Alberto Caeiro is one of several heteronyms of the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa. According to Pessoa, he was born in 1889, in Lisbon, and died in the same city in 1915. Caeiro lived most of his life in the countryside. Thus, his poetry has a bucolic character, in addition to valuing simplicity and sensations (sensationism), also being marked by paganism.
Read too: Mário de Sá-Carneiro — one of the exponents of modernism in Portugal
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Video lesson about Alberto Caieiro
Biography of Alberto Caeiro
Alberto Caeiro da Silva was born in April 1889 in Lisbon, Portugal. Although, spent much of his life in the countryside, where he wrote most of his poems. He is the author of the book the herd keeper and the incomplete work the loving shepherd. He received little education, only primary education, and had no profession.
Orphaned very early, so he began to live, with some income, only in the company of an old great-aunt. According to its creator, the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), his “poems are what he had in life”. Otherwise, «there were no incidents, nor is there any history.»
Caeiro was also “ignorant of life and almost ignorant of literature, without socializing or culture”.|1| Physically, she was of average height. Shaved face, blond hair, blue eyes. According to Pessoa, he “didn’t look as fragile as he was.” |two| However, died of tuberculosis in 1915in Lisbon.
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Characteristics of Alberto Caeiro’s poetry
The poetry of Alberto Caeiro has the following characteristics:
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Bucolicism — idealization of country life.
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Sensationism — valorization of sensations.
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Paganism — polytheistic character.
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Free verse — no meter and no rhyme.
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Simple language — no difficulty in understanding.
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Locus amoenus — pleasant place.
Know more: Arcadism — the literary movement of the 18th century whose works have a bucolic character
Poems by Alberto Caeiro
In the following poem by Alberto Caeiro, the lyrical self is said to be a “herd keeper”. Then, we notice that he calls his thoughts a “flock”. Then he says that his thoughts “are all sensations” (sensationism). so he shows the importance of the senses in understanding reality. For him, seeing and smelling a flower is thinking about that flower:
I’m a herd keeper
I’m a herd keeper.
The flock is my thoughts
And my thoughts are all sensations.
I think with my eyes and with my ears
And with hands and feet
And with the nose and mouth.
To think of a flower is to see and smell it
And to eat a fruit is to know its meaning.
So when on a hot day
I feel sad to enjoy it so much,
And I lie down in the grass,
And I close my warm eyes,
I feel my whole body lying in reality,
I know the truth and I’m happy.|3|
In the next poem, the lyrical self again talks about the supremacy of the senses or sensations. Thus he says that what we see and hear is exactly what we see and hear. But we must “know how to see”, which means not thinking or rationalizing what we see. So, he defends simplicity and objectivity, in order to contradict the poets, who do not accept that the stars and flowers are just stars and flowers:
What we see of things are things
What we see of things are things.
Why would we see one thing if there was another?
Why would seeing and hearing be deceiving ourselves
If seeing and hearing are seeing and hearing?
The key is knowing how to see,
Knowing how to see without thinking,
Know how to see when you see,
And don’t even think about it when you see it,
Not even seeing when thinking.
But this (sadly for us who bring our souls clothed!),
This requires in-depth study,
A learning to unlearn
And a kidnapping in the freedom of that convent
That the poets say that the stars are the eternal nuns
And the flowers the penitents convicted of a single day,
But where after all are the stars nothing but stars
Nor the flowers but flowers,
That’s why we call them stars and flowers.|3|
Fernando Pessoa heteronyms
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Alberto Caeiro
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Alvaro de Campos
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Antonio Mora
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Alexander Search
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Antonio Seabra
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Baron of Teiv
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Bernardo Soares
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Carlos Otto
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Charles James Search
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Charles Robert Anon
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Pacheco Bunny
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Faustino Antunes
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Frederico Reis
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Frederick Wyatt
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Henry More
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II Crosse
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jean seoul
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Joaquim Moura Costa
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Maria Jose
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Pantaleon
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Pêro Botelho
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Raphael Baldaya
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Ricardo Reis
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Thomas Crosse
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Vicente Guedes
Grades
|1| PESSOA, Fernando. Intimate and self-interpretation pages. Lisbon: Attica, 1996.
|two| PESSOA, Fernando. Intimate writings, letters and autobiographical pages. Introduction, organization and notes by António Quadros. Lisbon: Publications Europe-America, 1986.
|3| PESSOA, Fernando. Poems by Alberto Caeiro. Lisbon: Attica, 1946.
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Wikimedia Commons (playback)
By Warley Souza
Literature Teacher