To write is to be: heteronymy and scripture in the Livro do Desassossego

Abstract

The Portuguese poet, in his literary production, experienced something hitherto unexplored: to live poetically in a multiplicity of identitary worlds, where each voice and each corresponding text are characterized as unique, despite the proximity that may occur between these creative identities. In the Livro do desassossego, Fernando Pessoa, although by the voice of a semi-heterónimo (Bernardo Soares), explains poetically the process of depersonalization, that is, that is, assigning feelings, emotions and reflections to different personalities with their own and genuine styles. Fernando Pessoa is, therefore, the place where all the selves he engenders feel and register their own sensations. He is an artificer, whose identity adheres, by extension or contrast, to the artifice produced. This essay proposes to think that the soarian voice present in the Livro do Desassossego corresponds to the identity exercise of the creative process that is characterized by the unfolding and the consequent shattering that multiplies, marked by heteronymy. This mobility is precisely what makes dissemination possible, especially in the emergent fragmentation of the poetical prose, in the pulverization of the voice and in the laceration of the enunciating subject.