Selected Poems

by Fernando Pessoa

Overview

The writing of Fernando Pessoa reveals a mind shaken by intense inner suffering. In these poems he adopted four separate personae: Alberto Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis and himself, using them to express 'great swarms of thought and feeling'. While each personae has its own poetic identity, together they convey a sense of ambivalence and consolidate a striving for completeness. Dramatic, lyrical, Christian, pagan, old and modern, Pessoa's poets and poetry contribute to the 'mysterious importance of existence'.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141961354
Publisher:	Penguin UK
Publication date:	11/30/2000
Series:	Penguin Modern Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Fernando Pessoa was born in Lisbon in 1888 and was brought up in Durban, South Africa. In 1905 he returned to Lisbon where he matriculated at the University, and continued to read and write in English. He published in 1918 35 Sonnets and in 1922 the three parts of his English Poems, all composed many years before. The rest of his life passed uneventfully in Lisbon. The only book published in his lifetime was Mensagem, a collection of poems on patriotic themes which won a consolation prize in a national competition. Pessoa also wrote under three pseudonyms, Alberto Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis, whose biographies he invented.

Table of Contents

	Invejo - mas nao sei se invejo	10
	Isto (Dizem que finjo ou minto)	12
	Da minha aldeia vejo	14
	Houve um ritmo	16
	O que me doi nao e	18
	Tenho uma grande constipacao	20
	Estou cansado, e claro	22
	A arte mente porque e social	24
	A espantosa realidade das coisas	26
	Ah, um soneto (Meu coracao e um almirante)	30
	As bolas de sabao	32
	Nao sei se e amor que tens	34
	Os antigos invocavam as Musas	36
	Autopsicografia (O poeta e um fingidor)	38
	Antes o voo da ave	40
	Ja sobre a fronte va	42
	Acordo de noite subitamente	44
	Tenho as opinioes mais desencontradas	46
	Vivem em nos inumeros	48
	O Tejo e mais belo	50
	Dom Sebastiao (Louco, sim, louco)	52
	O que ha em mim e sobretudo cansaco	54
	Tudo quanto o homem expoe	56
	Tabacaria (Nao sou nada)	58
	Cheguei hoje	72
	Simbolos? Estou farto de simbolos	74
	Padrao (O esforco e grande)	76
	Mar Portugues (O mar salgado)	78
	Esta velha angustia	80
	Soneto ja antigo (Olha, Daisy)	84
	E eu, que odeio a vida	86