Talk: Fernando Pessoa and Álvaro de Campos' Odes: editorial and hermeneutic questions

Event Date: 

Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - 3:30pm

Event Location: 

  • Center for Portuguese Studies
  • Phelps Hall
  • 3rd floor
  • 3206

Álvaro de Campos is one of the most important heteronyms of Fernando Pessoa, and his poetry has been published several times. The last Portuguese edition was recently published by Jerónimo Pizarro and António Cardiello (Tinta-da-China, 2013) and reunites Campos' poetry and prose, on which I had the opportunity of participate in the organization of a particular project that Pessoa had, titled Arco do Triumpho. This project is constituted by the biggest and most intense poems that Campos signed (Ode Marítima, Ode Triunfal, Passagem das? Horas, Saudação a Walt Whitman and Ode Marcial), the Odes, which raise editorial questions regarding their fragmentary and unfinished state and were differently edited through time. Only two of them (Marítima and Triunfal) were published during Pessoa?s life, in Orpheu (first and second numbers, in 1915). However, these Odes are interesting not only for their problematic edition, but also for what seems to be found as their main idea: the identification of the poet with all that constitutes life. From editorial to hermeneutic questions, we intend to understand some of the characteristics of the universe that lies on Campos' Odes.