,
And all of this is foreign, as everything. )




I lived, studied, loved, and even believed,
And today there is no beggar whom I not envy just for he is not me.




I look at everyone the rags and the sores and the lie,
And I think: maybe never I had lived nor studied nor loved nor believed
(For is possible to make the reality of all of this without making nothing about this)
Maybe existed just as lizard which the tail they had cut
And the tail besides the lizard at movement.




I had made with myself what I never knew,
And what I could make with me I did not.
The domino which I dressed was wrong.
They knew me soon as who I am not and I not deny and lost myself.




When I want draw out the mask,
It was glued to the face.
When I drew out and saw myself at the mirror,
Already I had aged.
I was drunk, already I not knew how dress the domino I had not drawn out.
I threw away the mask and I slept in the cloakroom
As a dog tolerated by the manager
Because it is harmless
And I will write this history to prove I am sublime.




Musical essence of my useless verses,

If I could find you as something I had made
And not stay always in front of the Tabacco Shop in front,

Treading underfoot the consciousness of be existing,

As a carpet where a drunkard stumbles on

Or a door-mat stolen by gypsies and it worths nothing.




But the Tobacco Shop owner has come to the door and is standing there.

I look at him with the discomfort of an half-turned head

And the discomfort of a soul understanding a bit.

He shall die and I shall die.

He shall leave his signboard and I shall leave my verses.

His sign will die, and so will my verses.
And after any moment will die too the street where the signboard is,

And so will the language in which the verses are written.

And so will die the whirling planet where all of this happened.

On other satellites of other systems something like people

Will go on making something like verses and living under things like signboards,




Always one thing in front of the other,

Always one thing as useless as the other,

Always the impossible as stupid as the real,

Always the mystery of the bottom as sure as the sleep of mystery of the top.

Always this or always some other thing, or neither one nor the other,


But a man has entered the Tobacco Shop (to buy tobacco?),

And the plausible reality suddenly falls upon me.

I half rouse myself, energetic, convinced, human,

And I will try to write these verses in which I say the opposite.


I light a cigarette as I think about writing them.

And I taste in the cigarette the liberation from all thoughts.

I follow the smoke as if it were a particular course,

And enjoy, in a sensitive and competent moment,

The liberation of all the speculations

And the conscience that metaphysics is a consequence of bad disposition.


After I lie down on the chair

And continue smoking.

While Destiny allows to me, I will keep smoking.




(If I married my washwoman's daughter

Maybe I should be happy.)

Then, I rise. I go to the window.




The man has come out from the Tobacco Shop (putting change in the pocket of trousers?).

Ah, I know him: he is Esteves without metaphysics.

(The Tobacco Shop owner has come to the door.)

As if by a divine instinct, Esteves turned around and saw me.

He waved goodbye, I greet him "goodbye oh Esteves!", and the universe

Reconstructed itself for me, without ideal nor hope, and the Tobacco Shop owner smiled.

[Pierre Menard]

I'm currently reading 'The Book of Disquiet'.
It's beautiful and utterly heartbreaking at times. Richard Zenith's translation is excellent for newbies as well, flows beautifully off the page and his knowledge about Pessoa is invaluable.

Looking forward to moving on to his poetry.

[MaybeSomeone]

Try the Film of Disquiet. Its an interesting approch to the content on the book.

[JCamilo]

The most interesting of Pessoa is how he trully combines many poets, even those who lived at sametime as him. His relation to Camoes is similar to Yeats relation to celtic myth, his identidy experimentant put him close to Borges, his enthusiatic whitmanism to Neruda, his experimentation to Eliot, his prose to Rilke... not just the past poets. And he does it in the same level the others do.

In my opinion, Pessoa in portuguese language is only challenged by Camoes.

[MaybeSomeone]

And Padre (Priest) António Vieira, the one who developed the concept of the "Fifth Empire". Padre António Vieira, Luis de Camões e Fernando Pessoa are the titans of portuguese literature, and world literature ofcourse.

[Heteronym]

Does anyone know who Fernando Pessoa is?

Hm, sounds like a trick question to me...

[ennison]

Is it the "is" that gives it away. Ha ha. When I was young ( even younger than I now am) Pessoa, Crane , and Elder Olson (Chigago) were my favourite poets.