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The Machine and the Garden:
Walt Whitman and Fernando Pessoa’s Álvaro de Campos
by Reinaldo Silva
This essay examines Walt Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass as a catalyst producing
an eruption of multiple voices within the Pessoa self. This literary encounter,
a sort of poetic “annunciation” on the Pessoa body, immediately leads to the
births of Alberto Caeiro and Álvaro de Campos, alter egos/pseudonyms in which
traces of Whitman are visibly present. I will concentrate on the Campos “heteronym”
who had seen in Whitman the “Medium of Modern Times.” In his screening of
Whitman’s celebration of technological achievements in mid-nineteenth century
America, coupled with the futurist impact of the early twentieth century,
Pessoa forges a poetic voice deeply infatuated with and eager to praise the
marvels of progress and machinery in a country, Portugal, which at the time
(1914-16) was not actively participating in the industrial revolution and
still far from defining itself as overwhelmingly industrialized and developed.
Although Walt Whitman (1819-92)
and Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) never met each other, it is now impossible
to think of Pessoa without having Whitman in the back of one’s mind, and vice
versa. This view has become a commonplace, but it is in fact a relatively
recent one. The critical interest in the Whitman presence in Pessoa’s heteronymic
voices (namely those of Alberto Caeiro and Álvaro de Campos) in particular
has grown. I attempt to address this issue and view the Campos heteronym in
a radically new light. Briefly, Campos assimilates from Whitman his own celebration
of technology and industrialism in mid-nineteenth century America. Along with
this Whitmanian theme, Pessoa is strongly influenced by the early twentieth-century
futurist literary movement and immediately crafts his own hymns to technology,
especially in such poems as “Triumphal Ode,” “Maritime Ode,” “Salutation to
Walt Whitman” and “Passagem das Horas,” all written between 1914-16 and belonging
to his so-called Whitmanian phase. Although it has been pointed out by a few
critics that Pessoa, through the voice of Campos, is celebrating technology
and industry in a country that is not actively participating in the industrial
revolution, this reference has not been adequately expanded and analyzed.
The aim of this essay is precisely to unveil the social and economic context
from which this voice emerges, to shed light on the Portuguese social reality
that Campos refuses to talk about or simply conceals.
***
Apart from the few published
studies focusing on the literary influence of Walt Whitman on Fernando Pessoa
(Caeiro and Campos), Pessoa’s own literary criticism and random notes show
how far the American bard helped to shape his poetic voice.[1] Although this study does not
aim at highlighting Whitman’s presence in the Caeiro heteronym, it is worth
noting briefly what Pessoa (here through the voice of Ricardo Reis, the most
classicist voice of Pessoa) had to say about the notorious Whitmanian presence
in Caeiro: "To
whom can Caeiro be compared? To very few poets…The very
few poets to whom Caeiro may be compared, either because
he merely reminds, or might remind us of them,or because he may
be conceived of as having been influenced
by them, whether we think it seriously or not,
are Whitman, Francis Jammes and Teixeira de Pascoaes.
He resembles Whitman
most… "(Pessoa, Páginas Íntima e de Auto-Interpretação, 335-36). Caeiro claims that
although both poets are sensationists, Caeiro’s
sensationism is of a type different from Whitman’s.
The difference, though it seems subtle and
difficult to explain, is nevertheless
quite clear. It
lies in this: Caeiro seizes on a single subject and sees
it clearly; even when he seems to see it in a complex
way, it will be found that is but some means to see it all the
more clearly. Whitman strives to see,
not clearly, but deeply. Caeiro sees only the object, striving
to separate it as much as possible from all sensations or ideas
not, so to speak, part of the
object itself. Whitman does the exact contrary: he strives to link up object
with all others, with many others,
with the soul and the Universe and God (Pessoa, Páginas
Íntimas, 370).
At the level of temperament,
the poets differ radically: " Even
when he thinks, Whitman’s thought is a mode of his
feeling, or absolutely a mood, in the common decadent
sense. Even when Caeiro feels, his feeling is a mode of this thought" (Pessoa, Páginas
Íntimas, 370). They also hold divergent views about their relationship
to their fellow man: "Whitman’s
violent democratic feeling could be
contrasted with Caeiro’s abhorrence for any sort of humanitarianism, Whitman’s
interest in all things human, with Caeiro’s indifference to all
that men feel, suffer or enjoy" (Pessoa, Páginas
Íntimas, 371). Although the poetry of both men seems to share
a lack of rhythm, Caeiro, whose poems also are in free verse, notes that
" Whitman has really
a sense of metrical rhythm; it is of
a special kind, but it exists. Caeiro’s rhythm is noticeably
absent. He is so distinctly intellectual, that the lines have no
wave of feeling from which to derive
their rhythmical movement"(Pessoa, Páginas
Íntimas, 371).
While Caeiro manifests a certain
eagerness to discard all that might recall the master, Campos reacts quite
differently for he strives to give Whitman a giant welcome hug. He is not
ashamed to confess the admiration he has for Whitman:
Álvaro
de Campos is excellently defined as a WaltWhitman
with a Greek poet inside. He has all the powerof intellectual,
emotional and physical sensation that characterized Whitman.
But he has the precisely opposite trait – a power of construction
and orderly development
of a poem that no poet since Milton has attained. Álvaro de Campos’ Triumphal Ode, which is
written in the
Whitmanesque absence of stanza and rhyme (and regularity) has a construction
and an orderly
development which stultifies that Lycidas,
for instance
can claim in this particular. The Naval
Ode,which covers no less than 22 pages of Orpheu, is a very
marvel of organisation. No German regiment ever had the inner discipline
which underlies that composition, which, from its typographical aspect,
might almost be considered as a specimen of futurist carelessness.
The same considerations apply to the magnificent
Salutation to Walt Whitman, in the third Orpheu (Pessoa, Páginas Íntimas, 142). |
Like Whitman, Campos attempts
to feel everything in every way: "He applies himself to
feeling the town
as much as he feels the country, the normal as he feels the abnormal, the
bad as he feels the
good, the morbid as the healthy…. He is the undisciplined child of sensation….
Álvaro de Campos has no shadow of an ethics; he is non-moral, if
not positively immoral, for, of course, according to his
theory it is natural
that he should love the stronger better
than the weak sensations, and the strong sensations
are, at least, all selfish and occasionally the
sensations of cruelty and lust" (Pessoa, Páginas
Íntimas, 341-42).
Campos, however, confesses
that he
has nothing of Whitman’s camaraderie: "he is always
apart from the crowd,
and when feeling with them it is clearly
and very confessedly to please himself and give
himself brutal sensations. The idea that a child of
eight is demoralised (Ode II, ad finem) [Ode
Triunfal] is positively pleasant to him, for the idea of
that satisfies two very strong sensations – cruelty and lust" (Pessoa, Páginas
Íntimas, 342-43).
Of all the traits of Whitman’s
poetry, though, the one that seems to have captured Pessoa’s/Campos’ attention
most is the embodiment of progress. As a representative of a world in constant
change, Whitman will, in Pessoa’s opinion, outlast all other poets:
"A magnificent type
of poet who will survive by representativeness
is Walt Whitman. Whitman has all modern
times in him, from cruelty [?] to engineering, from
humanitarian tendencies to the hardness of intellectuality – he
has all this in him. He is far more
permanent than (Schiller or) Musset, for instance.
He is the medium of Modern Times" (Pessoa, Páginas
de Estética e de Teoria e Crítica Literárias,273).
Pessoa, too, manifests an intense
desire to become the “medium of Modern Times.” By way of forging the Campos
heteronym, he attempts to share with Whitman that role. That is why Campos
is the most cosmopolitan, urban, and true admirer of progress of all the voices
composing the entire heteronymic spectrum. As an individual, he is aware that
he possesses the requisites expected of all true modern men. At times, his
tone of voice betrays his overtly narcissistic character and a tendency to
boast about his intellectual and ultra-refined personality. Apart from his
thorough knowledge of the Portuguese language, Campos also knows how to speak
English. Even if he never states it openly, he is fully aware that his bilingualism
allows him to consider himself “international”:
I was born in a Portuguese province,
And I’ve known some English people
Who say I speak their language perfectly.
(“Opium Eater”)
In addition, he has traveled
and studied engineering abroad:
I pretended I studied engineering.
I lived in Scotland. I visited Ireland
(“Opium Eater”)
Although he confesses that
he was a mediocre college student who pretended to be studying engineering,
this statement seems to be rather misleading for he knows his trade quite
well. At least his odes, especially “Triumphal Ode,” contradict this view
of himself as “Always a second-rate student” (“Opium Eater”). Self-contradicting
like Whitman, Campos immediately gives us the impression that he is the most
refined and civilized being on earth:
And I who love modern civilisation, I who
embrace
the machines with all my heart,
I, the engineer, the civilized mind, the
man
educated
abroad
(“Maritime Ode”)
At times a dandy and somewhat
trivial, Campos is thoroughly convinced of his own universalism: “My very
monocle says I belong / To a universal type” (“Opium Eater”). So deeply infatuated
with his master, Campos cannot avoid expressing his total identification with
Whitman. In an ecstasy, Campos addresses Whitman to remind him of their oneness:
Look at me: you know that I, Álvaro de Campos,
ship’s engineer,
Sensationist poet,
Am not your disciple, am not your friend,
am not
your singer,
You know that I am you, and you are happy
About
it!
("Salutation
to Walt Whitman")
This mood of oneness and intense admiration for Whitman, however, was
ephemeral (Baker 317). Temporally speaking, it is located around 1914-16 when
Campos wrote at least the following four poems: “Triumphal Ode” in March 1914,
“Maritime Ode” in 1914, “Salutation to Walt Whitman” on 11 June 1915, and
“Passagem das Horas” on 5 May 1916. A few more poems contain clear echoes
of Whitman; these four are the ones commonly ascribed to Campos’ Whitmanian
phase.
During this period, Pessoa used Campos as
something of a blotter to absorb passages in Whitman’s poetry in which he
spasmodically celebrated machinery and the industrial achievements in America.
Yet, Campos’ hysterical celebration of industrialism is counterbalanced by
Whitman’s brief and random industrial snapshots disseminated throughout Leaves of Grass (mainly in such poems as
“To a Locomotive in Winter,” “Song of the Broad-Axe,” and “Song of the Exposition”).
In reference to this point, Rainer Hess asks in which of Whitman’s poems is
there a “glorification of machinery in such an exalted and frenetic tone as
is the permanent case of Pessoa/Campos?” (210; my translation). What Hess
seems to overlook here is that Pessoa/Campos is writing under the influence
of futurism, whereas Whitman is simply regarded as a precursor of futurism
by the founders of that movement, namely by the Italian Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
(1876-1944). Campos essentially extracts from Whitman’s poetry the American
portrait of a young and robust country caught in the midst of the industrial
revolution. Leaves of Grass is to
him a reservoir of images from where he can obtain the nourishment to satisfy
his hunger for progress. Therein, he can truly visualize a new country pulsating
with life, in constant transformation, with factories, the latest inventions,
and most of all, the crowds strolling in Manhattan or sailing
on Brooklyn Ferry.
Campos weaves his
own hymn to technology. In addition, he believes himself to have been elected
in order to fulfill this mission for he immediately seizes for himself the
role of spokesman:
My lips are dry, o great modern noises,
From hearing you too close by,
My head is burning through wanting to sing you
in an excess
Of expression of all sensations,
With a contemporary excess of you, o machines!
(“Triumphal Ode”)
In his celebration of modern civilization, Campos informs
his readers that he will not discriminate against anyone or anything. He seems
to derive the very meaning for his own existence from his role as passionate
lover of all that is simply labeled modern:
I love you all, everything, just like a
beast.
I love you carnivorously,
Pervertedly and twisting my gaze
On you, o things great, banal, useful and
useless,
o things modern through
O my contemporary things, current and future
form
Of the immediate system of the Universe!
The new metallic and dynamic Revelation
of God!
(“Triumphal Ode”)
Destined
to remain a bachelor throughout his entire life, Campos’ intense emotions
are directed exclusively to machinery and modern civilization: “And I who
love modern civilization, I who embrace the machines with all my heart” (“Maritime
Ode”). Campos
even goes as far as to show his pride in belonging to an epoch profoundly
marked by progress:
All this today is what’s always been, except
that there’s trade;
And the commercial purpose of the great steamers
Makes me boast of this age I live in!
The variety of people aboard passenger ships
Fills me with the modern pride of living in an age
when it’s so easy
For races to come together, cover distances,
see everything so easily,
Thus realizing and enjoying so many dreams in
one’s lifetime.
(“Maritime
Ode”)
Campos achieves an apotheosis in his feeling
of pride, especially when he contrasts his own time with that of the past.
He makes it clear that his epoch is far more developed than all previous ones.
Yet, his own rhetoric betrays a feeling of due credit to all past generations
for having prepared the path that would lead to his own modern civilization:
At the piercing light of the big electric bulbs of
the factory
I am feverish and I write.
I write gnawing my teeth, a philistine to
the
beauty of this,
To the beauty of this which was totally
unknown
to the Ancients….
And Plato and Virgil are inside the machines
and
the electric lights
Simply because there was a time past and
Virgil
and Plato were human,
And from the fiftieth century, perhaps,
pieces of Alexander the Great,
Atoms that are bound to be feverish to the
mind of
the Aeschilus of the hundredth century.
(“Triumphal Ode”)
Campos’ belief is that Whitman should also be listed
among the pioneers of modern civilization. His “Salutation to Walt Whitman”
is the medium through which he deliberately communicates his feelings of admiration
and respect to his master:
O singer of concrete absolutes, always modern
and eternal,
Fiery concubine of the scattered world,
Great pederast brushing up against the
diversity of things,
Sexualized by rocks, by trees, by people,
by
their trades,
Itch for the swiftly passing, for casual
encounters, for what’s merely observed,
My enthusiast for what’s inside everything,
My great hero going straight through Death
by
leaps and bounds,
Roaring, screaming, bellowing greetings
to God!
Singer of wild and gentle brotherhood with
everything,
Great epidermic democrat, up close to it
all in
body and soul,
Carnival of each and every action, baccanalia
of
all intentions,
Twin bother of every sudden impulse,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau of the world hell-bent
to
produce machinery,
Homer of all the insaisissable of wavering
carnality,
Shakespeare of the sensation on the verge
of
steam propulsion,
Milton-Shelley of the dawning future of
electricity!
Incubus of all gestures,
Spasm penetrating every object-force,
Souteneur
of the whole Universe,
Whore of all solar systems…
(“Salutation to Walt Whitman”)
While acknowledging their important contribution to mankind, Campos subtly
rejects their view of literature (obviously, excluding Whitman). He is not
interested in painting idyllic landscapes or in depicting romantic love scenes.
In his opinion, literature has a far more important goal to achieve: it should
reflect a world in a constant state of change. Literature must now open its
doors to the smells of factories and to the noises of roaring engines. It
should capture the very poetry contained in the machine:
Poetry hasn’t lost out a bit. Moreover, we now
have the machine
With its own poetry as well, and a totally
new
way of life,
Business-like, worldly, intellectual, sentimental,
With which the machine age has endowed our
souls.
(“Maritime
Ode”)
In this light, Campos has been
seen as a mouthpiece for some of Marinetti’s beliefs contained in his “Manifesto
of Futurism.” Along with the Italian futurists, Campos, too,
"will sing of great crowds
excited by work, by pleasure, and by riot; we will sing of the multicolored,
polyphonic tides of revolution in the modern capitals; we will sing of the
vibrant nightly fervor of arsenals and shipyards blazing with violent electric
moons; greedy railway
stations that devour smoke-plumed serpents; factories
hung on clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke;
bridges that stride the rivers like giant gymnasts,
flashing in the sun with a glitter of knives;
adventurous steamers that sniff the horizon; deep-chested
locomotives whose wheels paw the tracks like
hooves of enormous steel horses bridled by tubing;
and the sleek flight of planes whose propellers
chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer an enthusiastict crowd"
( Marinettie 42). |
In his celebration of the age
of machinery, Campos longs to identify with or become the machine itself:
Ah, to be able to express myself totally as an
engine does!
To be complete like a machine!
To be able to go triumphantly through life
like a latest model motor car!
To be able at least to penetrate myself
physically in all this,
To tear myself apart, open up completely,
to
become susceptible
To all perfume of oils and heat and coal
Of this stupendous, black, artificial and
insatiable flora!
(“Triumphal Ode”)
The machine, indeed virtually
anything modern, is to Campos an object of sexual attraction:
O factories, o laboratories, o music-halls, o
Luna-Parks,
O battleships, o bridges, o floating docks
–
In my turbulent and incandescent mind
I possess you as I would possess a beautiful
woman,
I completely possess you as you possess
a woman
you do not love.
Whom you meet casually and think most
attractive.
(“Triumphal Ode”)
If Whitman had really intended his “barbaric yawp[s]”
to be heard “over the roofs of the world” (“Song of Myself,” section 52),
it can be argued that his wish is completely fulfilled, as Pessoa/Campos,
in Lisbon, proves to be a careful listener of such cries coming from the other
side of the Atlantic. In addition, Pessoa’s underlining of this Whitmanian
line in one of his copies of Leaves
of Grass shows to what extent such cries had grasped his imagination.
Whitman’s yawps, along with the explosive rhetoric of the futurists, led Pessoa/Campos
to intersperse his poems of the Whitmanian phase with interjections, onomatopoeias,
noises of modern civilization, and “noisy” verbs. “Triumphal Ode” and “Maritime
Ode” are perhaps the noisiest poems ever written in the Portuguese language:
O wheels, o cogwheels, a never-ending r-r-r-r-r-r-!
……………………………………………………
Roaring, creaking, whispering, thundering,
grating
……………………………………………………
Hey there streets, hey there squares, oh
hey there
la
foule!
……………………………………………………
Hilla! Hilla! Halloa!
……………………………………………………
Here! Here! Here! Here now!
……………………………………………………
Up there, up there, up there, up there,
Look there! Look now! Look!
Z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z!
(“Triumphal Ode”)
In his attempt to capture on paper the sounds of modern
civilization through the inclusion of certain technical and graphical devices,
Campos is a true admirer of progress. In “Maritime Ode,” he deliberately uses
a typographic technique recommended by Marinetti:[2]
Yah-yah-yah-yah! Yah-yah-yah-yah!
Yah-yah-yah-yah-yah!
Everything screams! Everything is screaming!
Winds, waves, ships,
High tides, topsails, pirates, my soul,
blood, and
the air, the air!
Ha-ha-ha-ha! Yah-yah-yah-yah! Yah-yah-yah-yah-yah-
yah! Everything sings itself into a scream!
FIFTEEN MEN ON A DEAD MAN’S CHEST.
YO-HO-HO AND A BOTTLE OF RUM!
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Yah-yah-yah-yah! Yah-yah-yah-yah!
Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! Hohohohohohoh!
AHO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O—YYY!…
SCHOONER AHO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-YYY!…
Darby Mc Graw-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw.
DARBY Mc GRAW-AW-AW-AW-AW-AW-AW.
FETCH AFFFT THE RU-U-U-U-UM, DARBY…
(“Maritime
Ode”)
Campos also uses this technique in his “Salutation
to Walt Whitman”:
Entryway to everything!
Bridge to everything!
Highway to everything!
Your omnivorous soul,
Your soul that’s bird, fish, beast, man,
woman,
Your soul that’s two where two exist,
Your soul that’s one becoming two when two
are one,
Your soul that’s arrow, lightning, space,
Amplex, nexus, sex and Texas, Carolina and
New York,
Brooklyn Ferry in the twilight,
Brooklyn Ferry going back and forth,
Libertad!
Democracy! The Twentieth Century about to
dawn!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
BOOM!
(“Salutation to Walt Whitman”)
***
Although Campos succeeds in
convincing us of his expertise in technological matters, does he ever ask himself
whether his Portuguese readers would themselves easily identify with what he
so voraciously praises? Did it ever cross his mind that perhaps his own country
might not be prepared to thoroughly grasp his message? Or was it just that his
vision of modern society was perhaps too advanced and nowhere present in his
own homeland?
If one
of the main attributes of literature is mimesis, then it can be argued without
any hesitation that Whitman’s portrayal of mid-nineteenth century America
as an industrialized nation in Leaves
of Grass entirely fulfills that requirement. In other words, his vision
of America as a “great cathedral sacred industry” (“Song of the Exposition”),
in Leaves of Grass is, in essence, a faithful
re-creation of what he actually had witnessed in his own country. A passionate
lover of everything he sets his eyes on, Whitman could not avoid celebrating
the industrial transformations his country was then undergoing:
The shapes arise!
The shapes of factories, arsenals, foundries,
markets,
Shapes of the two-threaded tracks of railroads,
Shapes of the sleepers of bridges, vast
frameworks, girders, arches,
Shapes of the fleets of barges, tows, lake
and
canal craft, river, craft,
Ship-yards and dry-docks along the Eastern
and
Western
seas…. (“Song of the Broad-Axe,” section 9)
Although a relatively small group of nations in the
western hemisphere were at the time experiencing the effects of the industrial
revolution, Whitman could not refrain from expressing his joy since his own
country was then one of the very few industrial leaders:
With latest connections, works, the inter-
transportation of the world,
Steam-power, the great express lines, gas,
petroleum,
These triumphs of our time, the Atlantic’s
delicate cable,
The Pacific railroad, the Suez canal, the
Mont
Cenis and Gothard and Hoosac tunnels,
the
Brooklyn bridge,
This earth all spann’d with iron rails,
with
lines of steamships threading every sea,
Our own rondure, the current globe I bring.
……………………………………………
Mark the spirit of invention everywhere,
thy
rapid patents,
Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen
or
rising,
See, from their chimneys how the tall flame-
fires stream.
(“Song of the Exposition,”
sections 7 and 8)
During his lifetime, Whitman
was lucky enough to have witnessed two major events in the history of industrial
progress, namely the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1853 and the Centennial
Exhibition of 1876 held in Philadelphia. Paul Zweig argues that Whitman’s participation
in the New York exhibition provided him with poetic insight as well as a clear
picture of numerous industrial achievements:
The exhibits arrived from all
over Europe and America: every kind of manufactured product and
raw material; quantities of art work; ‘philosophical machinery’,
including the daguerreotype; examples of the latest technology
and industry; decorative items such as perfumes, clothes, hair
dyes…. Among them came Walt Whitman who would return often over
the next year, wandering inside the broad arms of the glass and
cast-iron cross…. This was Whitman’s element: the crowds
and the soft gas lights; the eclectic mingling of commerce, art,
and science…. The Crystal Palace stood for the wealth, progress,
and democracy of this new age…. He spent days and evenings at
the Crystal Palace, enjoying the bands, the art, and the gas
lights; enjoying, above all, the festive concentration of modernity
displayed as a living ‘catalogue’, a ‘list-poem’ of man’s works
in all their randomness. As the Crystal Palace announced a new
age of productive labor, an age of the common man and the consumer
living lives of epic ordinariness, so Whitman, too, would announce this age in another way. (Zweig 210-11) |
Despite having written “Song of the Exposition” before
the opening of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia (Scheidl 27), Whitman
went there further to marvel at “how far the United States had come in just
one hundred years toward fulfilling its destiny as the light of the world”
(Kaplan 350).
Campos,
too, is a great admirer of progress, but to which physical landscape does
he refer in his odes? Can Pessoa, the heteronymic orchestrator, claim that
Campos’ vision is a faithful re-creation or mimetic representation of his
own Portugal in the early twentieth century? Can his readers easily identify
the industrial scenario therein depicted as typically Portuguese?
Although
Campos may have briefly referred to Rua do Ouro in his “Salutation to Walt
Whitman” as well as to Almada and the Tagus river in Lisbon in his “Maritime
Ode,” his hymn to technology, “Triumphal Ode,” is not rooted in Portuguese
soil. Since Campos asserts that the poem was written in London in June, 1914,
and since he had studied naval engineering in Glasgow, it is easy to conclude
that the industrial landscape therein portrayed is a British one.
Such a conclusion, however,
would be misleading, for Campos is simply a product of Pessoa’s imagination,
and Pessoa himself divided his entire life between only Portugal (early childhood
and as an adult) and South Africa (later childhood and as an adolescent), never
traveling to any other foreign country. The very embodiment of industrial progress,
Campos had to seek his own nourishment elsewhere in order to feed his intense
industrial appetite. Although Ludwig Scheidl refers to Pessoa’s enthusiasm for
technology and modernity as if it were grounded in Portuguese soil, specifically
in Lisbon, the fact is that if he had chosen to remain within the geographical
boundaries of Portugal, he either would not have found the quantity of machinery
he longed for or simply would not have found it at all (21-22). In addition,
in forging a European setting and using it as a subterfuge in his odes, Pessoa
attempts to conceal the economic and technological backwardness in which his
own country was, at the time, plunged. It is not in Portugal, but elsewhere
in western Europe that his concept of modern civilization could be found:
European hours, productive and pressed
Between machinery and useful occupations!
Great cities which have come to a stop in
the cafés,
In the cafés – the oasis of noisy futility
Where the noises and the gestures of the
useful
Are crystallized and precipitate
And the wheels and the sprockets and the
wooden-bearings of the Progressive!
(“Triumphal Ode”)
In one of his outbursts, Campos suddenly becomes more
precise as to where he believes the shrine of modern urban civilization is
geographically located—in England (London) and France (Paris):
International and transatlantic activity,
Canadian-Pacific!
Lights and feverish wastes of time in bars,
in
hotels,
At the Longchamps and the Derbys and the
Ascots,
And Piccadillys, and Avenues de l’Opera
that enter
Into my
very soul!
(“Triumphal Ode”)
An expert in English culture
and traditions, Campos cannot resist a brief reference to the famous horse races
in England: “Get up there jockey who won the Derby” (“Triumphal Ode”). One can
easily infer from these brief passages that Pessoa deliberately used Campos
as a mask to conceal the very fact that Portugal was not actively participating
in the industrial revolution in the early twentieth century. His criticism and
notes, however, introduce us to a different Pessoa, one who would openly comment
on the economic conditions in his own country. Although his biographer tends
to depict him as someone often distracted and aloof from reality (Simões 331-35),
Pessoa was in fact an astute observer of Portugal’s position in international
economics, for he openly states that "Portugal
as a great economic power is perhaps far more difficult
to envision… as an economic power we have absolutely no tradition;
or if we do have it, it is a negative one" (Quadros 257-58; my translation).
In striving to understand the causes that had deterred the nation from keeping
up with progress, Pessoa ironically concludes that it has to do with the very
idiosyncrasies of the Portuguese psyche: " Nothing
is less idle than a Portuguese. The only idle part
of the nation is the working part of it. Hence their lack of evident progress"
(Pessoa, Páginas
Íntimas, 144).
The search for the explanation
as to why Pessoa had deliberately given birth to a poetic voice thoroughly alienated
from Portuguese reality is not simple. Previous critics only briefly mention
or sporadically allude to this issue in their criticism. José Augusto Seabra
states that
We could point out several
other distinctive ties between
the author of “Triumphal Ode” and that of Leaves
of Grass. It would not surprise us if we’d only take into
account the different poetic experiences that separate the one
poet who celebrates a civilization and a still young continent
with no history, in which progress and technology are positive
attributes and in constant development, to a poet who looks exclusively
to machinery to obtain sensations, hence, dodging a civilization
in a state of alienation and in crisis. (Seabra 135-36; my translation)
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Neil
Larsen and Ronald Sousa shed a bit more light on this issue, although their
depiction of the economic and social conditions of Portugal during Campos’ Whitmanian
phase is somewhat superficial. Their view is that in Campos’ “Triumphal Ode,”
the ‘mundo moderno’ [modern world] that he [Campos] wildly extols
is nowhere identified as Portuguese. It is to be seen as the ‘Londres’,
‘London’, affixed to the end of the poem, but in reality it is undoubtedly
modeled on Lisbon, a strictly commercial center with
‘Londres’ as its hidden counterpart, the principal economic force
that forms Lisbon’s dependent, overwhelmingly-commercial material
presence… (Larsen and Sousa 109).
Compared
to the rest of the country, Lisbon was far more developed and could even boast
of its flourishing commerce. Yet, at the time, it was far from being considered
industrialized. In referring to Lisbon in 1915 as a “drowsy” place
(Simões 304), Pessoa’s biographer seems to imply that the inhabitants themselves
were then plunged in a sort of siesta time. The overwhelming clanking of metallic
equipment along with Campos’ hysterical screams throughout his odes seems
to have rudely “awakened” them.
Unprepared to cope with Campos’
poetic vision, a fierce opposition from the Lisbon circles immediately ensued.
Pessoa and all other contributors to the Orpheu
journal were immediately labeled insane, degenerate, and dangerous, as well
as being tarred as drug addicts (Simões 239). The publication of Orpheu
immediately generated an uproar in the Lisbon dailies. Suddenly, Pessoa
was ferociously ridiculed in an endless wave of sarcastic newspaper articles.
It is worth including an excerpt (in form of interview) to see how far Pessoa’s
ego had been attacked:
Just between us, I’ve always
considered practically all
poets as a bunch of cast aside madmen just because they can think and write
in a different way than we do. Of course, these guys’ insanity
is far more visible. That guy who thinks he’s a driving-belt,
a steam machine piston and an electric bulb reminds me of that
joke in which the fool thought he was a pissing pot. The obsession
is quite similar. The difference is that this one is inclined
to movement whereas the other one was attracted to perfumes.
The one I talk about has a distinctive attribute: he is an
eminent national poet. See how he says somewhere along the lines:
‘To be idle is my perdition’. This guy is one of my buddies –
or even better, he’s just like us, a true Portuguese specimen. He’s lucky,
though, because he doesn’t have to earn a living and provide
for the family; he amuses himself contemplating his existence,
‘an urn at dusk’, gliding ‘through the Suez canal’, ‘more and
more inside the Mallstrom’. Unfortunately, I don’t have the means,
otherwise, my dear friend, I’d spend my time listening to those
guys. There’s no doubt about their being interesting. At least
their circle doesn’t irritate anyone and has the advantage of protecting the typographical industry.
(Quoted in Simões 240; my translation). |
In dismissing the whole Orpheu group as a bunch of
lunatics, the journalists’ attitude clearly suggests that they did not identify
with what Campos had so intensely celebrated in his odes. In resorting to
sarcasm and ridicule, they might have been trying to give Pessoa some kind
of hint–perhaps that Campos as celebrator of technology in a non-industrialized
society was simply an aberration. Certainly, the Portuguese response illuminates
the poverty of potential progress in comparison to the reply of England to
futurist ideas. While Wyndham Lewis and the American Ezra Pound countered
with a grass-roots, industrially based Vorticism to both combat and surpass
the Italian mode, the Portuguese had only pre-industrial feelings (Wees 6-7).
Although Campos seems to be
misleading in light of his deliberate refusal to show us the other side of
the coin, it is, nonetheless, worth concentrating on the historical context from which such a voice emerged,
especially the period around 1914-16. At this time, Portugal was essentially
an agrarian country and far from even aspiring to achieve an industrial status.
This fact can be clearly visualized through the following chart (Wheeler 161
and Serrão 133):
Percentage of People Employed in sectors of Economy, 1911-30
|
1911
|
1930
|
|
Agrarian
|
57
|
46 |
Industrial
|
21 |
17 |
Service
|
22 |
37 |
It would be legitimate to expect an increase in the
percentage of people employed in the industrial sector as well as a boom in
industry around 1930, but none of this actually occurred. In 1911, at least
75.1 percent of the entire population was considered illiterate while the
rate of illiteracy for women was even higher at 77.4 percent (Marques, History of Portugal, 134 and Serrão 136).
If
Campos presents us with an image of intense industrial activity in his odes
(especially in “Triumphal Ode”), that image does not represent actual historical
circumstances, as Portugal was industrially far behind other European nations.
Industrial activity within the nation included mostly the canned fish (especially
sardines) industry and textiles, the latter being located mostly in the North.
The most relevant industrial sites were geographically located in the areas
of Oporto, Douro Litoral and Minho (in the Northwest) as well as in Barreiro,
facing Lisbon in the southern bank of the Tagus river (Marques, History
of Portugal, 122). The products were to be consumed within the country
and in the overseas colonies.
Although
the Republican revolution of October 5, 1910, aimed at improving the standards
of life of each citizen, this goal does not seem to have been accomplished;
the population was gradually emigrating to Brazil. It has been estimated that
in 1911 at least 60,000 discontented people from the rural areas in the North
and center of Portugal left for Brazil. This was to continue in the next two
years: at least 90,000 (1912) and 80,000 (1913) people flocked to the Portuguese
speaking South American country to begin a new life (Marques, História de Portugal, 187). Other important
factors contributed to this mass migration during and after this period. In
1915 the two major Portuguese cities, Lisbon and Oporto, experienced widespread
famine mainly among the underprivileged classes. The shortage of supplies
of wheat and other food products led to mass riots between the years of 1915
and 1917. At a particular time, the government was compelled to intervene
in an attempt to curb such social turmoil by way of declaring a state of martial
law (Wheeler 126-7). In January of 1912, the first general strike after the
Republican revolution took place. Hundreds of people were arrested in Lisbon,
and the Worker’s Union headquarters closed down. Until at least 1911, the
population of Lisbon and Oporto swelled enormously. Lodging and food were
scarce and expensive. The workers were expected to labor for at least twelve
or fourteen hours daily and were prey to many diseases, especially tuberculosis
(Wheeler 40).
It
is not the case that Pessoa was insensitive to the myriad problems surrounding
him and his fellow citizens. The truth is that Pessoa himself could be listed
among these unprotected and suffering people; he, too, had felt in his own
flesh what it meant to be poor and with few or no material possessions. Yet,
he attempts to cope with his situation by resorting to alienation. At least
through Campos’ eyes he could dream of being in a far more beautiful and developed
society.
At
least while he was writing as Campos, Pessoa could feel the beat of life in
an industrialized nation. In addition, in deliberately choosing London as
the setting for his “Triumphal Ode,” Pessoa is subtly striking at another
idiosyncrasy of the Portuguese psyche. In alluding to England, France or even
Whitman’s America as industrialized and developed nations, and not Portugal,
he is himself betraying his sense of the inferiority complex Portugal suffers
when its citizens compare its lack of development with the advancement of
foreign nations. There was in Portugal no basis for a mimesis of modernity,
so Pessoa found what he needed in Whitman and futurism and in the voice of
Campos through which he lives otherwise, elsewhere.
[1]
Eduardo Lourenço argues that
Pessoa’s reading of Walt Whitman’s Leaves
of Grass immediately led to the outburst of his inner voices and to
the creation of the heteronymic spectrum. Out of this volcanic eruption,
the voices of Alberto Caeiro and Álvaro de Campos (the ones in which the
presence of the American bard is strongly felt) emerge to somehow continue
and even develop the debate formerly begun by their master:
"From the meeting of Pessoa with Walt Whitman’s poetry
stems…the totality
of the heteronymic architecture…But to
him the heteronyms…are the result of the deflagration
of Pessoa’s universe confronted with Walt Whitman’s.
Alberto Caeiro and Álvaro de Campos were to Pessoa
the way into which he could incorporate the dazzling
impact of Whitman….It is believed that the discovery
of Walt Whitman is located in a time close to
the heteronymic explosion, it is worth mentioning between the end of 1913
and the beginning of 1914….Contrarily to what had happened with
other poets, the rendezvous with Whitman’s poetry won’t be for
Pessoa an occasion for mere formal or external influence…but
a complete perturbation
of his creative mechanism and vision"
(Lourenço 155-56; my translation). Susan
Margaret Brown conjectures that Pessoa’s contact with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass had occurred even earlier
than most tend to claim (between late 1913 and early 1914), that “Pessoa’s
knowledge of Whitman came directly from his reading of the texts and most
probably started as early as 1909” (68). She bases this argument on her
own inspection of Pessoa’s edition of The
Poems of Walt Whitman, the Penny Poets XXVII, Master Library Series
published in London by the Review of Reviewer’s Office. This book is not
dated; however, it is signed by Alexander Search, one of Pessoa’s personae
dating back to his adolescent years (1903-1909). Search is one of his voices
during the period in which he was a schoolboy in Durban, South Africa, and
in Lisbon during and after his enrollment in the Curso Superior de Letras
(study in the curriculum of Arts). Besides this copy, there is still another
one in Pessoa’s library containing all the poems of Whitman’s definitive
edition of Leaves of Grass, save for “Sands at Seventy”
and “Good-bye My Fancy.” This book, entitled Leaves of Grass, The People’s Library Edition, London: Cassel and
Co., Ltd., is signed “Fernando Pessoa” with the date “16.5.1916.”
[2]
That Pessoa had a thorough
knowledge of futurist aesthetics can be further attested through a close
inspection of a letter dated 13 August 1915 sent to him from Paris by his
friend Mário de Sá-Carneiro:
"At
the Sagod gallery, the cubist-futurist temple that I
have told you about in one of my letters, I bought a
volume yesterday: I POETI FUTURISTI. It’s an anthology which includes Marinetti and
many other poets:
Mario Bétuda, Libero Altomare, etc., etc. As soon
as I read the book (one week), I’ll send it to you
as a present. I have already found there a few Fu fu…cri-cri…corcurucu…Is-holá…,
etc., highly commendable"
(Sá-Carneiro 57; my translation).
In Marinetti’s avant-garde aesthetics contained in his “Manifesto of Futurism,”
he assures us that “A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes,
like serpents of explosive breath – a roaring car that seems to ride on
grapeshot – is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace” (Marinetti 41).
Pessoa/Campos responds to this in his poetry by claiming that:
A budget is as natural as a tree
And a parliament as beautiful as a butterfly.
(“Triumphal
Ode”)
Or
when he imitates Marinetti, assuring us that
Newton’s binomial is as beautiful as the Venus de
Milo.
The trouble is few people are aware of it.
Works
Cited
Baker,
Badiaa Bourenane. “Fernando Pessoa and Edgar Allan Poe/ Fernando Pessoa and Walt Whitman.” Arquivos
do Centro Cultural Português XV (1980): 247-321.
Brown, Susan Margaret. The Poetics of Pessoa’s Drama em
Gente: The Function of Alberto
Caeiro and the Role ofWalt Whitman. Diss. U of North Carolina, 1987. Ann
Arbor: UMI, 1987. 8722269.
Hess, Rainer. “Fernando Pessoa e Walt Whitman.” Aufsatze zur Portuguiesischen Kulturgeschichte
4 (1964): 181-211.
Kaplan, Justin. Walt
Whitman: A Life. New York: Simon,1980.
Larsen,
Neil and Ronald W. Sousa. “From Whitman (to Marinetti) to Álvaro de Campos: A Case Study in
Materialist Approaches to Literary Influence.”
Ideologies and Literature: A Journal of Hispanic
and Luso-Brazilian Studies. 4.17 (1983): 94-115.
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---. Selected
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---. Selected
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