Literature: Florbela Espanca

 

Florbela Espanca, Portuguese poet (Vila Viçosa, 8 December 1894 — Matosinhos, 8 December de 1930). Precursor of the feminist movement in Portugal, had a tumultuous and eventful life that shaped her writings, finely imbued of erotism and femininity.

Daughter of Antónia da Conceição Lobo, she was baptised as child of father incognito. Upon the death of her mother in 1908, she is taken into the care of Maria Espanca and João Maria Espanca, to whom Antónia had worked as a maid. João Maria Espanca, who always provided for Florbela (she referred to him in a poem as “dear Daddy of my soul”), recognised paternity only 19 years after her death.

The earliest known poem written by the hand of Florbela, A Vida e a Morte (Life and Death), dates back to 1903. Her first marriage, to Alberto Moutinho, was celebrated on her birthday, in 1913. Graduating in Literature in 1917, she enrolled in Law, becoming the first woman to follow this course of study at the University of Lisbon.

Suffered a miscarriage in 1919, the year that would see the publication of Livro de Mágoas. Florbela experiences at this time the first serious symptoms of mental illness. In 1921 divorces her first husband and lives through the social prejudice decurrent of that condition. António Guimarães would become her second husband in the following year.

The work Livro de Sóror Saudade is published in 1923. Florbela suffers a second miscarriage, after which her husband initiates divorce procedures. In 1925 marries one last time, to Mário Lage. Her brother Apeles Espanca would encounter premature death in an airplane accident, event that affects her profoundly and inspires the writing of As Máscaras do Destino.

Florbela attempts suicide on two occasions, in October and November of 1930, shortly before her master-piece Charneca em Flor was published. Being diagnosed a pulmonary edema, Florbela died on 8th December 1930, her birthday. Her precarious health and complex mental condition make the actual cause of death a question to this day. Charneca em Flor would be published in January 1931.

The love I feel for you
Is so deep and runs so true
That I even love the longing 
That I feel because of you.

What kind of magic potion
Did you give me from that jar?
That I forget who I am
But always know who you are…

Writer: Fernando Pessoa

1888 - 1935

It is sometimes said that the four greatest Portuguese poets of modern times are Fernando Pessoa. The statement is possible since Pessoa, whose name means ‘person’ in Portuguese, had three alter egos who wrote in styles completely different from his own. In fact Pessoa wrote under dozens of names, but Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Álvaro de Campos were – their creator claimed – full-fledged individuals who wrote things that he himself would never or could never write. He dubbed them ‘heteronyms’ rather than pseudonyms, since they were not false names but “other names”, belonging to distinct literary personalities. Not only were their styles different; they thought differently, they had different religious and political views, different aesthetic sensibilities, different social temperaments. And each produced a large body of poetry. Álvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis also signed dozens of pages of prose.    

Não sei quantas almas tenho.                   
Cada momento mudei.
Continuamente me estranho.
Nunca me vi nem achei.
De tanto ser, só tenho alma.
Quem tem alma não tem calma.
Quem vê é só o que vê.
Quem sente não é quem é.    

Atento ao que sou e vejo,
Torno-me eles e não eu.
Cada meu sonho ou desejo,
É do que nasce, e não meu.
Sou minha própria paisagem,
Assisto à minha passagem,
Diverso, móbil e só. 
Não sei sentir-me onde estou.

Por isso, alheio, vou lendo
Como páginas, meu ser.
O que segue não prevendo,
O que passou a esquecer.
Noto à margem do que li
O que julguei que senti. 
Releio e digo, «Fui eu?»
Deus sabe, porque o escreveu.

I don’t know how many souls I have.
I’ve changed at every moment.
I always feel like a stranger.
I’ve never seen or found myself.
From being so much, I have only soul.
A man who has soul has no calm.
A man who sees is just what he sees.
A man who feels is not who he is.    

Attentive to what I am and see,
I become them and stop being I.
Each of my dreams and each desire
Belongs to whoever had it, not me.
I am my own landscape,
I watch myself journey -
Various, mobile, and alone. 
Here where I am I can’t feel myself.

That’s why I read, as a stranger,
My being as if it were pages.
Not knowing what will come
And forgetting what has passed,
I note in the margin of my reading 
What I thought I felt. 
Rereading, I wonder: “Was that me?”
God knows, because he wrote it

Book: Blindness

Blindness (Portuguese: Ensaio sobre a Cegueira, meaning Essay on Blindness) is a novel by Portuguese author José Saramago. It was published in Portuguese in 1995 and in English in 1997. It is one of his most famous novels, along with The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and Baltasar and Blimunda. It is being adapted to the cinema by Fernando Meirelles.