Fernando Pessoa is one of the greatest writers of literature in portuguese language and it certainly occupies a prominent place in world literature as well. A poet with unparalleled characteristics, he gave new meanings to his poetic work, making use of the resource of heteronym, peculiarity that made him a multiple artist. Pessoa was many in one, and from the poet's outpourings other personalities were born.
Fernando Pessoa's trajectory
Fernando Pessoawas born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1888. In 1914, he wrote the first poems of his main heteronyms: Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis. Under the heteronym of Bernardo Soares, considered the poet's alter-ego, he wrote the fragments that were later collected in the book of restlessness, one of his most important works. His name is also linked to Portuguese modernism, a movement he pioneered alongside writers Almada Negreiros and Mario de Sá-Carneiro. Helped found the magazine orpheus, responsible for disseminating modernist ideas in Portugal and also in Brazil.
Read too:Five poems from Portuguese Literature
Although he had a fruitful literary career, the only book of poetry in Portuguese he published in his lifetime was Message, in the year 1934. The poet, who was literate in English (the stepfather's diplomatic career took the family to Durban, South Africa) wrote most of his books in this language, reconciling the craft of writer with that of a translator. He translated important authors, including Lord Byron, Shakespeare and the main stories of Edgar Allan Poe, among them, the most famous, The crow. He died in his hometown, Lisbon, in 1935, but remains present with all the strength and originality of his work.
In order for you to learn a little more about the legacy of this writer, who is fundamental to the history of literature in Portuguese, Brasil Escola has selected the best poems by Fernando Pessoa. We hope that you feel instigated and invited to discover, after this brief meeting with the poet, a little more of the work of one of the most important writers in the world. Good reading!
While alive, Fernando Pessoa published only one book in Portuguese, the book of poems Message
5 best poems by Fernando Pessoa
straight poem
I never knew anyone who had been beaten.
All my acquaintances have been champions in everything.
And I, so often paltry, so often pig, so often vile,
I so often irresponsibly parasitic,
Inexcusably dirty.
I, who so often have not had the patience to take a shower,
I, who so often have been ridiculous, absurd,
That I have publicly wrapped my feet in the label mats,
That I've been grotesque, petty, submissive and arrogant,
That I've been spoiled and silent,
That when I haven't been silent, I've been even more ridiculous;
I, who have been comical to hotel maids,
I, who have been feeling the blink of the eyes of the freight men,
I, who have been doing financial shame, borrowed
[without pay,
I, who, when punch time came, have been crouching
Out of the Punch Chance;
I, who have suffered the anguish of ridiculous little things,
I find that I have no match for all this in this world.
Everyone I know who talks to me
There was never a ridiculous act, never suffered defilement,
He was never but a prince — all of them princes — in his life…
I wish I heard someone's human voice
That he confessed not a sin but an infamy;
That it counted, not violence, but cowardice!
No, they are all the Ideal, if I hear them and speak to me.
Who is there in this wide world who confesses to me that he was once vile?
Oh princes, my brothers,
Arre, I'm sick of demigods!
Where is there people in the world?
So is it just me who is vile and wrong on this earth?
Women may not have loved them,
They may have been betrayed—but never ridiculous!
And I, who have been ridiculous without being betrayed,
How can I talk to my superiors without hesitation?
I, who have been vile, literally vile,
Vile in the mean and infamous sense of vileness.
Álvaro de Campos
autopsychography
The poet is a pretender.
pretend so completely
Who even pretends it's pain
The pain that he really feels.
And those who read what he writes,
In pain they feel good,
Not the two he had,
But only the one they don't have.
And so on the wheel rails
It turns, to entertain the reason,
that rope train
That's called heart.
Fernando Pessoa
I do not know how many souls I have
I do not know how many souls I have.
Every moment I changed.
I continually find myself strange.
I never saw myself or finished.
From so much being, I only have a soul.
Who has a soul is not calm.
Who sees is only what sees,
Who feels is not who he is,
Attentive to what I am and see,
I become them and not me.
every my dream or wish
It is from what is born and not mine.
I am my own landscape;
I watch my passage,
Diverse, mobile and only,
I don't know how to feel where I am.
So, someone else, I'm reading
Like pages, my being.
What follows not foreseeing,
What happened to forget.
I note in the margin of what I read
What I thought I felt.
I reread it and say, "Was it me?"
God knows, because he wrote it.
Fernando Pessoa
Not having a phylosophy is also necessary
It's not enough to open the window
To see the fields and the river.
It's not enough not to be blind
To see the trees and flowers.
Not having a phylosophy is also necessary.
With philosophy there are no trees: there are only ideas.
There's just each one of us, like a cellar.
There's only one closed window, and everybody out there;
And a dream of what you might see if the window were opened,
Which is never what you see when you open the window.
Alberto Caeiro
reap the day because you are him
Some, with their eyes on the past,
They see what they don't see: others, eyes
Same eyes in the future, see
What cannot be seen.
Why go so far to put what is close —
Our security? this is the day,
This is the time, this the moment, this
It's who we are, and that's all.
Perennial flows the endless hour
That confesses us null. in the same breath
In which we live, we will die. harvest
The day, because you are him.
Ricardo Reis
By Luana Castro
Graduated in Letters
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/literatura/os-melhores-poemas-fernando-pessoa.htm