Böcker av Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa claimed to be inhabited by ¿thousands of philosophies,¿ all of which he intended to develop in his unfinished project of English-language Philosophical Essays. The resulting fragments were never published by Pessoa himself and almost the entirety of them are presented in this edition for the very first time in history. This volume exhibits Pessoäs musings and wild insights on the history of philosophy, the failures of subjectivity, and the structure of the universe to reveal an unexpectedly scholarly, facetious, and vigorous theoretical mind. Written under the pre-heteronyms of Charles Robert Anon and Alexander Search, these texts constitute the foundation for the fabrication of Pessoäs future heteronyms. They are the testimony of a writer who referred to himself as a ¿poet animated by philosophy.¿ Through editor Nuno Ribeirös careful critical efforts, a new and fundamental facet of the work of one of modernity¿s most seminal geniuses has now been brought to light in a remarkably reliable and clear fashion.

In his introduction to this dual-Portuguese/English text "Selected Poems," Butler arranges Pessoa's poems thematically, thereby providing real insight into a poet of "astonishing post-modernity."

This is the largest and richest volume of poetry by Pessoa available in English. It includes generous selections from the three poetic alter egos that the Portuguese writer dubbed "heteronyms" - Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Alvaro de Campos - and from the vast and varied work he wrote under his own name.

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'.