PLCS 28 (2015)
Fernando Pessoa as English Reader and Writer

Pessoa and Keats

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62791/prmj8h53

Published 2016-09-22

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article examines the dialogue between Fernando Pessoa and the English romantic poet John Keats (1795–1821). It begins by exploring Pessoa’s poetic engagement with Keats’s verse, before moving on to an analysis of his assimilation of Keats’s most influential aesthetic ideas, above all those of the chameleon poet and negative capability, which I argue were a significant, yet hitherto largely unexplored, influence on Pessoa’s heteronymic invention.

KEYWORDS: influence, Pessoa, Keats, private library