The literary community is often home to many eccentric personalities, yet any of these enigmatic writers would have issue eclipsing the disposition of Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa. Pessoa was a native of Lisbon, and born in the year 1888. In his relatively short 47 years of life he would amount a staggering collection of work spread across several genres including prose, poetry, and philosophical essays. However, Pessoa is most commonly known for his usage of “heteronyms”, a term which he felt necessary to create in order to describe his estimated 75 alter egos which would often be credited as the authors of Pessoa’s work. Indeed the general literary term pseudonym would have been much too restraining for Pessoa and company due to the fact that any number of his heteronyms are equipped with extensive biography’s, fictional occupations, as well as extremely varying opinions from the other writers which occupied Pessoa’s imagination.

These clashing literary opinions are on full display in the selected book of Poetry entitled A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe. Readers are first met with poetry from Alberto Caeiro, a profound member of the sensationalism school of thinking. The next two poets, Ricardo Reis and Alvaro de Campos, consider themselves to be students of Caeiro, and, yet, each chose to continue the legacy of their master in a different manner. Reis pinpointed the pagan aspect of Caeiro’s work, and as a result the former’s poetry often includes passages dedicated to the multitude of gods. On the other end of the spectrum Campos decided to write focusing on the sensationalism of Caeiro, but his poetry is defined by a certain melancholy that seems inescapable.

In the final pages of the collection readers are finally met with poetry and original thought from Pessoa himself, and I found it incredibly surprising that his writing style was nothing short of a tangled web of similarities from the three previous poets. It becomes clear that he favors none of the styles above another, but instead draws upon the devotion to the senses, the forgotten dreams of paganism, the suffering of the spirit, and even more literary styles all freely and at will with.

Nevertheless, there is one key distinction that I could not help but notice in A little Larger Than the Entire Universe. Caeiro, Reis, and Campos all seem to experience some sort of transition of thought, a variance of outlook by the time their collection comes to a close. Caeiro’s is by far the easiest to spot as his beginning writings preach the beauty of simplistic way of living with lines like, “I find it so natural not to think” (36), and “And the sum of innocence is not thinking…” (12). This ideology is depicted in the collection entitled The Keeper of Sheep, however the final poems of Caeiro belong to the set The Shepard in Love. In these later poems the reader is to understand that Caeiro has fallen in love, but this clearly plagues him as he now writes, “All I want is to think of her. I don’t ask anything of anyone, not even of her, except to let me think” (52). In his newfound state of affection and vulnerability, Caeiro’s method for a simple existence has been forever cast aside, and he is not at the mercy of his own thoughts.

Reis struggles with his religious beliefs, and the indifference of the gods in which he devotes himself to. This suffering is quite noticeable in lines such as, “The only freedom the gods grant us is this: to submit” (93). In his final poem Reis expresses an extreme dissatisfaction as he writes, “Of the Gods I ask only to be ignored” (143). In a similar manner to Caeiro, Reis’ collection comes to a close without suggestion of a meaningful resolution. Rather it seems that each man leaves us at the peak of their suffering without any hope of salvation from the ideology that they held dear.

Finally, we arrive at the tortured temperament of Campos. Pessoa’s creative genius is once again on full display with this collection as the first entry entitled Opiary is said to have been originally written in the year 1914. However, this is instead a fictional date deliberately chosen by Pessoa in order to suggest that this work was written before Campos discovered the philosophy and influence of Caeiro. Opiary introduces us to Campos as he is on the brink of a near suicidal depression. He express himself in a distinct dejection, with a yearning to experience more in life. Campos’ next three entries all take on the form of passionate Odes. Gone is the elementary rhyming featured in Opiary, replaced with a euphoric excitement for life and for the future. In Triumphal Ode he writes, “I write gnashing my teeth, rabid for the beauty of all this, for this beauty completely unknown to the ancients” (153).

Nevertheless, the years stretch out before Campos, and before long the same dispassion which once beset him returns. In Campos’ last poem, entitled, Holiday Retreat he confesses these feelings, “I came to rest up, but I forgot to leave myself at home. I brought along the deep-seated thorn of consciousness, the vague nausea, the ill-defined affliction of self-awareness” (169). Campos is the third of the fictional trio who experiences a form of radical comfort due to his particular ideals, but this consolation is soon flawed and we leave him far worse than ever.

This brings us to the juxtaposition which Pessoa’s poetry presents when compared to these former writers. For the most part the poems which bear Pessoa’s name are short features with, as previously stated, competing ideas. Although, the most important characteristic is that Pessoa’s entries do not form a narrative as the others do. Readers are unable to pinpoint exactly what Pessoa himself truly believes in, he remains an enigma and his avid readers learn nothing about him. Perhaps we have reason to believe Pessoa has done this on purpose, that it is no coincidence that his most revealing writings always bear the name of another and not his own. The 544 pages of diary like entries which make up Pessoa’s assumed magnum opus “The Book of Disquiet” is credited to be written by Bernardo Soares an assistant bookkeeper in Lisbon.

Despite writing startlingly personal and emotional prose and poetry, Pessoa successfully keeps himself withdrawn in the shadows. The only thing we may assume about him for certain, is that such a man who can both emulate and contain so many different opinions and outlooks on the world, a man who can seemingly formulate an argument on any topic from any number of available angles must certainly have to be a little larger than the entire universe.