Fernando Pessoa – Biography of Fernando Pessoa

Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa He was born in Lisbon on June 13, 1888; son of Madalena Pinheiro Nogueira and Joaquim de Seabra Pessoa, a music critic for a local newspaper, who died in 1893. His mother remarried in 1895 to Commander Joao Miguel Rosa, Portuguese consul in Durban: this is how Ferdinand he spent his youth in South Africa.

On the african continent Fernando Pessoa he completed all his studies up to the entrance exam at the University of Cape Town. Back in Lisbon in 1905, he enrolled in the Philosophy course at the Faculty of Letters: after a disastrous editorial adventure, he found work as a correspondent in English and French for various commercial companies, a job that he would maintain, without time commitment, for life. Around 1913 he began to work in various magazines, such as “To Aguia” Y “Futuristic Portugal“, dedicating himself especially to English romanticism and Baudelaire; dedicating himself to a literary activity that had begun when he was still a student at the University of Cape Town, with prose and poetry written in English.

Around 1914 the heteronyms appeared Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Álvaro de Campos. Heteronyms are fictitious authors (or pseudo-authors), each with their own personality: their “creator” is called an orthonym. The first fictional character of Pessoa It is from the period of his childhood, the Chevalier de Pas, through which he wrote letters to himself, as stated in the letter of heteronomy in Casais Monteiro.

In 1915 with Mário de Sá-Carneiro, Almada Negreiros, Armando Cortés Rodríguez, Luis de Montalvor, Alfredo Pedro Guisado and others, Pessoa gave life to the avant-garde magazine “Orpheu“, which incorporated Futurist, São Paulo and Cubist experiences; the magazine would be short-lived, however, it raised a great controversy in the Portuguese literary environment, opening new perspectives for the evolution of Portuguese poetry.

Then followed a period in which Pessoa He was attracted to esoteric and theosophical interests that were profoundly influential in his orthonymous work. 1920 is the only sentimental adventure in the life of the poet. Her name was Ofelia Queiroz, employed in one of the import and export companies for which Pessoa works. After a hiatus of several years, the relationship between the two finally ended in 1929.

In an interview with a newspaper in the capital in 1926, after the military coup that ended the parliamentary republic and paved the way for the Salazarian regime, Pessoa began to expose his theories of “Fifth Empire“, consisting of the updating of the prophecies of Bandarra (the shoemaker of Trancoso) written in the first half of the 15th century; according to these prophecies, King Don Sebastián, presumed dead in 1578 in the battle of Alcazarquivir, in body and soul would once again establish a kingdom of justice and peace. This is the “Fifth Empire”, to which Portugal would be predestined according to Pessoa. This empire would have a purely cultural and not military or political character like the classic empires of the past.

“Message“(Message) is the title of the only collection of poems in Portuguese prepared personally by the poet; published in 1934, it won a government prize of 5,000 escudos. The work includes writings on theology, occultism, philosophy, politics, economics and other disciplines .

Following a liver crisis, presumably caused by alcohol abuse, Fernando Pessoa died in a Lisbon hospital on November 30, 1935.

While in life his poetry had little influence, it would later be widely imitated by poets of later generations.

Many are also the musical artists who were inspired by the work of Pessoa: among them the Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso.