Pessoa, Fernando Antonio Nogueira (1888-1935)

Portuguese poet. His verse is considered to be the finest written in Portuguese in the 20th century. From 1914 he wrote under three assumed names, which he called ‘heteronyms’ - Alvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis, and Alberto Caeiro. These names correspond to three completely different personalities, whose poetry also differs widely. Campos is a non-intellectual, neurotic and ‘decadent’; Reis is a depressive character obsessed by mortality; and Caeiro is a simple man given up to the beauty of the world of the senses. Each must be understood as a poet in his own right. Pessoa also continued to write under his own name and ‘own’ personality.

Born in Lisbon, he was brought up in South Africa and was bilingual in English and Portuguese. He first wrote in English (Antinous 1918, 35 Sonnets 1918, English Poems 1921), but later almost exclusively in Portuguese.