Álvaro de Campos
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Fernando Pessoa invented characters for his poetry. The characters are not in his poems, but are the writers of the poems. Alvaro de Campos is one of them.
These characters are incredibly well-developed. They each have full and rich biographies, writing styles, and philosophical approaches to life. They also have interactions with each other, occasionally even engaging in literary flame wars. I don't think there is anything like these works anywhere else in literature.
Anyone who enjoys Pessoa may also enjoy a book[1] by the Nobel-winning Portuguese author Jose Saramago, in which one of Pessoa's characters must travel back to Portugal, to attend Pessoa's funeral.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_the_Death_of_Ric...
"How do I write in the name of these three? Caeiro, through sheer and unexpected inspiration, without knowing or even suspecting that I’m going to write in his name. Ricardo Reis, after an abstract meditation, which suddenly takes concrete shape in an ode. Campos, when I feel a sudden impulse to write and don’t know what. (My semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares, who in many ways resembles Álvaro de Campos, always appears when I'm sleepy or drowsy, so that my qualities of inhibition and rational thought are suspended; his prose is an endless reverie. He’s a semi-heteronym because his personality, although not my own, doesn’t differ from my own but is a mere mutilation of it. He’s me without my rationalism and emotions. His prose is the same as mine, except for certain formal restraint that reason imposes on my own writing, and his Portuguese is exactly the same – whereas Caeiro writes bad Portuguese, Campos writes it reasonably well but with mistakes such as "me myself" instead of "I myself", etc.., and Reis writes better than I, but with a purism I find excessive...)"
(he has many more minor heteronyms and pseudonyms) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa#Heteronyms
It's really wrinkling my brain to think of an author's character being a "better" writer than the author himself. Although, wrinkles aside, I suppose this effect could be achieved via the editing process; edit the "character's" writings with more time and care than one's own writing.
I think that although contrary to external appearances people are never singly defined - we all have different psychologies and facets, some that we consciously or unconsciously embrace or expound in given situations others that we consciously or unconsciously repress or try to tame, without needing to be (innately) something extreme or unhealthy - that's why I like that aspect of his work, it just runs with it.
He also says "so that my qualities of inhibition and rational thought are suspended", so he basically thinks of "inhibition" and "rational thought" as valuable (and/or higher value than other qualities, probably given his usual day to day work and education) - but his actual "work" - the thing by which he is remembered and valued - seems to be an attempt to break from those "qualities".
I think you've just sketched Pessoa's theory of creativity.
My personal favorite is Tabacaria [0] (Tobacco Shop). That's a masterpiece.
[0] - https://www.azores-adventures.com/2015/10/tabacaria-by-ferna...
Hard to learn? For whom? A native Japanese speaker? English? Swahili?
The foreign service institute of the US department of state classifies Portuguese as a category I language (easiest to learn for English native speakers):
But I think the Foreign Service Institute is right and there's good reason, both theoretically and experimentally, to consider Portuguese comparatively easy for native English speakers!
>> To be great, be whole: nothing that's you
Should you exaggerate or exclude. In each thing, be all. Give all you are
In the least you ever do.
The whole moon, because it rides so high,
Is reflected in each pool. <<