Published in the modernist literary magazine Presença in 1933, this poem points to Fernando Pessoa’s obsession with the contrast between feelings and thoughts. It illustrates the main theme of the poetry signed with his own name (which Pessoa himself called his “orthonymous” poetry, in opposition to his “heteronymous” poetry, those poems written under one of his heteronyms, such as Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and Álvaro de Campos). At the same time, this poem clarifies the genesis of his heteronyms.
The opening lines (“They say I fake or lie / In everything I write”)—directly followed by the speaker’s answer “No”—affirm an author’s right to a multiplicity of identities. In the first stanza, the heart is deemed useless for writing poetry. Imagination, which for Pessoa is synonymous with intellect, is presented as the source of all feelings.
The second stanza presents readers with the image of a terrace, which offers the poet a view of “something else.” This image points to the impossibility of accessing reality directly, a fact that is described as a “lovely thing.” Dreams and daily events do not offer the poet access to feelings. The intellect has a destructive quality since the very act of thinking about such feelings already distances the thinking “I” from the “I” that feels. For this reason, every emotional account is a “false” expression, because emotions do not occur at the intellectual level. This (productive) distinction between experience and writing explains the poet’s inability to be honest. As one reads in the poem Autopsicografia (Autopsychography, 1932), the poet has no other alternative and must even fake that “he’s suffering the pain he’s really feeling.”
In the last stanza of This, the writing process is described as taking place far from its object, or thematic motivation. The poet is “free of emotions.” He is “serious about what isn’t,” about what does not exist in reality (or in the realm of emotions), but exists only in the realms of reason and the mind (or reflection).
The poem’s argument in favor of thought over sensibility should not be taken for a denial of poetry’s affective potential. This ends with an affirmation of the readers’ privileged access to feelings that are not transferred from poet to readers, but rather built in—and through—the poem. The last verse (in the original) breaks from the preceding verses, both formally, through an interruption of the rhyme scheme, and thematically. Instead of the explanatory tone of the previous verses, this last verse consists of a question (“Feelings?”) followed by an exclamatory answer (“That’s the readers’ / Lot!”) emphatically directed to readers.
Poet and readers are on opposite sides. While on the one hand readers can access feelings through poetry, the poet—or anyone who reflects about his or her own experience—is condemned to face constantly an unabridged distance between sentiments and reasoning. A similar idea is explored by Pessoa in the poems Tenho tanto sentimento (I’m So Full of Feelings, 1933) and Gato que brincas na rua (Cat, You Tumble Down the Street, 1931). In the latter, the cat, like those unconcerned with such notional problems, is presented as more likely to find happiness than the poet.
Bibliography
Pessoa, Fernando. Fernando Pessoa & Co.: Selected Poems. Edited and translated by Richard Zenith. New York: Grove Press, 1998.
Categories: Literature, World Literature
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