Sumários

Fernando Pessoa: Bernando Soares (The Book of Disquiet)

9 Novembro 2017, 10:00 • Helena Carvalhão Buescu

An introduction to Bernardo Soares' fictional biography, style and philosophical perspectives (shared with the orthonym).

The "Triumphal Day" as the triumph and systematization of heteronimy over the unified self.

Reading and discussion of Fragments 69, 70 and 298 from The Book of Disquiet, the "impossible book", by the semi-heteronym Bernando Soares.

The Book of Disquiet as "a factless autobiography"; compensation for an uneventful daily life (the "common human banality") with a boundless imagination: the Rückenfigur as the representation of the anonymous modern city but also as a gateway to another reality; the absurdity of life (a dead end); incompatibility between knowledge/consciousness and happiness.

Fernando Pessoa: orthonym (Songbook and Message)

7 Novembro 2017, 10:00 • Helena Carvalhão Buescu

An introductory biographical note on Fernando Pessoa.

The process of heteronimy (depersonalization and multiplicity), some philosophical (Theory of Knowledge/Gnoseology and the Rückenfigur) and literary (Baudelaire) influences; the concept of the painful interval (gap between the subject who knows and the object/world he wants to know) and an intertextual relationship (by comparison and confrontation) with Camões' The Lusiads.

Reading and discussion of "Pedrouços", "Autopsychography" and "O cat playing in the street" (from Songbook); "Coat of Arms: The Castles" and "The Sea Monster" (from Message).

Mário de Sá-Carneiro: Selected Poetry

2 Novembro 2017, 10:00 • Helena Carvalhão Buescu

The Poet's life as a poetic staging; the notion of the "mask" as an impediment to access reality (and oneself).

Reading and discussion of “To be a woman”; “Almost”; “The other” and "Beyond Boredom": the idea of an impossible life (and an impossible self); the poet as both part of the society and its observer; frustration and an unbearable consciousness of the universe; inbetweenness; loss of hope and illness as a state of existence. 

Out of class activity

31 Outubro 2017, 10:00 • Helena Carvalhão Buescu

Visit to Casa Fernando Pessoa.

Portuguese literature in the 20th and 21st centuries: an introduction

26 Outubro 2017, 10:00 • Helena Carvalhão Buescu

Main topics: from Symbolism to Modernism (Cesário Verde); the new figure of the Poet (Camilo Pessanha and Mário de Sá-Carneiro); the heteronimy (Fernando Pessoa); neo-realism (political and anthropological situation); social identity (short stories); Portugal in the world (Gonçalo M. Tavares).