Fernando Pessoa Crosses the Atlantic

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The prehistory of Fernando Pessoa’s reception in Brazil shows that Pessoa was warmly received. Three primary channels made this possible: literary magazines, writers on both sides of the Atlantic and, especially, the poetry troupe Os Jograis. Periodical writers were crucial to the reception of Pessoa’s poetry, but Os Jograis did the most to popularize the work of the great Portuguese poet by presenting Pessoa’s poems to a large audience through the immediacy of spoken words, without the mediation of writing. The dynamics of Pessoa’s reception must be understood in the context of São Paulo, then in the process of becoming a major metropolis.

KEYWORDS: poetry, reception, literary magazines, Fernando Pessoa, Portuguese literature, Crítica