The Complete and Total Incoherence of a Soul

On Fernando Pessoa and His Many Nyms

by Jace Shugden

“Not even I know if this I that I’m disclosing to you, in these meandering pages, actually exists or is but a fictitious, aesthetic concept I’ve made of myself. Yes, that’s right. I live aesthetically as someone else. I’ve sculpted my life like a statue made of matter that’s foreign to my being. Having employed my self-awareness in such a purely artistic way, and having become so completely external to myself, I sometimes no longer recognise myself. Who am I behind this unreality? I don’t know. I must be someone. And if I avoid living, acting and feeling, then believe me, it’s so as not to tamper with the contours of my invented personality. I want to be exactly like what I wanted to be and am not.”

All of us, in one area or another of our lives, employ artifice—I’ll be doing so in the composing of this document—not primarily with a mind to the external, though that is indeed also a concern of great significance, but rather the satisfaction of an idea of ourselves, a certain quale, that is totally and unchangeably individual; the origins of which we tend to remain oblivious to, them being so disparate and numerous both that a full cataloguing may be a complete impossibility for the human mind, and similarly with regard to the value in such satisfaction hypothetically achieved. Indeed, it may not be in the interest of our health to look too deeply into these matters, it can certainly be a source of anxiety; yet, the pull towards self-reflection is there, a possible resultant of this very same unease compelling us to both superficially comport ourselves in the peculiar ways we do and arrange our inner lives as well.

If there is anyone about whom it could be said a truly painstaking self-analysis of this nature was attempted, it would be Fernando Pessoa; the Portuguese writer and poet, broadly more well-known for his prose in the English-speaking world—almost all of which is collated into the anti-novel/ factless autobiography The Book of Disquiet: a posthumously published collection unfortunately left incomplete by Pessoa himself. Though maybe it never could have been. Above all else however, the man is associated with the use of a literary device of sorts, that being the authoring of the vast majority of his work both published and private under various and variegated false names with entirely fleshed-out identities and imagined lives behind them. The term he used for these manufactured identities was heterónimos, or heteronyms in English (in which he was also fluent, indeed worked as a translator between English and his native Portuguese, as well as writing and publishing in both languages), which understandably may appear little more than a gimmick at first impression, but with enough time upon the matter dwelt maybe something more will come to light.

It has been difficult searching for an attempt made at justification for this new phrase coined, particularly from the man himself. Plenty have opined. Richard Zenith, producer of the seemingly most esteemed English translation of The Book of Disquiet, as well as much of his verse and a biography—for those only seeking to read the Book once I would be inclined to recommend the Margaret Jull Costa translation myself, making for a more pleasurable read in its prioritising the rendering an abridgement of the work in smooth and more familiar English prose over the transliteration of every idea, which in a sense misses the point—makes the case that what distinguishes the heteronym from a mere pseudonym is the complexity of the fictional life behind it, as presented. It’s the best explanation I can find yet it feels lacking, frankly. The focus is too exterior, it concerns itself with presentation alone. I am of the opinion now that there is no simple definition.

Not everything Pessoa wrote was attributed to one of these so-called heteronyms, nor does it seem to be the case that they were a shield or something to hide behind, rather it seems that he made of himself—though such phrasing comes with problems—the binding between the heteronymic identities. That is, the name Fernando Pessoa was used in the publishing of his collections of poetry and indeed would also have been for the Book of Disquiet; the persona of the curator or enthusiast being one he was comfortable with as he was for a time involved in the running of some literary magazines, but the overwhelming majority of his actual literary output from the age of six until his death at age 47 came through these heteronyms. Accepting some room for error, as scholars are partially working with scraps of writing on the backs of napkins and so forth, there seem to be identified 72 distinct voices which might be considered the heteronyms of Pessoa. Some very prominent, who lived and died, who had not just distinct styles of writing but styles which evolved as their lives went on, who interacted with one another and formed clubs and broke apart; and some whose entire existence was restricted to a single sentence.

The Book of Disquiet features primarily the work of Bernardo Soares, whom Pessoa introduces to the world as a figure whose entire being, quite unlike all the other heteronyms, resembles Pessoa intimately in all but the superficialities. Soares writes little about his life however, for such a thing can barely be said to exist; rather, as reader, we receive everything else in the world but. Expatiations upon all the subjects that might interest the recluse of the age, theology, Modernist literature, nationalism, the occult, etc. then returned to in violent contradiction upon another night; interspersed with abandoned novel openings, observations of colleagues, snatches of self-criticism, innumerable descriptions of the sun rising and setting over Lisbon, nostalgia, doubt, hypnagogia, and an initially subtle but ever intensifying anxiety. The contradictory statements and drastic shifts in emotional texture, though melancholy does predominate, in sharing so clearly an origin in one mind serve to illustrate the disparate whole of identity.

My own earliest memory of this particular feeling—that anxiety proceeding from a consciousness of identity awakened by being somehow or other made aware of the internal incongruity of it all—was brought to mind when reading Pessoa on more than one occasion. It was a birthday party, I was about to turn either seven or eight, I don’t quite remember which, and invited were both my “friends from school” and my “non-school friends”. It sounds silly, but on the morning of the day itself as I awaited their coming a feeling of unease that was quite foreign hit me rather suddenly. In thinking about who I “was” when with my friends at school and then the other group, I was suddenly made aware of so many differences in how I behaved and thought when with one or another of the groups. It was terrible, I felt somehow a fraud and that I would be found out that day. Which didn’t happen of course, in point of fact the day went well; what happened, an experience I am sure isn’t unfamiliar to many, is that a new dynamic arose from the coming together of these groups which drew my personality’s expression toward a facet until then unexplored.

Each instance of this particular sort or category of human experience is, I would argue, a heteronym in gestation. A heteronym seems to me an embellishment upon a very real experience of self: extracted, analysed and lastly—and most importantly—made other through the giving of a new name and some trivial details of characterisation. It is perhaps wrong to call it a literary device after all; more so an introspective tool. Not unlike those sculptors of small wooden statues of the Buddha—shaving away first the mass of a wood block to get to a basic shape, then more finely to clarify the basic features, and last of all the tiniest motions made in smoothing any blemishes and bringing out the details—Pessoa was carving away everything he perceived as extraneous to his being; much like the sculptor’s shavings, some of the heteronyms were quite substantial while others miniscule.

I have tried to look for the germ of some of the more prominent heteronyms, but in all but the one case I believe that such an analysis is impossible after deliberating upon the matter awhile. It must, if my theory holds, be the case that they originate from some moment of internal dissonance like mine own provided above; the issue is that said moment could be so insignificant to all but the experiencer of the feeling, it being memorable as a moment of internality. The finalised heteronym needs only a tenuous link to the event of its conception as the externalising of this identified aspect of self is the point. Many have asked themselves “Who am I?”, the phrase “Know thyself” is familiar to people—supposedly, according to some forgotten translator, first inscribed above the entranceway to the Oracle at Delphi. My understanding then is that the heteronym is the process which Pessoa believed, upon the event of sufficient repetitions being completed, would allow him to answer this question for himself.

The reality is that his introspection took him to the point of near-catatonia. Such an obsession as prompts a lifelong search as that which Pessoa undertook displays already a certain neuroticism, but the search itself most certainly seems to have heightened it. First there is a drawing in, which is explored in the Zenith biography and can be caught refracted through certain passages in The Book of Disquiet: early into adulthood he seemed eager to share his work and involve himself in the literary scene in Lisbon, but as time went on he became more and more of a hermit. He had no friends, he went unmarried his entire life, he was distant with his family and so forth. Then, beyond that point, towards the end of his life he seems to freeze up internally, he continued to write but more and more infrequently, as well as repeat himself in his writing. Then of course he died, at the age of 47; rather young.

A heteronym is an elaboration upon a singular core aspect of one’s personality, the essential anxiety being the ever present sense that personality as such is external to one’s true being. The brilliance and tragedy to be found in Pessoa, or in The Book of Disquiet specifically, is that Bernardo Soares’ core is that very impulse. Bernardo Soares is the essential anxiety given voice and in so being needs must have been also the final heteronym; the idea being, again, that a heteronym’s purpose is exorcism of its essential quality from the creator. With Soares, Pessoa at last aimed to complete the process. What then, came after Soares? Did Pessoa, free of the false prison that we call “personality”, at last achieve sought self-knowing? Were the symptoms of his anxieties dissipated immediately in a flash of light? Of course not. The identifying of the very urge to strip what is perceived as extraneous away as itself an element in this extraneous mesh, instead of freeing Pessoa from the guiding anxiety that was uniquely strong in him—but I believe is present to some extent in everyone—is the very thing that trapped him permanently in its void.

We won’t ever be able to say with certainty whether Bernardo Soares was “finished”, as I am sure the suggestion of his not being so could be thrown my way to counter, but we don’t need one case or the other to be true to realise the silliness of it all by simply stepping back. The clear pattern that can be seen is that the more Pessoa gave way to the urges prompted by his anxiety, the more powerful his anxiety became and the greater the rift between himself and the rest of humanity grew. In feeding this beast it and its power over him only continued to grow; what madness to think that in giving in to it more than anyone may have done before, the thing would be destroyed rather than consume him entirely as it seems to have done. More than this, the opposite could be argued: that certain moments in The Book of Disquiet (such as quoted at the start—above) though ostensibly still providing the perspective of Soares actually give us a glimpse of the chaos beyond, wherein the last tenuous connection to normal social reality is lost.

The Book of Disquiet draws those of an anxious disposition to it because they feel they can relate to the anxiety expressed within—at least this was my experience as well as some others I’ve spoken to, I can’t with certainty say such experience is universal—they are in a sense seeking community, which impulse in turn is ultimately the seeking of unity. This impulse however, is very much interlinked with the anxiety. The discomfort we all feel, those pangs of unease which have the potential to blossom into the enthralling madness found in The Book of Disquiet, I believe relate to feelings of disquiet arising from a sense that the personas we inhabit are artificial somehow, as stated in my opening paragraph. We desire to remove them because anything artificial we assume is getting between ourselves and others, contributing to feelings of separateness.

Upon reflection then, despite the comfort Pessoa’s writing has provided for me and others and the beauty to be found there, I would say the greatest value his writing has would be to stand as an example of how not to respond to anxieties of this nature. To return to my memory of the birthday party, obsessing over how I performed the character of myself differently in different contexts only furthered the distance between myself and others, while being able to let that not-entirely conscious process play itself out allowed for greater closeness with other people. I don’t understand why, for me and many others, there is an identification of this natural process of acclimatisation to different social environments as an adopting of something foreign rather than a genuine expression brought out by the environment but this instinct must be questioned.

It is possible Pessoa developed some awareness of this. There’s another quote from him in the introduction to the Zenith translation, from later in his life, where he describes Soares as a mutilated version of himself, which serves well my attempt with this piece to define what a heteronym really is—there being so far no compelling definition. All the heteronyms are mutilations, but in this statement there appears to me some recognition that what the Soares heteronym was fashioned to remove from Pessoa, that aspect of persona, was not in fact something foreign or other which was disguising his true self but itself very much him. That the mutilations were not a removing of alien matter but in fact a carving off of pieces of himself. At which point in his own life however, it was too late to undo what he had done to himself.

Our Books

Carbon Pages