Fernando Pessoa and his ‘people’ are not simply regarded as the most famous poets of the Portuguese language, but are also credited with sparking the modern movement in Portuguese literature in the twentieth century. Part of Pessoa’s intrigue lies in the various personas and figures he created with his pen over the course of his life, which he referred to as heteronyms. These heteronyms became “other” personas by which Pessoa could experiment with different styles and subject matter far outside the limitations of his own self, a fact made more interesting given that Pessoa’s last name literally translates from the Portuguese word for ‘person.’ The names of Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Álvaro de Campos became the most well-known of Pessoa’s dozens of heteronyms, each of which ‘birthed’ a large body of work that showcased different social, political, cultural and stylistic quirks specific to each respective persona. Below I’ve included four different poems penned by each of Pessoa’s heteronyms alongside a poem published under Pessoa’s own name so you can compare and contrast his differing styles for yourself!
Não me importo com as rimas. Raras vezes
Há duas árvores iguais, uma ao lado da outra.
Mas com menos perfeição no meu modo de exprimir-me
Porque me falta a simplicidade divina
De ser todo só o meu exterior.
Olho e comovo-me,
Comovo-me como a água corre quando o chão é inclindado,
E a minha poesia é natural como a levanter-se o vento…
Translation:
I don’t get caught up with rhymes. Rarely do you find
two identical trees, one next to the other.
I think and write just as flowers have color
But with less perfection in my method of expression
Because I lack the divine simplicity
To be anything but my exterior.
I look and move myself,
Move myself like water running on an inclined floor,
And my poetry is as natural as the breeze to the wind…
–Alberto Caeiro–
Não, não é cansaço…
É uma quantidade de desilusão
Que se me entranha na espécie de pensar.
É um domingo ás avessas
Do sentimento,
Um feriado passado no abismo…
Não, cansaço não é…
É eu estar existindo
E também o mundo,
Com tudo aquilo que contém,
Como tudo aquilo que nele se desdobra
E afinal é a mesma coisa variada em cópias iguais.
Translation:
No, no is fatigue…
A quantity of disillusion
That penetrates the species of thought.
It’s an upside down Sunday
Of feeling,
A past holiday in the abyss…
No, fatigue is not…
It is me existing
And also the world,
With all that it contains,
As with everything that in it unfolds
And at the end it’s the same thing varied in identical copies.
–Álvaro de Campos–
Para ser grande, sê inteiro: nada
Teu exagera ou exclui.
Sê todo em cada coisa. Põe quanto és
No mínimo que fazes.
Assim em cada lago a lua toda
Brilha, porque alta vive
Translation:
In order to be big, be whole: nothing
Of yours exaggerates or excludes.
Be all that is in everything. Put all of yourself
In the smallest things you do.
Like this in every lake the whole moon
Shines, because it lives high
–Ricardo Reis–
Não sei o quê desgosta
A minha alma doente.
Uma dor suposta
Dói-me realmente.
Como um barco absorto
Em se naufragar
Á vista do porto
E num calmo mar,
Por meu ser me afundo,
Pra longe a vista
Durmo o incerto mundo.
Translation:
I don’t know what sorrows
My sick soul.
A supposed pain
Hurting me real.
Like a boat absorbed
And shipwrecked
In sight of the port
In a calm sea,
In my being I drown,
From afar
While the uncertain world sleeps.
–Fernando Pessoa–
For more blog posts on poetry by other CLUJ editors, click here!
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