Selected Poems (Penguin Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Fernando Pessoa (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 16, 2000 | Series: Penguin Modern Classics

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'.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Portugese (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books; 2nd edition (December 16, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141184337
• ISBN-13: 978-0141184333
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,315,225 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Strange Poet of Many Names, July 4, 2011

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Selected Poems (Paperback)

In reading the poetry of Antonio Botto this reader discovered the name of another Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) about whom there is very little written. He was a prolific poet whose works show the influence of French symbolism, moving from saudosismo ('a nostalgic yearning for the good things of the past) has several points of contact with the movement known as "Integralismo Lusitano" (Portuguese Integrationalism), but its harking back to the past is more closely related to a lyrical attitude than to any sense of political action') transitioning to an obsession with consciousness and sensation. One of the reasons he is not better known lies in his proclivity to assume nom de plumes - 73 in fact, including his own name and the names Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and Álvaro de Campos. Each of his assumed identities wrote in different emphases on topic and style as Pessoa did no believe in the 'integrated personality', preferring to create 'multiple personalities' for the expressions that fought within his mind.

One example of his poetry, written at times in Portuguese and at times in English, is as follows;

AUTOPSYCHOGRAPHY by Fernando Pessoa (as himself)

The poet is a faker
Who's so good at his act
He even fakes the pain
Of pain he feels in fact.

And those who read his words
Will feel in what he wrote
Neither of the pains he has
But just the one they don't.

And so around its track
This thing called the heart winds,
A little clockwork train
To entertain our minds.

In this collection, SELECTED POEMS, David Butler has provided translations where indicated and sets the poems as though they were a dialogue with each other - a fact that allows us to understand this strange but haunting poet in the manner in which he wrote. it is a remarkable achievement and provides an excellent introduction to the reader who is unfamiliar with the man Fernando Pessoa and his poetry. Grady Harp, July 11

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Four poets as one, January 16, 2006

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Selected Poems (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)

Pesssoa is unique as a poet in that he generously scatters himself into the identities of three other people. The four heteronyms dominate his character.He searches for objective truth.
Here is an excerpt.
have no ambitions and no desires.
To be a poet is not my ambition,
It's my way of being alone.