Portuguese school literature I: Fernando Pessoa (and alter-egos)

Portuguese students dislike them: Fernando Pessoa is the poet that made thousands of students never read a poem again.
Born in 1888 in Lisbon, he wrote his first poem when he was six years old!, that first poem started his addiction to literature, he even wrote poems in english! (he lived in South Africa) and if that wasnt impressive: he completed four school years in two years.

But that didnt made him the most disliked portuguese poet, like the title says he had alter-egos, what we call in our language *heterónimos* , the number of *heterónimos* he had was infinite, but the ones portuguese students know are:

* Alberto Caeiro: Loves nature and doesnt like to think.
* Ricardo Reis: Knows that he will die (he cant stop thinking about it)
* Álvaro de Campos: Despite being a writer loves technology and industry (obviously he is not talking about smartphones, Pessoa, I mean, de Campos was alive like a hundred years ago)

Those poems have verses like *z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z* that dont mean anything, he even admits in one of his poems that reading is useless! (the poem’s name is *Liberdade*), he also likes to pretend that he is suffering, what we call *dor fingida* , which literally translates to pretended pain.

Portuguese students are unable to understand him, he is pure confusion, I was talking with my friends and they told me that the best thing of leaving portuguese school is to forget about this man.

The craziest thing about this is that Pessoa believed that he could adopt those personalities, he would speak to people and tell them “Pessoa is not here today, today I am Ricardo Reis”, and its like “how a man this crazy can be so important to a country?”, also he had problems with alcohol, the cafe where he used to go still exists ( *Martinho da Arcada* , I think its near the Praça do Comércio ), when I went there I was imagining that drunk man with infinite alter-egos that one day would be a national hero.

The other famous book by pessoa is *Mensagem* (literally means “message”) and its just nationalist propaganda that claims that the salt of the sea are tears of portuguese people (not joking).

The last thing I learned from this man was that he created a slogan for Coca-cola: *Primeiro estranha-se, depois entranha-se* (which translates to *At first you find it strange, then you get into it*) which ended up with coca-cola being banned in Portugal because they thought it was a drug.

*Tudo vale a pena quando a alma não é pequena*

by CRNXD38