A century later: what was Fernando Pessoa doing and publishing in 1925?

On 13 June 1925, Fernando Pessoa turned 37 years old. Already at the peak of his literary activity, the poet and intellectual from Lisbon was busy in the mid-1920s with the effervescent activity of publicizing his heteronyms, mainly through the magazine Athena, which he had co-directed since its foundation the previous year. For Pessoa, 1925 was a year of creativity and ‘’débuts‘’, but also of losses and farewells. Both of these were undoubtedly some of the most remarkable moments in his life and work.

Farewells

The year 1925 was marked by two important losses in Fernando Pessoa’s life. The most significant was undoubtedly the death of the poet’s mother, Maria Madalena Pinheiro Nogueira (born 1861), who left this earthly home on 17 March 1925. Since 1920, she had lived with her own son and some of her family in Rua Coelho da Rocha 16, where Casa Fernando Pessoa is now located. Some thirty years before he suffered this bereavement, in July 1895, Fernando Pessoa was seven years old when he dedicated to his own mother what are considered to be the first poetic verses of his life. They reveal a fondness and affection for his mother that, in truth, Pessoa always carried within him:

To my dear mum

Here I am in Portugal
In the lands where I was born
However much I love them,
I love you even more.

Another significant loss in the poet’s life was the death of General Henrique Rosa, brother of João Miguel Rosa, Pessoa’s stepfather. Pessoa had established a friendship and intellectual closeness with Henrique Rosa during his adolescence and youth. Indeed, he was one of the figures who had the greatest influence – both literary and in terms of political ideology (particularly anti-clerical and anti-monarchist) – on the intellectual biography and upbringing of the young Pessoa. Henrique Rosa, who was born in 1850, died on 8 February 1925.

Alberto Caeiro’s “début”

In early 1925, one of Fernando Pessoa’s heteronyms, Alberto Caeiro, made his public “début”. Fernando Pessoa published 23 poems by this alter-ego, particularly from O Guardador de Rebanhos , in the fourth number of Athena, an art magazine, co-directed by Pessoa himself and founded in 1924. In the ‘system’ or ‘theatre’ of Pessoa’s heteronyms, Caeiro is the heteronym-poet of nature, ‘master’ of the other heteronyms Álvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis, of the ‘orthonym’ Pessoa himself and of another fictional author, António Mora.

In the following issue of Athena, 16 poems from Poemas Inconjuntos were published, still ‘written’ by Alberto Caeiro.

Campos ‘philosopher’, Pessoa ‘inventor’

The magazine Athena is also the literary and cultural context in which the more philosophical vein of another heteronym manifests itself, namely Álvaro de Campos, who between the end of 1924 and the beginning of 1925 publishes, in two parts, the essay ‘Apontamentos para uma Estética Não-Aristotélica’ , which discusses matters of aesthetic philosophy and the philosophy of art.

In 1925, the eponymous Pessoa did not publish any texts signed by himself. From a biographical point of view, Pessoa’s invention of a Synthetic Commercial Yearbook deserves special mention, something akin to the ‘yellow pages’, the purpose of which was to provide information on European companies, including their contact details. In October 1925, the poet submitted a patent application for his invention, which was granted.

Fabrizio Boscaglia

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