Pessoa, Concrete Poet, Influence, Muse

• Main Author: Schwartz, John Pedro
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Brown University 2019-06-01
• Series: Pessoa Plural
• Subjects: Pessoa, Fernando; Concrete poetry, Brazilian; Campos, Augusto de; Pignatari, Décio; Poetics; Literary form; Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.); Materiality; Joyce, James
• Online Access: https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:919595/PDF/

Brazilian concrete poetry can teach us to see, where the language is materialized, the concrete in Pessoa’s writings. To do this is to see Pessoa as a precursor of the Brazilian concrete poets. But precursor-ship is not the only link between them. In the case of the founding group of concrete poetry, the work of Pessoa traverses the whole of their critical and creative journey and is present from their first books up until their digital animations and last poems. I read Pessoa’s work through the lens of concrete theory in order to reveal him as a concrete poet in his own right. I examine Pessoa’s pervasive presence in the work of Augusto de Campos, the last surviving founder of concrete poetry and the one in whose work the critical and creative assimilation of Pessoa is most marked.