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A review by msand3
Poems of Fernando Pessoa by Fernando Pessoa
5.0
“My memory itself is a void, I feel
That who I am and who I was
Are different dreams.”
Certain writers come along at just the right moment in your life to give voice to exactly how you feel -- even when you have a hard time expressing it yourself. Pessoa is that writer for me now. Of course, I had known his work -- both [b:The Book of Disquiet|45974|The Book of Disquiet|Fernando Pessoa|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1382871857s/45974.jpg|983806], which I’ve owned for years but haven’t gotten around to reading, and his famous heteronymic poetry -- but this is the first time I’ve really delved into his poetry. He is the great poet of the search for identity and meaning in a world where everything is artifice. Only in the fictions of fiction can we attempt to touch truth -- but even then it is a tenuous grasp.
“What is true? What is’t that seems --
The lie that’s in reality
Or the lie that is in dreams?”
Pessoa wrote those words in English at the age of 19. He seems to have intuited the impossibility of knowledge and self-knowledge at an early age.
I strongly identified with his verse and the multiple perspectives from with each of his poetic voices emerged: the plain-spoken and direct pastoral observations of “Alberto Caeiro,” the Romantic and pagan lyrics of “Ricardo Reis,” and the Whitman-esque odes to doubt and alienation penned by “Alvaro de Campos.”
I want to explore the poems of each of these heteronyms in more detail in the future. The selection in the edition translated by Peter Rickard (which I couldn't find on Goodreads) contained the best of each heteronym, but I’d love to read much more. Rickard’s lengthy introduction (half the book) provided the perfect historical, biographical, and critical introduction to Pessoa I could have wanted.
Pessoa is the perfect poet for anyone who feels as if they are constantly searching for meaning or understanding, and who are dismayed by those who are too thoughtless to have the same type of self-reflection, as well as by those who claim to have any answers. Individuation is contradictory and impossible, Pessoa maintains, but in that search is the stuff of life itself. So also with poetry and art and love -- even when they fail us. Pessoa expresses that failure perhaps better than any other poet of the 20th century.
That who I am and who I was
Are different dreams.”
Certain writers come along at just the right moment in your life to give voice to exactly how you feel -- even when you have a hard time expressing it yourself. Pessoa is that writer for me now. Of course, I had known his work -- both [b:The Book of Disquiet|45974|The Book of Disquiet|Fernando Pessoa|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1382871857s/45974.jpg|983806], which I’ve owned for years but haven’t gotten around to reading, and his famous heteronymic poetry -- but this is the first time I’ve really delved into his poetry. He is the great poet of the search for identity and meaning in a world where everything is artifice. Only in the fictions of fiction can we attempt to touch truth -- but even then it is a tenuous grasp.
“What is true? What is’t that seems --
The lie that’s in reality
Or the lie that is in dreams?”
Pessoa wrote those words in English at the age of 19. He seems to have intuited the impossibility of knowledge and self-knowledge at an early age.
I strongly identified with his verse and the multiple perspectives from with each of his poetic voices emerged: the plain-spoken and direct pastoral observations of “Alberto Caeiro,” the Romantic and pagan lyrics of “Ricardo Reis,” and the Whitman-esque odes to doubt and alienation penned by “Alvaro de Campos.”
I want to explore the poems of each of these heteronyms in more detail in the future. The selection in the edition translated by Peter Rickard (which I couldn't find on Goodreads) contained the best of each heteronym, but I’d love to read much more. Rickard’s lengthy introduction (half the book) provided the perfect historical, biographical, and critical introduction to Pessoa I could have wanted.
Pessoa is the perfect poet for anyone who feels as if they are constantly searching for meaning or understanding, and who are dismayed by those who are too thoughtless to have the same type of self-reflection, as well as by those who claim to have any answers. Individuation is contradictory and impossible, Pessoa maintains, but in that search is the stuff of life itself. So also with poetry and art and love -- even when they fail us. Pessoa expresses that failure perhaps better than any other poet of the 20th century.