The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa (34 page)

It is a sad thing to say, but no type so symbolizes the modern man as the masturbator does. The incoherence, lack of purpose,* inconsequence, ...... the alternation of a sense of failure with furious impulses towards life....

Wilde was typical of this. He was a man who did not belong in his beliefs. If he were God he would have been an atheist......

He thought [of] his thoughts as clever, not as just. This is typical of the age’s mental weariness; it is masturbation’s pleasure. The joy of thinking clubs to forgetfulness all the purpose of thought.

He did not know what it was to be sincere. Can the reader conceive this?

He was a gesture, not a man.

The art of James Joyce, like that of Mallarmé, is art preoccupied with method, with how it’s made. Even the sensuality of
Ulysses
is a symptom of intermediation. It is hallucinatory delirium—the kind treated by psychiatrists—presented as an end in itself.

I do not know whether anyone has ever written a History of Translations. It should be a long but very interesting book. Like a History of Plagiarisms—another possible masterpiece which awaits an actual author—it would brim over with literary lessons. There is a reason why one thing should bring up the other: a translation is only a plagiarism in the author’s name. A History of Parodies would complete the series, for a translation is a serious parody in another language. The mental processes involved in parodying* well are the same as those involved in translating competently. In both cases there is an adaptation to the spirit of the author for a purpose which the author did not have. In one case the purpose is humor, where the author was serious; in the other case a certain* language, where the author wrote in another. Will anyone one day parody a humorous into a serious poem? It is uncertain. But there can be no doubt that many poems—even many great poems—would gain by being translated into the very language they were written in.

This brings up the problem as to whether it is art or the artist that matters, the individual or the product. If it be the final result that matters and that shall give delight, then we are justified in taking a famous poet’s all but perfect poem, and, in the light of the criticism of another age, making it perfect by excision, substitution, or addition. Wordsworth’s “Ode on Immortality” is a great poem, but it is far from being a perfect poem. It could be rehandled to advantage.

The only interest in translations is when they are difficult, that is to say, either from one language into a widely different one, or of a very complicated poem, though into a closely allied language. There is no fun in translating between, say, Spanish and Portuguese. Anyone who can read one language can automatically read the other, so there seems also to be no use in translating. But to translate Shakespeare into one of the Latin languages would be an exhilarating task. I doubt whether it can be done into French; it will be difficult to do into Italian or Spanish; Portuguese, being the most pliant and complex of the Romance languages, could possibly admit the translation.

Various handwritten and typed passages make up this exemplary piece of Swiftian satire, which Pessoa began writing as a teenager in South Africa. It shows him at his finest as an English prose stylist, in part because his ultraliterary English is here used to best advantage. As explained in the “General Introduction
,”
Pessoa’s contact with English during his childhood years in Durban was intense but atypical, being largely restricted to his classwork and his extensive readings. If from the Elizabethans and early Romantics his English acquired a slightly outdated syntax, the writings of Shakespeare, Carlyle, and Dickens also endowed it with a permanent underlay of irony and humor. It was, in fact, the perfect English for a professor of literature fond of speaking with his tongue in his cheek, and so it seems a pity that Professor Jones wrote only this “Essay on Poetry
.”

The essay was originally attributed to a Professor Trochee and had a slightly different subtitle: “Written for the Edification of Would-be Verse Writers.” After he returned to Lisbon, Pessoa revised the long opening section and changed the subtitle. No author’s name appears on the newer, typed copy, but a note in the archives attributes the resubtitled essay to Professor Jones
.

When I consider the abundance of young men and the superabundance of young women in the present century, when I survey the necessary
and consequent profusion of reciprocal attachments, when I reflect upon the great number of poetical compositions emanating therefrom, when I bring my mind to bear upon the insanity and chaotic formation of these effusions, I am readily convinced that by writing an expository essay on the poetical art I shall be greatly contributing to the emolument of the public.

Having therefore carefully considered the best and most practical way in which to open so relevant a discussion, I have not unwisely concluded that a straightforward statement of the rules of poetry is the manner in which I must present the subject to the reader. I have thought it useless and inappropriate to refer myself too often to the ancient critics on the art, since modern critics are pleasanter to quote and have said all that was to be said on the matter, and a little more—which is their part where they are original. For putting aside the critics of old I have two very good reasons, of which the second is that, even if I
did
know anything about them, I should not like to thrust my scholarship on the reader. I begin then my exposition.

Firstly I think it proper to bring to the attention of the would-be poet a fact which is not usually considered and yet is deserving of consideration. I hope I shall escape universal ridicule if I assert that, at least theoretically, poetry should be susceptible of scansion. I wish it of course to be understood that I agree with Mr. A. B. in maintaining that strict scansion is not at all necessary for the success nor even for the merit of a poetical composition. And I trust I shall not be deemed exceedingly pedantic if I delve into the storehouse of Time to produce as an authority some of the works of a certain William Shakespeare, or Shakspere, who lived some centuries ago and enjoyed some reputation as a dramatist. This person used to take off, or to add on, one syllable or more in the lines of his numerous productions, and if it be at all allowable in this age of niceness to break the tenets of poetical good sense by imitating some obscure scribbler, I should dare to recommend to the beginner the enjoyment of this kind of poetic license. Not that I should advise him to
add
any syllables to his lines, but the subtraction of some is often convenient and desirable. I may as well point out that if, by this very contrivance, the young poet, having taken away some syllables from his
poem, proceed with this expedient and take all the remaining syllables out of it, although he might not thus attain to any degree of popularity, he nevertheless would exhibit an extraordinary amount of poetical common sense.

And I may as well here explain that my method for the formation of the rules which I am here expounding* is of the best. I observe and consider the writings of modern poets, and I advise the reader to do as they have done. Thus if I advise the young poet to care nothing in practice for scansion, it is because I have found this to be a rule and a condition in the poems of today. Nothing but the most careful consideration and the most honest clinging to a standard can be of use to a learner in the art. In all cases I may be relied upon to give the best method and the best rules.

I approach the subject of rhyme with a good deal of trepidation, lest by uttering any remarks which may seem too strictly orthodox, I shall harshly violate one of the most binding regulations of modern poesy. I am obliged to agree with Mr. C.D. when he says that rhyme should not be very evident in any poem, even though it may be called rhymed; and the numerous modern poets who exemplify this precept have my entire approbation. Poetry ought to encourage thought and call for examination; what is then greater than the delight of the close critic when, after a minute dissection of a composition, he perceives, first, that it is poetry and not prose, secondly, after long exertion, that it is rhymed and not blank?

Such poetical niceties, however, being visible only to the experienced critic, the ordinary man of poetical tastes is sometimes, when called upon to criticize a poem, placed in an undesirable situation. For instance, about a week ago a young friend of mine called upon me and asked my opinion of a poem which he had written. He handed me a paper. I made a few, and futile, attempts at understanding the effusion, but quickly corrected them by inverting the position of the paper, as better sense could thus be obtained. Being fortunately forewarned that the paper before me contained a poem, I began at once, though without caution, to heap eulogies on the excellent blank verse. Coloring with indignation, my friend pointed out that his composition was rhymed,
and, moreover, that it was in what he called the Spenserian stanza. Though not a bit convinced by his impudent invention of a name (as if Spencer* had ever written poetry!), I continued to examine the composition before me, but, getting no nearer to the sense, I contented myself with praising it, and especially commending the originality of the treatment. On handing back the paper to my friend, as he glanced at it to show me something particular, his face suddenly fell and looked puzzled.

“Hang it,” said he, “I gave you the wrong paper. This is only my tailor’s bill!”

Let the poetical critic take as a lesson this most unhappy episode.

On that bane of poetical feeling, blank verse, I shall only touch lightly; but as several friends of mine have repeatedly asked me for the formula or recipe for its production, I hereby communicate the directions to those of my readers who are so far gone. To tell the truth there is not, in the whole range of poetry, anything easier to produce than blank verse.

The first thing to do is to procure yourself ink, paper, and a pen; then write down, in the ordinary commonplace language that you speak (technically called prose), what you wish to say, or, if you be clever, what you think. The next step is to lay hands upon a ruler graduated in inches or in centimeters, and mark off, from your prose effusion, bits about four inches or ten centimeters long: these are the lines of your blank verse composition. In case the four-inch line does not divide into the prose effort without remainder, either the addition of a few Alases or Ohs or Ahs, or the introduction of an invocation to the Muses will fill in the required space. This is the modern recipe. Of course I do not know directly that such is the method that modern poets employ. On examining their poems, however, I have found that the
internal evidence
is conclusive, pointing everywhere to such a method of composition.

As to the scansion of your blank verse—never mind it; at first, whatever its kind, the critics will find in it the most outrageous flaws; but if in time you wriggle into poetical greatness, you will find the same gentlemen justify everything you have done, and you will be surprised at the things you symbolized, insinuated, meant.

Before taking leave of this part of my essay, I beg to point out to the reader that in this the age of motorcars and of art for the sake of art, there is no restriction as to the length of a line in poetry. You can write lines of two, three, five, ten, twenty, thirty syllables or more—that is of the least importance; but* when the lines of a poem contain more than a certain number of syllables, that composition is generally said to be written in prose. This difficulty of finding what is the number of syllables that is the limit between poetry and prose makes it modernly impossible well to establish which is one, which the other. Internal distinction is of course impossible. After some study I have found that that may generally be considered poetry where every line begins with a capital letter. If the reader can find another distinction I shall be very pleased to hear of it.

Now, although I advise you to write, as far as possible, in English, I must likewise admonish you to use such words as are not easily understood; this is a most essential part of poetry, for it causes you to have the praise of the reading public and the speedy approbation of the entangled critic. Sometimes, however, the critic prefers to be silent and pretend to treat your book with contempt; in your next work do you point out to the public that the contempt of the critic arises from his ignorance, and you will invariably be right.

And though it may seem strange that in the age of Kipling any man should dare to mention grammar, I must beg the patient reader to enter with me upon this subject. I wish merely to say that grammar is, in poetry, absolutely unnecessary; the darker and more uncertain the parts of your sentence (if you are so unpoetical as to write in sentences or periods), the more impressive will be your verse, the more evident your philosophic depth.

I now come to that most important part of verse, which consists in the metaphors, the epithets, the similes—in fact, the whole dress of poetry. Poetry, like a society woman, is better seen dressed.

Similes are found everywhere, a writer on composition informs us; the gentleman is right—they are. I should confine myself, however, to informing the would-be poet that it is not advisable to find them in
books that are very much read (nor
can
they there be much found). I should think it safe, however, for him to take them from old poets, now forgotten. To suggest a few names, unknown to present-day readers: Publius Vergilius Maro, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, and, more modern, John Milton, John Dryden, and Alexander Pope. As nobody nowadays is acquainted with any of these, similes gathered from their works will appear quite new.