A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe Page 3

  In 1919 Pessoa filled up a notebook with copious plans for an even more grandiose enterprise—tentatively called Cosmópolis, or Olisipo—whose mission would be to foster cultural and commercial exchange between Britain and Portugal. A conglomerate with offices in Lisbon and London, it would provide information for businessmen and travelers, translation and interpretation services, legal advice, publicity and public relations expertise, research and editorial assistance, and a host of other services. The Lisbon branch would also include a subsidiary company for promoting Portuguese products and encouraging new industries, a school offering courses in business training and cultural enrichment, and a publishing house that would publish not only books by contemporary authors but also literary classics in cheap editions, magazines, business directories, and guidebooks.

  What finally emerged from all these plans, in 1921, was a small commercial agency and publishing house called Olisipo, which did little more than publish half a dozen books, including two chapbooks of Pessoa’s English poems, a re-edition of a poetry collection by the openly homosexual António Botto, and a booklet by the even more stridently homosexual Raul Leal, whose Sodoma Divinizada (Sodom Deified) did exactly what its title promised. Conservative Catholic students launched a campaign against the “literature of Sodom,” the two books were banned, and Pessoa counterattacked, through self-published handbills that mocked the students’ pretended morality and fervently defended his authors. This episode reveals another facet of Pessoa’s program to shake up and educate Portuguese society and, if possible, European civilization in general, since a book like Raul Leal’s would have caused public indignation through most of the continent. Though Pessoa tended to be conservative in his politics, his defense of an individual’s right to free expression—even in sexual matters—was far advanced for his time.

  In 1924 Pessoa founded Athena, whose five issues demonstrated, in exemplary fashion, how his literary self-promotion dovetailed with his concern to elevate Portuguese culture. The magazine, beginning with its title and elegant graphic presentation, was an ideal illustration of the New Renaissance presaged by Pessoa twelve years earlier and a showcase for the Great Poet—Fernando Pessoa—who was supposed to spearhead Portugal’s cultural rebirth. It was in this exquisite publication—which included art reproductions, essays signed by Pessoa and by Álvaro de Campos, and translations by Pessoa of inscriptions from The Greek Anthology, poems of Edgar Allan Poe, and an excerpt from Walter Pater’s essay on da Vinci—that Ricardo Reis and Alberto Caeiro were first revealed to the public, with a large selection of poems by each.

  The neo-Greek revival that these two heteronyms were meant to foreshadow—Reis with the atmosphere of antiquity and abundant references to the gods in his odes, Caeiro with the “absolute objectivity” of his clear, direct seeing—was undergirded by “neopaganism,” a philosophical and religious system embedded in their poetry and expounded on in theoretical texts signed by Reis and António Mora, a heteronym conceived as a “philosophical follower” of Caeiro.

  To wonder if Pessoa believed in the pagan gods whose return he heralded and advocated for Portugal is like wondering if he “believed” in the heteronyms who embodied (especially Caeiro) or espoused (Reis and Mora) the neopagan cause. They and it were part of the same package, or rather, of the same dispersion, since what Pessoa did not believe in was unity. “Nature is parts without a whole” was, according to Pessoa, Caeiro’s greatest, truest verse (from the forty-seventh poem of The Keeper of Sheep), and in a Reis ode he proposed that “as each fountain / Has its own deity, might not each man / Have a god all his own?” The phenomenon of heteronymy reflects Pessoa’s conviction that even at the level of the self there is no unity, and if he championed the resurgence of paganism with its myriad gods, it is because he rejected the vision of an ultimate, otherworldly unity propounded by Christianity and other monotheistic religions. Which isn’t to say that he did not desire unity. In the heteronymy of his fragmented self Pessoa, paradoxically, endeavored to construct a small but complete universe of interrelated parts forming a coherent whole. And his literary creations were all attempts to achieve a moment of unity, an instance of perfection, in the midst of the general chaos of existence.

  Perhaps because of his nagging awareness of that chaos, Pessoa, notwithstanding his compulsion to doubt everything, believed or wanted to believe in a spiritual dimension. His religious attitude seems to be well expressed in the opening verses of a poem by Álvaro de Campos, whose later work tended to speak directly from his maker’s heart:

  I don’t know if the stars rule the world

  Or if tarot or playing cards

  Can reveal anything.

  I don’t know if the rolling of dice

  Can lead to any conclusion.

  But I also don’t know

  If anything is attained

  By living the way most people do.

  5 January 1935

  Though he didn’t know what, if anything, is behind or beyond what we are and see, Pessoa was clearly not interested in “living the way most people do.” He spent his entire life searching for the Truth, when he wasn’t inventing it, and this search led him into a whole panoply of esoteric disciplines and occult practices. As far as the stars were concerned, he was an avid astrologer, having cast hundreds of horoscopes for friends, family members, historical and cultural figures, and for himself. More significantly, he read dozens of books and wrote hundreds of pages on mysticism, on hermetic traditions such as the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, and Freemasonry, and on theosophy, alchemy, numerology, magic, and spiritism.

  This interest in the occult combined with Pessoa’s patriotic bent to produce what he called “mystical nationalism,” expressed in his Fifth Empire doctrine and immortalized in Mensagem (Message), a kind of esoteric rewriting of Camões’s The Lusiads. The only book of Pessoa’s Portuguese poetry to see print in his lifetime, in 1934, Mensagem was not a mere exercise in nostalgia for Portugal’s glory days during the Age of Discovery. Those glory days were to be Portugal’s future as well as past destiny, and that future was now, according to the book’s final verse: “The Hour has come!”

  When we put all the pieces together—heteronymy, the New Renaissance, the Great Poet, the Fifth Empire, mystical nationalism, and neopaganism, with Master Caeiro as its avatar—we arrive at a bizarre ultimate vision: Portugal as the hub of a cultural empire masterminded by Pessoa and radiating out to the rest of Europe, with neopaganism having replaced Catholicism, Alberto Caeiro having replaced Jesus as a new, different kind of Messiah, and perhaps Álvaro de Campos (who always dreamed of being Caesar) sitting on the emperor’s throne. Pessoa, surely, did not believe in this vision in any kind of literal way. But he did believe in it poetically, metaphorically. He did stake his life and his poetic name on it. For him and in him, in his world of heteronyms, the New Renaissance, the Fifth Empire, and neopaganism existed. And according to the literary history of twentieth-century Portugal, the Great Poet (as great as, if not greater than, Camões) was indeed born in 1888.

  The essence of Pessoa’s nationalistic ideal, and the means for its realization, is expressed in a passage from The Book of Disquiet that he published in a magazine, in 1931:

  I have no social or political sentiments, and yet there is a way in which I’m highly nationalistic. My nation is the Portuguese language. It wouldn’t trouble me at all if Portugal were invaded or occupied, as long as I was left in peace. But I hate with genuine hatred, with the only hatred I feel, not those who write bad Portuguese . . . , but the badly written page itself . . . .

  The Book of Disquiet was attributed to Bernardo Soares, a fictional bookkeeper whom Pessoa considered a “semi-heteronym,” since his personality was similar, though not identical, to his own. Pessoa, writing under his own name, would never have said that he had no political sentiments; but for him, as for Soares, the well-written page was his passion, and the well-written page in Portuguese was his nation, his nationalism. Pessoa was in fact actively e
ngaged in the society and the politics of his day, but it was through the written word that he took his stands, which included, in the last year of his life, 1935, a direct affront to the Salazar regime, when it passed a law banning secret societies such as Freemasonry.

  And Pessoa’s private life? His family relations? His loves? Pessoa maintained close ties with his relatives, living as a young man with various aunts (when he wasn’t living in rented rooms), and with his mother and half sister after they returned from South Africa in 1920, following the death of Pessoa’s stepfather. And Pessoa was loyal to his friends, mostly literary sorts, whom he met regularly in Lisbon’s cafés. But with friends as with family, Pessoa remained resolutely private. He was a good conversationalist, witty, and in his way generous, but his inner life and emotions were channeled into his writing. He had one romantic liaison, which was also largely a written matter: a series of love letters exchanged in 1920 and again in 1929. Pessoa, especially in the second phase of the relationship, played some high literary sport, signing one of his letters as Álvaro de Campos, while in others he claimed to be going mad. The sweet-heart, Ophelia Queiroz, reported when she was much older that Pessoa, whom she met in an office where they both worked, first declared his love with candle in hand and words borrowed from Hamlet: “O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not art to reckon my groans: but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it.” Could it have been her name that induced ultraliterary, ever-playful Pessoa to woo her in the first place?

  When he was a little boy, literature was Pessoa’s playground, and he never really left it. Like a lot of artists, but more so, Fernando Pessoa refused to grow up. He continued to live in a world of make-believe. Or shall we call it a world of make-literature? Believing, mere believing, bored Pessoa. Like a good artist, he harnessed his fertile imagination to make richly expressive things—his stunning poems, his well-turned prose, and his heteronymic nation, which was his greatest poetic act.

  Chronology

  The titles of Pessoa’s works have, for the most part, been translated into English.

  1887 Ricardo Reis is “born” in Oporto on September 19 at 4:05 p.m.

  1888 Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa is born on June 13 at the Largo de São Carlos, in Lisbon, at 3:20 p.m. He is the first child of Joaquim de Seabra Pessoa, born in Lisbon but with family roots in the Algarve, and of Maria Madalena Pinheiro Nogueira, from the Ilha Terceira, in the Azores.

  1889 Alberto Caeiro is “born” in Lisbon on April 16 at 1:45 p.m.

  1890 Álvaro de Campos is “born” on October 15 (Nietzsche’s birthday) in Tavira, the Algarve, at 1:30 p.m.

  1893 A brother, Jorge, is born in January. In July his father dies from tuberculosis, and the family, which includes Dionísia, Pessoa’s paternal grandmother, moves to a smaller apartment.

  1894 His brother Jorge dies in January. That same month his mother meets João Miguel Rosa, a naval officer.

  1895 In July Pessoa composes his earliest known verses, a quatrain addressed to his mother. On December 30 she is married, by proxy, to João Miguel Rosa, recently named Portugal’s consul in Durban, capital of the English colony of Natal.

  1896 In January Pessoa and his mother embark for Durban, South Africa, where he enrolls in the Convent School. In November his mother gives birth to Henriqueta Madalena, the sibling who will be closest to Pessoa.

  1899 Pessoa enrolls in Durban High School, where he receives a solid English education.

  1900 His mother gives birth to Luís Miguel.

  1901 After completing three years of high school in little more than two years, Pessoa passes the First Class School Higher Certificate exam of the University of the Cape of Good Hope. In August he sails with his family for Portugal, where they will stay for a year, mostly in Lisbon, but with trips to the Algarve (to visit the paternal relatives) and to the Azores (to visit the maternal relatives).

  1902 In May the family travels to the Ilha Terceira, staying with Pessoa’s Aunt Anica (his mother’s only sister). There—but also in Lisbon, before and after the trip to the Azores—Pessoa creates rather elaborate “newspapers” filled with real and invented news, jokes, riddles, and poems, all in Portuguese. The articles and other pieces are signed by various “journalists,” several of whom the “editor” invents biographies for. In July his first poem is published, in a Lisbon newspaper. In September he returns to Durban, where he enrolls in the Commercial School.

  1903 His mother gives birth to João Maria. (Two daughters from her second marriage die in infancy.) In November Pessoa takes the Matriculation Examination of the University of the Cape of Good Hope and wins the Queen Victoria Prize for the best English essay from among the 899 examinees.

  1904 Returns to Durban High School, where he pursues his first year of university studies. (The University of the Cape of Good Hope administers exams but does not yet offer courses.) In July he publishes, in The Natal Mercury, a satirical poem signed by Charles Robert Anon, the first literary alter ego with a reasonably large body of work. In December he takes the Intermediate Examination in Arts and receives the highest score in Natal. He withdraws from Durban High School.

  1905 In August he returns for good to Lisbon, where he enrolls in the university-level course of Arts and Letters. During the first year he lives with his Aunt Anica, who has just moved from the Ilha Terceira to Lisbon.

  1906 Having missed the exams in July due to illness, he re-enrolls in the first year of the Arts and Letters course. He writes poetry and prose in English under the name of C. R. Anon and Alexander Search, a heteronym whose output will include close to two hundred poems and various prose pieces. In October Pessoa moves into an apartment with his family, who have arrived from Durban to spend a long holiday in Portugal.

  1907 Pessoa’s classes are suspended in April due to a student strike, and in the summer he drops out. After his family returns to Durban, in May, Pessoa lives with two maternal great-aunts, Rita and Maria. His grandmother Dionísia, who also lives with them, dies in September and leaves Pessoa, her only heir, a small inheritance.

  1909 Pessoa uses his inheritance to buy a printing press. In November he moves into his own apartment and opens the Empresa Ibis, a printing office, but it shuts down almost immediately. Earns a modest living as a freelance, translating various kinds of texts and drafting letters in English and French for firms doing business abroad.

  1910 On October 5, the increasingly unpopular monarchy falls and the Portuguese Republic is proclaimed.

  1911 In September Pessoa’s family moves from Durban to Pretoria, where his stepfather has been named consul general of Portugal.

  1912 Lives once more with his Aunt Anica. Publishes, in the Oporto-based magazine A Águia, several long articles on the current state and future direction of Portuguese poetry. In October his best friend, the writer Mário de Sá-Carneiro (1890-1916), moves to Paris and a lively, literary correspondence ensues.

  1913 Publishes, in A Águia, his first piece of creative prose, a passage from The Book of Disquiet, signed by his own name. Writes “Epithalamium,” a long, sexually explicit poem in English.

  1914 Publishes, in a magazine, his first poems as an adult. Creates, between March and June, his three main heteronyms: Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos, and Ricardo Reis. Each will sign a substantial body of poetry in Portuguese, and also several hundred pages of prose will be credited to Campos and Reis. In their writings the three heteronyms dialogue with each other and with other, lesser heteronyms. In November Aunt Anica moves to Switzerland with her daughter and son-in-law. For the next six years Pessoa will live in rented rooms or apartments.

  1915 The magazine Orpheu, which introduces modernism into Portugal, is founded by a small group of poets and artists led by Pessoa and Sá-Carneiro. In the magazine’s two issues, Pessoa publishes some of his major works, including a “static drama” called The Mariner (his only finished play), the six “intersectionist” poems of a sequence titled Slanting Rain, and three long poems attribu
ted to Álvaro de Campos: “Opiary,” “The Triumphal Ode,” and “The Maritime Ode.” Writes “Antinoüs,” a long, homoerotic poem in English. Embarks on the translation, into Portuguese, of works by Helena Blavatsky, C. W. Leadbeater, and other theosophical writers (six books published in 1915-16). Alberto Caeiro “dies” of tuberculosis, but poems will continue to be written in his name until 1930. In December Pessoa creates Raphael Baldaya, a heteronymic astrologer.

  1916 In March he begins to write automatically, or mediumistically, receiving “communications” from Henry More (1614-1687), a certain Wardour, the voodooist (who sometimes signs himself Joseph Balsamo, alias Count Cagliostro), and other astral spirits. During the next two years he will produce, in a childish script, several hundred pages of automatic writing, mostly in English and largely concerned with his desire to meet a woman who will “cure” him of his virginity. Mário de Sá-Carneiro commits suicide in a Paris hotel on April 26.

  1917 In May submits The Mad Fiddler, a collection of poems, to an English publisher, who rejects the manuscript. In October publishes, in Portugal Futurista, Álvaro de Campos’s Ultimatum , a manifesto that vilifies Europe’s political leaders and cultural luminaries. The magazine is seized from the newsstands by the police in November. A coup d’état in December establishes Sidónio Pais as dictator.

  1918 Self-publishes two chapbooks of his English poems, Antinoüs (written in 1915) and 35 Sonnets. Sends copies of the books to various British journals and receives fairly positive reviews. Sidónio Pais is assassinated on December 14. Pessoa becomes a fervent post-mortem votary of the charismatic (but ineffectual) leader.