Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa [ fɨɾnɐdu pɨsoɐ ] ( born June 13, 1888 in Lisbon, † November 30, 1935 ibid ), Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra actually Pessoa, was a Portuguese poet, writer, an employee of a trading house and humanities researchers. He wrote his works mainly among the three heteronyms Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, Álvaro de Campos and the Half - heteronym Bernardo Soares. More heteronyms Pessoa were the brothers Charles and James Alexander Search.

Pessoa is considered by Luís de Camões as the most important poet of Portugal; he is one of the most important poets of the Portuguese language and is one of the most significant authors of the 20th century.

Life

Pessoa was five years old when his father died of tuberculosis. The mother remarried two years later, the Portuguese consul in Durban / South Africa. There Pessoa spent much of his youth, and so came to the English culture in contact. At age 17, he returned to his native city of Lisbon and studied literature. Later he worked as a commercial correspondent and led until his death in an inconspicuous life.

A peculiarity of the author Pessoa is the use of heteronyms. These are, in contrast to usual pseudonyms for various fictional authors with their own biographies, their own writing styles, themes, motifs and philosophical contexts. The English translator Pessoa, Richard Zenith, is one of 72 different names, which is not always clear which of them are for heteronyms and pseudonyms which are - either for yourself or for Pessoa one of the heteronyms.

The three main heteronyms Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis. Pessoa describes the three as follows:

" Ricardo Reis was born in 1887 in Porto ( I do not remember the month and day, but somewhere I have the data); he is a doctor and currently available in Brazil. Alberto Caeiro was born in 1889 and died in 1915; he came to Lisbon to the world, but lived most of his life in the country. He had no job and almost no education. Álvaro de Campos was born in Tavira, on October 15, 1890 ( at 1:30 clock in the afternoon [ ...]). He is [ ... ] Marine Engineer ( studied in Glasgow ), but now he is here in Lisbon without action. "

Álvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis and Fernando Pessoa himself is described by Alberto Caeiro as their master. The key work for the three is Alberto Caeiros O Guardador de Rebanhos ( The Guardian of the herds ). This is a poem cycle that maintains a person designated by Pessoa, Campos and rice as paganism philosophy based on the theme of pastoral poetry.

Ricardo Reis follows this paganism in the form of a classical Neuhellenismus. His poems, which he called Oden, are heavily rhythmic. Álvaro de Campos is less tied to an external form; his poems are often without a fixed rhythm, but there are also some sonnets. Thematically they relate to an urban environment and showcase their lyrical I often as a failed genius, for example, in the famous poem Tabacaria (tobacco shop). For him, as for Fernando Pessoa himself is esp. of occultism as the link to Caeiros ' Paganism.

The relationship of the four mutually ( Pessoa self -employed persons) is not easy to decipher. This is due in part to the complex, often contradictory appearing structure of the texts. Thus, the first sentence of the cycle is the protector of the herds: I never treasured herds. But it also is due to the often misleading comments that Pessoa has left on the heteronyms. So Pessoa says about the writing style of the three:

" [ ... ] Caeiro wrote bad Portuguese, Campos acceptable, but with lapse as I myself 'instead of' myself ', etc. Reis writes better than I [! ], But with a purity that I find excessive. "

In Pessoa's participation Aleister Crowley staged in late August 1930 after his lover had left Hanni Jaeger him, his feigned suicide near Cascais, the " Boca do Inferno ".

Pessoa said the alcohol strongly, like smoked and died of cirrhosis of the liver. He had his last sentence written in English: I know not what tomorrow will bring ... ( I do not know what tomorrow will bring ). Since 1985, his remains are in the Portuguese National Shrine, the Jeronimos Monastery in Belem.

Work

Pessoa was estimated lifetime only by a few friends as a poet and recognized. Most of his unpublished manuscripts ended up in a chest. When he died, his work consisted of over 24,000 fragments. In addition to prose and gaskets include dramatic sketches, political and sociological writings to an epochal estate, which is still not fully edited and published.

Pessoa began his literary activity, writing poems in the English language and English poems translated into Portuguese. This was followed by poems in Portuguese in several magazines. Finally Pessoa founded ( with Mário de Sá Carneiro - ) self magazine Orpheu.

The Book of Disquiet ( Livro Do desassossego ) is regarded as his most important prose work. Pessoa collected from about 1913 to 1934 diary-like reflections and observations, which he wrote down on slips of paper and notebooks. He intended his own lifetime to publish these notes under the title Book of Disquiet. But only 47 years after his death, published in 1982 a first edition. The current issue contains 481 self-contained sections, most of which get Pessoa on a litter down.

It is dense, poetic accuracy of the representation and acts mainly on the perception and description of subtle things of everyday life and existence in general. In his intellectual brilliance and superiority, it is not without sadness and cold.

Pessoa was friends with Aleister Crowley and under this impression wrote a number of political and esoteric writings, which identifies it as radically anti-democratic thinker with strong messianic trains.

Presence influences

Fernando Pessoa is considered one of the great writers of the 20th century and has become for many Portuguese literary father figure.

The Nobel Prize winner José Saramago dedicated to the author in his novel O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis (Eng. The year of death of Ricardo Reis ). In German, the Swiss Ammann Verlag, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag and Verlag Klaus Wagenbach books have published by Pessoa.

In 1992, at his life's work Following the Fernando Pessoa University founded; In 1996 the first German -language biography Pessoa a translation of Ángel Crespo La vida plural de Fernando Pessoa.

In recent years, two collections of his political writings, which were published by Brunello De Cusitas published. The first collection, Scritti di teoria politica e sociologia that contains fonts that Pessoa published in his lifetime. The second collection, Roma: Settimo Sigillo (1994 ), contains the unpublished writings.

Biographies (selection)

About Pessoa several biographies were written.

• Ángel Crespo: La vida de Fernando Pessoa plural. Barcelona:. Seix Barral 1988 ( Eng.:. Fernando Pessoa The amplified Life Zurich Ammann 1996.. )
• Robert Bréchon: Etrange étranger. Paris 1996.
• João Gaspar Simões: Vida e obra de Fernando Pessoa. Lisboa 1991.

Works (selection)

• [ Alberto Caeiro ]. Poesias - poetry. Ammann, Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-250-10451-5
• [ Álvaro de Campos ]. Seals. Ammann, Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-250-10454-4
• [ António Mora ]. Return of the Gods. Ammann, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-250-10452-3
• The Book of Disquiet of the auxiliary bookkeeper Bernardo Soares. Ammann, Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-250-10450-7
• An anarchist banker. Fischer, Frankfurt 2003, ISBN 3-8031-1105-6
• Fist. A subjective tragedy; Fragments and drafts. Ammann, Zurich 1990, ISBN 3-250-10136-2
• Lisbon. What the tourist should see. TFM - Publishing Teo Ferrer de Mesquita, Frankfurt 1995, ISBN 3-925203-42-7
• My Lisbon, what the traveler should see. Ammann, Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-250-30007-1
• Mensagem - Embassy, 1935
• [ Ricardo Reis ]. Oden. Ammann, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-250-10453-1
• Jews and Freemasonry. Essay. Edition Erata, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-86660-001-1
• Genius and insanity. Writings to an intellectual biography. Ammann, Zurich, 2010, ISBN 978-3-250-10456-8
• 144 quatrains. Ammann, Zurich, 1995, ISBN 3-250-10221-0
• Fernando Pessoa. Documents to the person and selected letters. Ammann, Zurich, 1988, ISBN 3-250-10112-5
• If the heart could think. Sets of the complete works, compiled by Marie -Luise Flammersfeld and Egon Ammann. Ammann, Zurich 2006, ISBN 3-250-25001-5