On October 19, 2005 I posted a short piece to this blog about ALWAYS ASTONISHED: Selected Prose by Fernando Pessoa, which may be found HERE. Pessoa's life and work is of particular interest to Cinemorphics because of his method of creating "heteronyms", alternative personas, all of whom composed work "in character". Here is an excerpt from a short biography of Pessoa...
"Literary alter egos were popular among early twentieth-century writers: Pound had Mauberley, Rilke had Malte Laurids Brigge, and Valéry had Monsieur Teste. But no one took their alter ego as far as Pessoa, who gave up his own life to confer quasi-real substance on the poets he designated at heteronyms, giving each a personal biography, psychology, politics, aesthetics, religion, and physique...
...At least seventy-two names besides Fernando Pessoa were "responsible" for the thousands of texts that were actually written and the many more that he only planned. Although Pessoa also published some works pseudonymically, he distinguished this from the "heteronymic" project: "A pseudonymic work is, except for the name with which it is signed, the work of an author writing as himself; a heteronymic work is by an author writing outside his own personality: it is the work of a complete individuality made up by him, just as the utterances of some character in a drama would be."
The entire bio may be found HERE. A powerful study in character play.
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/752#sthash.ohzmK8Mn.dpuf
At
least seventy-two names besides Fernando Pessoa were "responsible" for
the thousands of texts that were actually written and the many more that
he only planned. Although Pessoa also published some works
pseudonymically, he distinguished this from the "heteronymic" project:
"A pseudonymic work is, except for the name with which it is signed, the
work of an author writing as himself; a heteronymic work is by an
author writing outside his own personality: it is the work of a complete
individuality made up by him, just as the utterances of some character
in a drama would be." - See more at:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/752#sthash.ohzmK8Mn.dpuf
At least seventy-two names besides Fernando Pessoa were "responsible"
for the thousands of texts that were actually written and the many more
that he only planned. Although Pessoa also published some works
pseudonymically, he distinguished this from the "heteronymic" project:
"A pseudonymic work is, except for the name with which it is signed, the
work of an author writing as himself; a heteronymic work is by an
author writing outside his own personality: it is the work of a complete
individuality made up by him, just as the utterances of some character
in a drama would be."
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/752#sthash.ohzmK8Mn.dpuf
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/752#sthash.ohzmK8Mn.dpuf
