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Fernando Pessoa

Genius is insanity made sane by dilution in the abstract, like a poison converted into a medicine by

About Me


"Poets don't have biographies. Their work is their biography. Pessoa, who always doubted the reality of this world, would readily approve if I were to go straight to his poems, forgetting the incidents and accidents of his earthly life. Nothing in his life is surprising - nothing except his poems. I do not think his "case history" - one must resign oneself to using that unpleasant term - explains them; I think that, in the light of his poems, his "case history" ceases to be one.

Anglomaniac, myopic, courteous, evasive,
dressed darkly,
reticent and agreeable,
cosmopolitan who preaches nationalism,
"solemn investigator of futile things",
humorist who never smiles but chills our blood,
inventor of other poets and destroyer of himself,
author of paradoxes clear as water and, as water, dizzying:
"to pretend is to know yourself ",

mysterious man who does not cultivate mystery,
mysterious as the mid-day moon,
taciturn phantom of the Portuguese mid-day,

who is Pessoa?
Pierre Hourcade, who knew him at the end of his life, writes: "Never, when I bade him good-bye, did I dare to turn back and look at him; I was afraid I would see him vanish, dissolved in air." Did he forget something?

He died in 1935, in Lisbon, of a hepatic colic.
He left two plaquettes of poems in English, a slim volume of Portuguese poems and a trunk full of manuscripts.
His complete works have yet to be published."
(Excerpt from Octavio Paz's "Introduction" to Fernando Pessoa: Antologia, Mexico 1962 - translation by Michael Schmidt).. Mediajestic
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Jun 13, 1888 - Lisbon
Nov 30, 1935 - Lisbon

My Blog

On Sunday I shall walk throught the gardens in the person of others

Poem by: Alvaro de Campos (original in portuguese).Translation © Keith BosleyAll Rights Reserved On Sunday I shall walk throught the gardens in the person of others,Content with my anonymity.On Sunday...
Posted by Fernando Pessoa on Wed, 03 Oct 2007 01:42:00 PST

Dom Sebatian, King of Portugal - D. Sebastião, Rei de Portugal

  Louco, sim, louco, porque quis minha grandeza Qual a Sorte a não dá. Não coube em mim minha certeza; Por isso onde o areal está Ficou meu ser que houve, não o que há. Minha loucura, outros que...
Posted by Fernando Pessoa on Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:44:00 PST

De la musique

De la musique  (Original title in French, original poem in Portuguese) Ah, pouco a pouco, entre as árvores antigas,   A figura dela emerge e eu deixo de pensar...    &nbs...
Posted by Fernando Pessoa on Wed, 25 Jul 2007 01:58:00 PST

Lisbon Revisited (1926)

Lisbon Revisited (1926) * *Note: Lisbon Revisited: original title in English. The fact that there is an earlier poem with the same title (dated 1923, not translated here) may explain the apparent tauy...
Posted by Fernando Pessoa on Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:03:00 PST

I am a keeper of flocks (sou um guardador de rebanhos)

Poem IX - I am a keeper of flocks (Sou um Guardador de Rebanhos). Original in portuguese I am a keeper of flocks.The flock is my thoughtsAnd my thoughts are all sensations.I think with my eyes a...
Posted by Fernando Pessoa on Thu, 17 May 2007 01:20:00 PST

You, Christ, I do not hate - Não a Ti, Cristo - No a ti, Cristo

You, Christ, I do not hate  (Original in Portuguese: "Não a Ti, Cristo") You, Christ, I do not hate or estimateLess than the other gods preceding youIn mankind's memory.Not more nor less are you,...
Posted by Fernando Pessoa on Wed, 02 May 2007 01:08:00 PST

I'm handed faith like a sealed package on a strange-looking platter and I'm expected to accept

6 May 1930Metaphysics has always struck me as a prolonged form of latent insanity. If we knew the truth we'd see it; everything else is systems and trappings. If we think, the world's incrustability i...
Posted by Fernando Pessoa on Mon, 09 Apr 2007 12:42:00 PST

Note - Apontamento

Note My soul has broken like an empty vase. It has fallen exceedingly downstair, Fallen from the hands of the careless maid, Fallen, smashed into more pieces than there was china in the vase.   ...
Posted by Fernando Pessoa on Fri, 30 Mar 2007 01:19:00 PST

Keeper of Flocks, poem VIII - Alberto Caeiro

Keeper of Flocks (O Guardador de Rebanhos), poem VIII Once at midday in late spring A dream came to me like a photograph. I saw Jesus Christ come down to earth. He came down the slope of a mountain,...
Posted by Fernando Pessoa on Fri, 09 Mar 2007 03:17:00 PST

My intense patriotic suffering

(original in English) My intense patriotic suffering, my intense desire of bettering the condition of Portugal provoke in me - how to express with what warmth, with what intensity, with what sincerity...
Posted by Fernando Pessoa on Thu, 22 Feb 2007 01:40:00 PST