The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa
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[The Task of Modern Poetry]: [139/28]. This and the following piece, “Shakespeare,” are previously unpublished passages written (in English) for a preface-in-progress to the five-poem “imperial cycle” described on p. 332, in the note about “Anteros.”
peoples as separate: “peoples separate as far” in the original.
page 214
the Aeolian cave: “the Aeolus’ cave” in the original.
[which it behooves]: “that is the province of in the original.
therefore: “then” in the original.
page 215
Shakespeare: [139/15]. Pessoa left many passages for a projected essay on Shakespeare, but this passage, though it was titled “Shakespeare,” belongs to his unfinished preface to Five Poems. See the note to the preceding selection.
page 216
Shakespeare’s lack (...) is ordinary: The original sentence reads, “The lack of sense of proportion, of sense of unity, of sense of development and interaction shown by Shakespeare are so extraordinary, as the fact that they happen to a Christian poet is an ordinary one.”
[On Blank Verse and Paradise Lost]: Pessoa labeled the manuscript copy “Erostratus (or the like).” It was published as Text 65 in Heróstrato e a Busca da Imortalidade.
“Tithonus,” or “Ulysses” or “Oenone”: All by Tennyson.
properly speaking: “properly such” in the original.
page 217
Charles Dickens—Pickwick Papers: The first four paragraphs, typed by Pessoa, were published in Páginas de Estética. The continuation of the text, written by hand on the reverse side of the typescript (19/97), was previously unpublished.
page 218
the two Wellers: Sam Weller (Mr. Pickwick’s valet) and his father.
one-eyed bagman: A character who appears in Chapter 14 and again toward the end of the novel. A bagman was a traveling salesman, so called because he carried his samples in a bag.
Concerning Oscar Wilde: None of Pessoa’s writings on Wilde has previously been published. The first of the four passages transcribed here [14E/69] carries the title “Concerning Oscar Wilde,” which appears on several lists of Pessoa’s planned and in-progress works. The other three passages [14E/73, 55I/89, 55I/94] were labeled “Oscar Wilde.” Pessoa’s horoscope and biographical chronology for Wilde are in notebook 144Y.
page 220
he had begun (...) have been able: “he began with pictures, he will never be able” in the original.
page 221
unconscious: “conscious” in the original, presumably by mistake.
lack of purpose: “dispurposedness” in the original.
page 222
[The Art of James Joyce]: Translated from an unpublished note [144/70]. Pessoa owned the 1932 Hamburg edition of Ulysses.
[The Art of Translation]: First published in Pessoa Inédito.
involved in parodying: “involved in translating” on the original typescript, presumably by mistake.
the other case a certain: “the other one” in the original.
page 224
ESSAY ON POETRY: Envelope 100 of the Pessoa archives contains two typed copies of the long opening section (published in Pessoa por Conhecer). The transcription is of the second, cleaner but incomplete copy for as far as it goes, switching at that point to the earlier one. The other sections (beginning with “I now pass on”) were previously unpublished and have been transcribed from autographs found in Envelope 13A. Written at different times and not collated by Pessoa, the essay’s various pieces (most but not all of which are included here) have been ordered on the basis of internal evidence.
page 226
expounding: “exposing” in the original.
page 227
Spencer: Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), the English philosopher. Professor Jones is apparently not familiar with Edmund Spenser the poet.
page 228
but: “only that” in the original.
page 230
long and pointed ears: “a long and pointed ear” in the original.
page 231
FRANCE IN 1950: The first and last passages [138A/2,138A/1] were published, in French, in Pessoa por Conhecer. The three middle passages [55E/87, 133F/38, 55E/86] have not previously been published. The essay, retitled “La France a I’an 2000,” was scheduled to appear in the second issue of Europa [144D2/42]. The narrator of the piece was identified as Japanese not only in a “List of Publications” [48B/66] but also in a list of pamphlets to be published [144D2/6]. Another pamphlet on this latter list was titled “On the Necessity of Creating Male Whorehouses.”
page 234
RANDOM NOTES AND EPIGRAMS: Archival references and published sources: (1) 133E/84, (2) 133E/83, (3) 75A/22, (4) 93/88V., (5) 26C/21, (6) 92D/3, (7) 21/119 (published in Páginas Íntimas), (8) 15B3/86 (Text 21 in The Book of Disquiet), (9) 22/95 (published in Textos Filosóficos, v. I, but the translation is based on a different reading of the original), (10) 133F/55, (11) 1542, (12) 75A/28, (13) 133E/91, (14) 144D2/32 (last sentence published in Pessoa por Conhecer), (15) 20/68 (published in Páginas Íntimas), (16) 75/23, (17) 145/30, (18) 134A/46.
Item 2 was written on an envelope postmarked in Madrid in 1923, and item 8 was dated March 24, 1929.
page 239
TWO LETTERS TO JOÃO GASPAR SIMÕES: The first letter contains a P.S. not translated here.
“Hymn to Pan”: A poem by Aleister Crowley. See the note for Crowley on p. 329.
page 240
your article about me: Originally published in Presença under the title “Fernando Pessoa and the Voices of Innocence.”
page 242
Café Brasileira ofChiado: A Lisbon café popular among intellectuals, including Pessoa. See the note on p. 330.
page 245
“O church bell of my village...”: One of the first two poems published by Pessoa as an adult, in 1914.
Directory of the Republic: The leadership of the Portuguese Republican Party, which controlled the provisional government of the young republic, established in 1910.
page 247
Figueira: Figueira da Foz, a fishing village and beach resort where residents of Coimbra often spend their holidays.
page 248
Portugal, a small book of poems: The book Pessoa published in 1934 as Message, with forty-four poems.
page 252
a Leader or Chief: Pessoa employed the Portuguese word chefe, whose pronunciation is virtually identical to the French chef.
rational Sebastianist: See the section PORTUGAL AND THE FIFTH EMPIRE.
prize offered by the National Office of Propaganda: Pessoa won second prize, apparently because his book did not meet the required length of one hundred pages.
page 256
“Slanting Rain”: See note on p. 322.
“Triumphal Ode”: See note on p. 322.
page 257
“Opiary”: See note on p. 322.
page 258
Ferreira Gomes: Augusto Ferreira Gomes (1892–1953), a long-standing friend of Pessoa, shared his interest in astrology and the occult sciences.
page 260
“Eros and Psyche”: “Eros e Psique,” published in the May 1934 issue oiPresenga. The epigraph in question reads: “... And so you see, my Brother, that the truths you received at the Neophyte stage and those you received at the Adept stage are, even if contrary, the same Truth.”
page 261
[Another Version of the Genesis of the Heteronyms]: The original Portuguese text [20/74–7] contains an unfinished sentence, not translated here, that addresses a potential audience of readers. This suggests that the passage was intended for a general preface to Pessoa’s works.
page 272
Vigny: Alfred de Vigny (1797–1863), French author of poems, essays, plays, and a novel. Disillusioned in love, unsuccessful in politics, and unenthusiastically received by the French Academy, he withdrew from society and became increasingly pessimistic in his writings, which r
ecommended stoical resignation as the only noble response to the suffering life condemns us to.
page 277
Vieira: Father António Vieira (1608–97), who spent much of his life in Brazil, is one of the greatest prose stylists in Portuguese. His enormous output includes about two hundred sermons and over five hundred letters. (See the introduction to PORTUGAL AND THE FIFTH EMPIRE.)
page 290
Cascais: A beach town southwest of Lisbon.
page 296
“Any road (...) the World”: In Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh.
page 297
epopt: An initiate in the highest order of the Eleusinian mysteries.
page 304
Greek philosopher: Protagoras.
page 305
Buridan’s donkey: The fourteenth-century French scholastic Jean Buridan, concerned with the problem of free will, is supposed to have asked what a donkey would do if, suffering equally from thirst and hunger, it stood at a point equidistant from a bucket of water and a bucket of hay.
page 309
Disjecta membra, said Carlyle: In On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. Carlyle’s exact words were: “Disjecta membra are all that we find of any Poet, or of any man.”
page 314
LETTER FROM A HUNCHBACK GIRL TO A METALWORKER: In the second half of the letter, before the paragraph that begins “You go back and forth,” Pessoa left blank space for inserting text that remained unwritten, except for the following phrase: “and so why am I writing you this letter if I’m not going to send it?”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PUBLISHED SOURCES FOR THE PROSE SELECTIONS
The following list contains published sources for the Portuguese originals and previously published sources for the English originals, but many of the translations are based on new readings of the manuscripts, and all selections written by Pessoa in English are direct transcriptions. The Pessoa Archives are housed at the National Library of Lisbon.
Campos, Álvaro (Fernando Pessoa). Notas para a Recordação do meu Mestre Caeiro, ed. Teresa Rita Lopes. Lisbon: Editorial Estampa, 1997.
Centeno, Yvette K. Fernando Pessoa e a Filosofia Hermética. Lisbon: Presença, 1985.
Lopes, Teresa Rita. Pessoa por Conhecer, vol. 2. Lisbon: Editorial Estampa, 1990.
Pessoa, Fernando. O Banqueiro Anarquista, ed. Manuela Parreira da Silva. Lisbon: Assírio & Alvim, 1999.
_____. The Book of Disquiet, tr. Richard Zenith. London: Penguin Books, 2001.
_____. Correspondência 1905–1922, ed. Manuela Parreira da Silva. Lisbon: Assírio & Alvim, 1998.
_____. Correspondência 1923–1935, ed. Manuela Parreira da Silva. Lisbon: Assírio & Alvim, 1999.
_____. Heróstrato e a Busca da Imortalidade, ed. Richard Zenith. Lisbon: Assírio & Alvim, 2000.
_____. Obra Poética, ed. Maria Aliete Galhoz. 7th ed. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Aguilar, 1977. (1st ed. 1960.)
_____. Páginas de Doutrina Estética, ed. Jorge de Sena. Lisbon: Editorial Inquérito, 1946.
_____. Páginas de Estética e de Teoria e Crítica Literárias, eds. Georg Rudolf Lind and Jacinto do Prado Coelho. Lisbon: Edições Ática, 1966.
_____. Páginas Íntimas e de Auto-Interpretação, eds. Georg Rudolf Lind and Jacinto do Prado Coelho. Lisbon: Edições Ática, 1966.
_____. Pessoa Inédito, ed. Teresa Rita Lopes. Lisbon: Livros Horizontes, 1993.
_____. Sobre Portugal—Introdução ao Problema National, eds. Maria Isabel Rocheta, Maria Paula Morão, and Joel Serrão. Lisbon: Edições Ática, 1978.
_____. Textos Filosóficos, ed. António de Pina Coelho, vol. 2. Lisbon: Edições Ática, 1968.
_____. Ultimatum e Páginas de Sociologia Política, eds. Maria Isabel Rocheta, Maria Paula Morão, and Joel Serrão. Lisbon: Edições Ática, 1978.
Soares, Bernardo (Fernando Pessoa). Livro do Desassossego ed. Richard Zenith. Lisbon: Assírio & Alvim, 1998.
Teive, Barão de (Fernando Pessoa). A Educação do Estóico, ed. Richard Zenith. Lisbon: Assírio & Alvim, 1999.
WORKS CONSULTED FOR THE ESSAY MATTER (BUT NOT CITED ABOVE)
Benjamin, Walter. Reflections, ed. Peter Demetz. New York: Schocken Books, 1986.
Bréchon, Robert. Étrange étranger: une biographie de Fernando Pessoa. Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1996.
Jennings, Hubert D. Os Dois Exílios: Fernando Pessoa na África do Sul. Oporto: Fundação Eng. António de Almeida, 1984.
Lopes, Teresa Rita. Fernando Pessoa et le drame symboliste—Héritage et création. Paris: Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, 1977.
_____. Pessoa por Conhecer, vol. 1. Lisbon: Editorial Estampa, 1990.
Pessoa, Fernando. Fernando Pessoa & Co.—Selected Poems, tr. Richard Zenith. New York: Grove Press, 1998.
_____. Poemas Ingleses, vol. 2 (Alexander Search), ed. João Dionísio. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional—Casa da Moeda, 1997.
Queiroz, Ofélia. Cartas de Amor de Ofélia a Fernando Pessoa, eds. Manuela Nogueira and Maria da Conceição Azevedo. Lisbon: Assírio & Alvim, 1996.
Simões, João Gaspar. Retrato de Poetas que Conheci. Oporto: Brasília Editora, 1974.
_____. Vida e Obra de Fernando Pessoa. 6th ed. Lisbon: Publicações Dom Quixote, 1991. (1st ed. 1950.)