Rojas, Victor J.

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Literary Onomastics Studies
Volume 4 Article 9
1977
Onomastics and the Prismatic Reality in the Poetry
of Fernando Pessoa
Victor J. Rojas
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Rojas, Victor J. (1977) "Onomastics and the Prismatic Reality in the Poetry of Fernando Pessoa," Literary Onomastics Studies: Vol. 4 ,
Article 9.
Available at: http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/los/vol4/iss1/9
ONOMASTICS AND THE PRISMATIC REALITY 
IN THE POETRY OF FERNANDO PESSOA 
victor J. Rojas 
The Portuguese Poet Fernando Ant6nio Nogueira Pessoa (Lisbon 
1888-1935) wrote under several names including Alberto Caeiro, 
Alvaro de Campos, Richardo Reis, Bernardo Soares, C. Pacheco, 
Alexander Search, the Baron de Teive, Le Chevalier de Pas, and his 
own name. 1 The first three names, Alberto Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos, 
and Richardo Reis are what Pessoa himself called "heter6nimos" 
(heteronyms) as opposed to 11pseud6nimos11 (pseudonyms). Critics such 
as Peter Rickard, Jo3o Gaspar Sim5es, and Octavia Paz have dealt 
with the differentiations between Pessoa 1 s  heteronyms and conventional 
2 pseudonyms. Peter Rickard, for example, says, 11A pseudonym is merely 
the use of another name in order to continue to be the same person, in 
order to go on saying what one would have said in any case. But 
Alvaro de Campos, Alberto Caeiro, and Richardo Reis (not to mention 
other less productive heteronyms which appeared later) were, Pessoa 
maintained, not just names: they were personalities who produced 
poetry -- and at times prose --in keeping with their education, their 
temperament, their preoccupations and their philosophy of life. 11 3 
In this paper we shall examine the interrelations of Pessoa•s 
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Rojas 2 
heteronyms and his interpretation of reality, We shall attempt to 
prove that in Pessoa • s poetry there is a prismatic percept'i on of 
reality, perception which is dispersed and reflected through the 
three heteronyms. Pessoa himself said in a letter to the poet 
Armando Cortes- Rodrigues "everything I write under the names of 
Caeiro, Reis, �lvaro de Campos is serious. In any of them I put a 
profound conceptual life, different in all three, but in all gravely 
attentive to the mysterious importance of existence.114 
The first poems by Richardo Reis date from June 12, 1914 and 
the last ones from November 13, 1935. His collection of poetry is 
entitled Odes. The predominant theme is vanitas vanitatum et omnia 
vanitas. He is saddened by the impermanence of all things and the 
inevitability of old age and death. However, as he becomes aware of 
his inability to know the everchanging reality, he chooses to accept 
and enjoy each moment as if it were his last. In the poem 11As rosas 
amo dos jardins do Ad6nis11 ( 11 I  the Roses love in the Gardens of 
Adonis11) we read: 
As rosas amo dos jardins de Ad6nis, 
Essas volucres amo, Lidia, rosas 
Que em o dia em que nascem, 
Em ese dia morrem, 
A luz para elas � eterna, porque 
Nascem nascido j& o sol, e acabam 
Antes que Apolo deixe 
0 seu curse vis{vel. 
Assim fa�amos nossa vida un dia, 
Inscientes, Lidia, volunt�riamente 
99 
Que h& noite antes e ap6s 
0 pouco que duramos 
Rojas 3 
I the roses love in the gardens of Adonis 
Lydia, I love those fast fleeting roses 
That on the day they are born, 
On that same day they die. 
Light for them is everlasting: born 
After the sun comes up, they die 
Before Apollo rounds 
His visible track. 
So let us make our life a single day 
And willingly ignore the night to come, 
The night already past, 5 
The little while we last. 
For Richardo Reis nothing has any real and lasting meaning; 
everything is an illusion. Happiness is the illusion of being happy, 
freedom is the illusion of being free: 
s6 esta liberdade nos concedem 
Os deuses: submeter-nos 
Ao seu dom{nio por vontade nossa. 
Mais vale assim fazermos 
Porque s6 na ilusao da liberdade 
A liberdade existe. 
In this respect alone the gods allow us 
To be free: they let us of our own accord 
Acknowledge them our masters. 
We do well to act thus, 
For in the illusion of being free 
Alone lies freedom. 6 
The poetic production of Alberto Caeiro is entitled Poemas ( Poems ) . 
His first poems date from March 8 ,  1914 and the last ones from July 
1930. Most of them were written from 1914 to 1920. All his poems 
100 
Rojas 4 
are grouped under two titles, Q guardador de rebanhos (The Keeper of 
Flocks) and Poemas inconjuntos (Sporadic Poems). In his poetry 
predominate a kind of sensual pantheism and a clam acceptance of the 
world as it is. He contemplates reality and tries to convey in words 
the innocence and nakedness of his vision. To him, things are pre-
cisely what they seem. He writes: 
, A �spantosa realidade das coisas 
E a m1nha descoberta de todos os dias 
Cada coisa � o que �. 
The astonishing reality of things 
is something I discover e�ery day Each thing is what it is. 
In another poem he says, "Para mim, gra�as a ter os olhos so para 
ver,/ Eu vejo ausencia de significa�ao em todas as coisas.11 C1As for 
me, thanks to my having eyes only for seeing,/ I see absence of 
meaning in all things.118 
Caeiro concludes that the allegedly different faces of Nature 
are not a reality at all. It is we who look at reality in different 
ways. All created things are equal in that they exist equally. 
The last heteronym that we shall discuss is Alvaro de Campos. 
In verse and prose alike, he contributed from June 1914 to October 
1935. In the early years he expresses a great deal of vitality, a 
zest for experience. He acknowledges influence from and admiration 
for Walt Whitman. From 1916 on, however, Alvaro de Campos becomes 
appalled by the emptiness of his own existence, lethargic, lacking 
101 
Rojas 5 
in will power. He seeks inspiration in semi-conscious states, in the 
twilight world between waking and sleeping. Confused because of his 
inability to distinguish clearly between an outward and an inward 
reality of things, Alvaro de Campos says: 
Estou hoje perplexo, como quem pensou e achou e 
esqueceu. 
Estou hoje dividido entre a lealtade que devo 
A Tabacaria do outro lado da rua, como coisa real por 
fora, 
E � sensa�ao de que todo e sonho, como coisa real 
por dentro. 
Today I'm at a loss, like one who thought and 
found the answer, then forgot. 
Today I am torn between my loyalty 
To a t hing of outward reality--the tobacco-shop 
across the street, 
And to a thing of inward reality--the feeling that 
it's all a dream. 9 
If during the early years Campos had an urge to experience things, 
now he has an urge to question them. The prevailing tone in his 
poetry from after 1915 is one of agonized doubt, the doubt of a man who 
feels that he is being dehumanized by his surroundings and is gradually 
losing his self-awareness. 
In summary, what do Pessoa's heteronyms tell us about reality? 
How do they reflect Pessoa's perception of reality? We have seen that 
Caeiro seems to regard reality as objective. He denies the existence 
of the transcendental. Reis does not believe that we can discover 
anything at all about the world. Campos doubts the reality of what he 
perceives, but he also doubts the reality of his own thoughts. Pessoa, 
102 
Rojas 6 
through his heteronyms seems to tell us that we,as human beings are 
always involved in a struggle between our rational powers and the 
reality in which we live. Unfortunately, we, the human beings seem 
to be the losers. 
In closing our discussion on Pessoa•s heteronyms, we must 
point out that the question of their genesis has puzzled many critics. 
Joao Gaspar Simoes has given a very elaborate Freudian explanation; 
whereas tdourd Roditi has said that 11Pessoa's bilingualism--
Portuguese-English--may indeed be the cause of his extraordinary and 
almost psychopathic diversity as a Portuguese poet."10 Pessoa himself, 
however, gave the following explanation: 
The origin of my heteronyms is at bottom an aspect 
of hysteria that exists in me. I don't know 
whether I am simply a hysteric or if I am more 
properly a neurasthenic hysteric . . . .  The mental 
origin of my heteronyms lies in a persistent and 
organic tendency of mine toward depersonalization 
and simulation . . . .  I put into Caeiro all my 
power of dramatic depersonalization, into Richardo 
Reis all my intellectual discipline, dressed in 
the music that is proper to him, into �lvaro de 
Campos, all the emot 1 9ns that I do not allow 
myself in my living. 
Finally, and to state the obvious, we must add that even the 
name Pessoa could imply a multi-sided personality. Derived from the 
Latin word which means a mask or a character in a play, it now means, 
in spoken Portuguese, a mere person in the very vaguest sense of this 
word. 
Vfctor J. Rojas 
State University of New York 
College at Brockport 
103 
Rojas 7 
104 
Rojas 8 
NOT ES 
1For an account of all these names, see Edwin Honig, ed., 
Selected poems Qi Fernando Pessoa, with an introduction Qi Octavio 
Paz (Chicago:· Swallow Press, Inc., 1971}, pp. l-21. 
2Peter Rickard, ed., Selected Poems Qi Fernando Pessoa (Austin: 
University of Texas Press, 1971), pp. 1-61. 
Joao Gaspar Simoes and Luis de Montalvor, eds., Obras completas 
de Fernando Pessoa, I, 2nd. ed. (Lisboa: Edi�oes Atica, 1973), 
pp. 11-16. 
For Octavis Paz see Edwin Honig, ed., QP_ cit, pp. 1�21. 
3peter Rickard, p. 22. 
4Hon i g, p. 167. 
5Ibid, pp. 44-45. 
6Ibid, pp. 44-45. 
7R i c ka rd , p . 1 3 9 . 
8Joao Gaspar Simoes, ed., Obras completas de Fernando Pessoa, 
III, 5th ed. (Lisboa: Edi�oes Atica, 1974), p. 79. 
9 Rickard, pp. 98-99. 
lOJoao Gaspar Simoes, Obras completas de Fernando Pessoa, I, 2nd. 
ed. (Lisboa: EdiGoes Atica, 1973), pp. 11-10. 
�dourd Roditi, 11The several names of Pernardo Pessoa," Poetry, 
87 (October 1955-March 1956), 40. 
11 Honig , p. 1 63. 


Onomastics and the Prismatic Reality in the Poetry of Fernando Pessoa

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