Frank Auletti

Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa was a Portuguese poet who lived in

South Africa

Fernando Pessoa

Pessoa wrote in many different heteronyms. These

heteronyms wrote in different languages. Languages
such as English (Alexander Search), and Portuguese
(lvaro de Campos).

Background

Pessoas writing was very dark, and each of his

heteronyms had a different identity. He used these
identities to escape from the life he lead. Pessoa often
wrote poems where he wrote about his other
heteronyms and created a community of these alteregos.

Background

Fernando Pessoa was a heroin addict

Pessoa broke up with his only girlfriend twice

Pessoa also lived a very rough life where he struggled

with expressing his emotions.. He used composition as
his escape

Judge a Poem By Its Title

What elements do you think this poem (Storm Sonata)

will have? Do you think the end of the sonnet will make
you more hopeful or less hopeful than from the
beginning? Do you even think a poem could illicit that
much emotion in such a short constraint of time?

Pessoa Storm Sonnet

What lies in the abyss beneath the sea that rises up?
We, Portugal, the possibility of becoming.
What restlessness from the depths lifts us up?
The wish to be able to become.

This, and the mystery of which night is the splendor

But suddenly, where the wind roars,
A lighting bolt, beacon of God, for a moment
Shines and the dark sea thunders.

Storm Sonnet

How does this sonnet make you feel? What images does
the poem evoke to you, the reader? Do you see dark
colors, light colors, shades, or shadows?

Music and his writing

Pessoa throughly enjoyed music and used it as another

technique to escape his depressing life.. It is said that his
inspiration for this sonnet is from Beethoven's Storm
Sonata. Listen to the Storm Sonata and see if you can
make any connections to the Sonnet by Pessoa.

Beethovens Storm Sonata

Performance by: Tiago Mariz

The Mad Fiddler

Pessoa wrote, The Mad Fiddler under the heteronym,

Alexander Search. Search was an English poet who
mainly wrote sonnets and stories that were very
personal to Pessoas life. In The Mad Fiddler Pessoa
discovers a new voice and a new style of writing.

The Mad Fiddler

Not from the northern road,

Not from the southern way,
First his wild music flowed
Into the village that day.

He suddenly was in the lane,

The people came out to hear,
He suddenly went, and in vain
Their hopes wished him to
appear.

His music strange did fret

Each heart to wish 'twas free.
It was not a melody, yet
It was not no melody.
Somewhere far away,
Somewhere far outside
Being forced to live, they
Felt this tune replied.

Replied to that longing

All have in their breasts,
To lost sense belonging
To forgotten quests.

Replied to that longing

All have in their breasts,
To lost sense belonging
To forgotten quests.

The happy wife now knew

That she had married ill,
The glad fond lover grew
Weary of loving still,

The maid and the boy felt glad

That they had dreaming only,
The lone hearts that were sad
Felt somewhere less lonely.

In each soul woke the flower

Whose touch leaves earthless dust,
The soul's husband's first hour,
The thing completing us,

The shadow that comes to bless

From kissed depths unexpressed,
The luminous restlessness
That is better than rest.

As he came, he went.
They felt him but half-be.
Then he was quietly blent
With silence and memory.

Sleep left again their laughter,

Their tranced hope ceased to last,
And but a small time after
They knew not he had passed.

Yet when the sorrow of living,

Because life is not willed,
Comes back in dreams' hours, giving
A sense of life being chilled,

Suddenly each remembers It glows like a coming moon

On where their dream-life embers The mad fiddler's tune.

What was different?

You may have realized that Pessoa wrote a bit

differently in his disguise as Alexander Search, but his
writing is still very dark and emotionally heavy. Search
writes more personally than Pessoa and more freely
because these poems were published under a different
name.

Prompt

Now that you see how Pessoa handles his emotions,

how would you express yourself if you were able to
write under a different pen name. Write one short poem
(at least one stanza) about something that is on your
mind, something that may be frustrating you.. Write one
stanza as yourself and write another stanza using a pen
name. How does that effect your voice as a writer? Does
it effect your writing style as well?