Sentir Tudo de Todas as Maneiras

January 11, 2022 4:18 AM

Inventing an avant-garde movement and its principal protagonists, then attempting to institutionalize the movement with literary criticism written by yet more imagined personae: it seems, at first, insane. Indeed, Pessoa feared for his sanity as a youth, having watched his paternal grandmother lose her grip on reality. But as a student of fin-de-siècle theories that posited a correlation between artistic genius and mental degeneracy, Pessoa decided his mind was one thus afflicted. Regardless of its cause, Pessoa’s mad strategy succeeded. from Conceptual Personae - The many imagined lives of Fernando Pessoa

The article, prompted by Richard Zenith's recent biography of Pessoa, includes a link to the massive online archive of the poet's work, which includes many poems in English (index line #7 "Poesia Inglesa").

Source of the post title: Álvaro de Campos, "Sentir tudo de todas as maneiras"

Quetzal publica biografia de Fernando Pessoa por Richard Zenith

Richard Zenith presents Pessoa: A Biography in conversation with Patricio Ferrari

posted by chavenet (3 comments total)

Sincerely, the way Pessoa is described is empowering. Sock puppets are a lesser version of his noble conceptual personae. With regards to incomplete projects, we might allow that people are suffering from executive function disorder, but never admire them for being an embodiment of the philosophy of Sensationism.
posted by otherchaz at 7:59 AM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Wow, you weren't kidding about that archive! Thank you.
posted by the sobsister at 9:26 AM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Pessoa truly is an endlessly fascinating figure. I was going to say there must be worlds in which he is a heterónimo of Ricardo Reis, Álvaro dos Campos, etc., but no. They would not need to create anyone, especially anyone like Fernando Pessoa.

Zenith has done a ton of good work in translating him over the years, but I haven't worked up the guts to tackle the ~1000 pages of his Pessoa biography.
posted by heteronym at 11:40 AM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]