Pessoa Fernando

Fernando Pessoa was born on June 13, 1888, in Lisbon. His father, Joaquim de Seabra Pessoa, a native of Lisbon, worked in the Ministry of Justice and was also a music critic for the newspaper Diário de Notícias. Pessoa’s childhood and adolescence were marked by events that later influenced his life. In 1893, his father died of tuberculosis at the age of 43, when little Fernando was barely five years old. Pessoa’s mother was forced to auction off part of the furniture and move with the children to a more modest home. It was during this period that Pessoa’s first heteronym appeared, Chevalier de Pas; many years later Pessoa would write about this to his friend Adolfo Casais Monteiro. In the same year, Pessoa created his first poetic work — a short poem with a childlike epigraph: My Dear Mother. His mother remarried in 1895, to João Miguel Rosa, the Portuguese consul in Durban (South Africa), where she moved with the children. Pessoa spent his childhood and part of his youth in Durban. His mother became wholly absorbed in caring for her husband and the children from the second marriage, and Fernando was left to his own devices. The boy spent much time in solitude and contemplation. From childhood, he displayed great talent for literary work. In Durban he gained access to English literature and to writers such as Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, John Milton, Lord Byron, John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Alfred Tennyson. The English language played an enormous role in Pessoa’s life; part of his poetic legacy was written in English, and Pessoa also translated English-language poets. Moreover, during the poet’s lifetime only one Portuguese-language collection, Message (Mensagem), was published; two other collections consisted of his poetry in English, written between 1918 and 1921. In primary school Pessoa studied very well and completed the five-year course in three years; in 1899 he entered secondary school in Durban, where he studied for three years. Pessoa was one of the best pupils in the group. During these years he adopted the pseudonym Alexander Search, in whose name he wrote letters to himself. In 1901 Pessoa wrote his first poems in English and traveled with his family to Portugal, where his relatives lived. At that time he attempted to write a novel in English, and upon returning to Africa he enrolled in the Commercial School. He studied in the evenings and devoted himself