INTRODUCTION
2008; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 24; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/port.2008.0003
ISSN2222-4270
AutoresJerónimo Pizarro, Steffen Dix,
Tópico(s)Literature, Culture, and Criticism
ResumoINTRODUCTION Likemany othermodernwriters, suchas Goetheand Flaubert, Fernando Pessoa was an authentic'keeperof papers'.1Whoeverhas opened his areas[trunks]and gone throughhis espolio [literary estate] has been struck bythefactthatanything thatcould be written on wasused and kept,fromhis childhoodto his death:napkins,businesscards,bitsof posters, book covers,envelopes,notebooksand calendarpages,not to mention writing paper(headedornot)from theoffices whereheworked, andfrom thecaféswherehe usedtowrite ormeethisfriends. One ofhis well-known aphorisms(and one ofthefewimperatives ofhiswork)can be foundon a tiny piece ofpaper: 'Sé pluralcomo o universo!'(BNP / E3, 2O-68r)2 ['Be pluralliketheuniverse!'].Hardly a daywentbywithout Pessoawriting a poem,a prosepassage,thebeginning ofa translation or a short readingnote;almostallofthesewereneatly foldedintohispocket and thenputin thetrunks - mostlikely as a silentpledgeto posterity. Overtheyearsatleasttwotrunks werefilled withpapers.Theywerelike a labyrinth ofoverlapping papers,whoseinvestigation beganin thelate 1930swhenLuis de Montalvor and otherpoets,editors, literary critics and friends associatedwiththe magazinepresença (without a capitalP) initiated theposthumous publicationofPessoa'swritings - a taskthat is farfromconcludedto thisday.In viewof thevastquantity of these fragments, and theiropen-ended character,this editorialadventure remains as stimulating nowas itwasthen.Pessoa'srestless need towrite, hisincessant preoccupation withgathering hisautographs, hiselaborate but slowplans to edit,and a hesitation to publish,all accountforthe impressive numberofpapersthatexist:currently theyare over30,000. For,to the 27,000 or so documentskeptin Portugal's NationalLibrary we mustadd thosestillwithPessoa'sheirs(about 10%), thefewin the Casa Fernando Pessoa[House ofFernandoPessoa], and thosein literary collections and withsomeanonymous and silentindividuals (about2%). All thesepapers,written overthe courseof the lastthirty-five yearsof Pessoa'slife(he diedin 1935), areslowly comingintothepublicdomain. 1'O Guardador dePapéis'wasthetitle ofa recent cycle ofconferences (CasaFernando Pessoa, 4June - 2July 2008). 2In full,'Biblioteca Nacionalde Portugal, Espolion.° 3, cota [classification] 20-68 rosto [recto]'. First published inFernando Pessoa, Páginas íntimas edeAuto-Interpretaçào, ed.byGeorg Rudolf LindandJacinto do PradoCoelho(Lisbon: Ática, 1966),p.94. Portuguese Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2008©Modern Humanities Research Association INTRODUCTION 7 In all honesty wecannotclaimtoknowthemwellenough,and therefore wecannotyetfully defineandanthologize the'essential' Pessoa.However we can makea patientcontribution toa better knowledge oftheauthor and thusrefine hisposthumous image.One mightsaythathiseditorial future remains almostas open as ever. This specialissueof Portuguese Studies has been conceivedmainlyto paytribute to Pessoa in the hundredand twentieth anniversary of his birth(1888-2008) and to reflect upon thedestiny ofhisliterary estate. Ifa relatively shorttimeago we could stillspeakof Tessoa's trunk'3 in referring toall ofhispreserved written output,todaywe need atleastto adopttheplural, 'trunks', andthussayfarewell toa famous commonplace. Why? In part, simply becausetheauthor'sknown paperswouldno longer fitinjustone suchcontainer,4 and in partbecause thesedocuments are to be foundin morethanone particular place. The Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (BNP) [Portugal'sNational Library]holds most of them and ithas recently acquireda newnotebook,5 butitsarchives stilllack papers thatare in privatecollections,museumsand other archives, not to mentionbooks fromPessoa's personallibrary, whichcontain abundantand valuablemarginalia. To acceptthatthePessoancollection is actively 'expanding'- to quote theliterary critic AntonioGuerreiro6 - is to acknowledge that'Pessoa'strunk'has always been something of a métonymie convenience.Undoubtedly, one wouldideallywishall of Pessoa'sautographs tobe in one place - indeed,toadaptone ofJorge LuisBorges'well-known phrases, wecouldsaythat'paradise'fora Pessoa scholarwouldbe one singleplace whereall his hand-written or typed texts, on loosepagesorinbooks,couldbe kept.Butthisisa Utopian wish, sinceseveralindividuals and archives havein theirpossession'portions' of the contents, and of the writer's personallibrary. Furthermore, a greatmanyofPessoa'sautographs are scattered; someofthebooksthat comprised hispersonallibrary havebeen lost;and severalphotographs haverecently been auctioned.The riskofthesedocuments beingfurther dispersedis evenmoreobvioustoday.On thedaythatone ofMariode Sá-Carneiro's notebooks wasauctioned,^ LuisMiguelQueirós,ajournalist and critic on Público, wrotethat: 3 'Pessoas Truhe: 70Jahre' ['Pessoa's Trunk: 70years'] wasthetitle ofanother group ofpapers, given atthe6thGerman Lusitanist Congress (University ofLeipzig, 15-18September 2005). 4 In a textentitled 'PlanofLife',from c.1919,Pessoaprojected a division ofhis'bigbox', when faced with animminent trip toEngland: 'Substitute, inrespect toorder ofpapers, my big boxbysmaller boxes, containing thepapers inorder oftheir importance. Thebigboxandthe other oneatA[ntonio] S[ilvano]'s contain themerenewspapers andreviews I keep'(BNP/E3, 20-14r).Cf.Pessoa, Páginas Intimas edeAuto-Interpretaçao, p. 24. 5SeeJoäoDionisio's article inthis number. 6Antonio Guerreiro, 'Urnespolioem expansäo',Expresso, 1846, 15 March2008,Actual, pp.4-7. 7Thisnotebook wasalsoacquired bytheBNP. 8 INTRODUCTION Milhares de páginas escritas porFernando Pessoa, incluindo correspondencia, poesiainédita e urnagrande variedade de outrostextos, conservam-se ainda na possede familiares do poeta.Se o Estadonaoavançar paraa compra deste espolio, é muito prov...
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