Mariana Gray de Castro 
Fernando Pessoa’s Modernity without Frontiers 
Influences, Dialogues, Responses

Eighteen short essays by the most distinguished international scholars examine Pessoa’s influences, his dialogues with other writers and artistic movements, and the responses his work has generated worldwide.


Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa claimed that he did not evolve, but rather travelled. This book provides a state of the art panorama of Pessoa’s literary travels, particularly in the English-speaking world. Its eighteen short, jargon-free essays were written by the most distinguished Pessoa scholars across the globe. They explore the influence on Pessoa’s thinking of such writers as Whitman and Shakespeare, as well as his creative dialogues with figuresranging from decadent poets to the dark magician Aleister Crowley, and, finally, some of the ways in which he in turn has influenced others. They examine many different aspects of Pessoa’s work, ranging from the poetry of the heteronyms to the haunting prose of
The Book of Disquiet, from esoteric writings to personal letters, from reading notes to unpublished texts. Fernando Pessoa’s
Modernity Without Frontiers is a valuable introduction to this multifaceted modern master, intended for both students of modern literature and general readers interested in one of its major figures.

Table of Content

List of Contributors

Acknowledgements

Foreword – Helder Macedo

Introduction – Mariana Gray de Castro

Chronology of Pessoa’s Life and Work – Richard Zenith

‘O Deus Que Faltava’: Pessoa’s Theory of Lyric Poetry – Maria Irene Ramalho de Sousa Santos

Pessoa and Walt Whitman Revisited – Richard Zenith

The Poet as Hero: Pessoa and Carlyle – Leyla Perrone-Moises

Álvaro de Campos, English Decadent – George Monteiro

Pessoa’s Unmodernity: Ricardo Reis – Helena Buescu

From Fitz Gerald’s
Omar to Pessoa’s
Rubaiyat – Jeronimo Pizarro

The Solitary Reaper Among Men (and Some Women) – Anna M. Klobucka

Mostrengos – Rui Goncalves Miranda

Inverted Aesthetics: Pessoa, Campos and António Botto’s
Canções – Mark Sabine

Pessoa, Shakespeare’s
Sonnets, and the Problem of Gaspar Simões – Mariana Gray de Castro

The Alchemical Path: Esoteric Influence in the Works of Fernando Pessoa and W. B. Yeats – Patrícia Silva Mc Neill

.An Implausible Encounter and a Theatrical Suicide – its Prologue and Aftermath: Fernando Pessoa and Aleister Crowley – Steffen Dix

Bernardo Soares, Pig of Destiny! – Rhian Atkin

The Birth of Literature – Antonio M. Feijo

The Ecology of Writing: Maria José’s Fernando Pessoa – Victor Mendes

Patrícia Galvão on Pessoa in Brazil, 1955-1961 – K. David Jackson

Great Pessoans: A Tribute – Jose Blanco

Bibliography