Fernando Pessoa - Portugal

Fernando Pessoa is the most celebrated Portuguese poet. He was a member of the Modernist group Orpheu, considered its greatest representative. Pessoa's use of "heteronyms", who support and criticize each other's works, was unconventional. During his career as a writer Pessoa was not famous and he published little of his vast body of work. Most of his life Pessoa lived in a furnished room in Lisbon, where he died in obscurity.

Pessoa earned a modest living as a commercial translator, and wrote avant-garde reviews, especially for Orpheu. Pessoa's first book, ANTINOUS, appeared in 1918, and was followed by two other collection of poems, all written in English. It was not until 1933 that he published his first book, MENSAGEM, in Portuguese. However, it did not attract much attention.

Under his own name Pessoa wrote poems that are marked by their innovative language. Much of his best work Pessoa attributed later to his heteronyms, de Campos, Reis, and Caeiro. Álvaro de Campos, an engineer, represents the ecstasy of experience; he writes in free verse. Ricardo Reis is an epicurean doctor with a classical education; he writes in meters and stanzas that recall Horace. Alberto Caeiro, who called himself a shepherd, is against all sentimentality, and writes in colloquial free verse. Each persona has a distinct philosophy of life. Pessoa even created literary discussions among them.

Pessoa left behind some 25,000 unpublished text and fragments. From the 1940s, his poetry started to gain a wider audience in Portugal and later Brazil. Several of his collections have been published posthumously and translated in Spanish, French, English, German, Swedish, Finnish, and other languages.

Known Literary Works:

·         Poesias de fernando pessoa

·         Poesias de álvaro de campos

·         Poemas de alberto caeiro

·         Odes de ricardo reis

·          livro do dessossogego

·         Mensagem

·         Cartas

·         Cartas de amor de fernando pessoa