Fernando Passoa’s heteronyms

I have a vague recollection of coming across Fernando Passoa at some point recently. Perhaps it was through Jose Saramago, whose novels I love, or it might have been that I read him directly in translation. I may also have come across his work when I visited Portugal a couple of years ago.

Regardless, I had no idea of the extent of to which he developed and wrote in voices that were much broader and deeper than mere pseudonyms or alter egos. He called his characters heteronyms, and they became channels for particular forms of artistic output.

In the current issue of Poetry there are a number of translations of poems by Ricardo Reis, Passoa’s heteronym who writes in a classical style.

Here is one:

I love what I see because one day
       I will cease to see it.
       And simply because it is.
In this placid interval in which I feel my existence,
       More because I love than because I am,
       I love both everything and myself.
They could give me nothing better were they to return,
       Those primitive gods,
       Who also know nothing.