On November 30th, 1935, dozens of writers passed away. They came from different backgrounds, espoused divergent beliefs, and wrote in a variety of styles. Yet all of their work was stashed in a single trunk in an apartment in Lisbon, Portugal. So, what mysterious string tied all these writers together? Well, the trunk belonged to one enigmatic author, Fernando Pessoa, who was, in fact, all of them.
1935 年 11 月 30 日, 有數十位作家過世。 他們有不同背景,信奉不同的信仰, 寫作風格也各有不同。 但他們所有的作品都被儲存在葡萄牙 里斯本一間公寓中的一個皮箱內。 所以,這些作家之間 有什麼神秘的連結? 那個皮箱的主人是一位謎樣的作者: 費南多‧佩索亞(Fernando Pessoa), 其實所有這些作家都是他。
Some authors use pseudonyms and pen names to protect their identities or bolster their artistic personas. But Pessoa used what he called “heteronyms” to write not as himself but as other people he invented, giving way to generative, artistic experimentation. He fleshed out their imagined lives, devised their distinct quirks, and cultivated their unique literary voices. Sometimes Pessoa's heteronyms interacted with each other, even criticizing one another's work. Pessoa described himself as a “nomadic wanderer through [his own] consciousness,” “a kind of medium,” “divided” among his heteronyms. “But,” he wrote, “I’m less real than the others, less substantial, less personal, and easily influenced by them all.”
有些作者會使用假名和筆名 來保護他們的身分 或強化他們的藝術角色。 但佩索亞使用他所謂的 「異名」 來寫作,他扮演的不是他自己, 而是他發明的人物, 來做生成式的藝術實驗。 他充實了他們的假想生活, 設計了他們的鮮明怪僻, 並發展出他們的獨特文學表達方式。 有時,佩索亞的 不同異名會彼此互動, 甚至批評彼此的作品。 佩索亞把自己描述為 「在自己意識中漫遊的遊牧者」, 「一種媒介」, 在他的異名之中被分裂。 「但,」他寫道: 「我沒有其他人那麼真實、 那麼實在、那麼個人, 且很容易受他們所有人影響。」
Born in Lisbon in 1888, Pessoa began writing as different people when he was around six years old, authoring letters as an imaginary Frenchman, Chevalier de Pas. When Pessoa’s stepfather moved their family to South Africa, Pessoa picked up new languages. He adopted several English-language heteronyms in high school and published booklets of poems featured by the British press.
1888 年生於里斯本, 佩索亞約六歲時就開始 用不同人的身分來寫作, 他以假想的身分, 法國騎士帕斯,來寫信。 當佩索亞的繼父將全家遷到南非, 佩索亞學會了新的語言。 他在高中時採用了幾個英語的異名, 他出版的詩集小冊 還被英國媒體報導。
In 1905, Pessoa returned to Lisbon for good. He gained a reputation for his formal dress, affinity for the occult, and for being cordial and charming while always keeping people at arm’s length. Pessoa established art and literary journals and a publishing house. But while these public ventures failed to take off and Pessoa amassed debt and relocated frequently, his greatest experiments were unfolding in private. Scrawling in various languages on envelopes, book jackets and loose papers, Pessoa crafted a dreamy love letter as Maria José, a teenager with a spinal disorder who was infatuated with a metalworker; he scribbled detective stories as Horace James Faber; and analyzed astrological charts as Raphael Baldaya.
1905 年,佩索亞回到 里斯本並永久留下。 他知名的特色包括穿著正式服裝、 喜好神秘事物, 及既親切又迷人卻又 總是和人保持距離。 佩索亞創立了藝術及文學 期刊以及一間出版社。 但,雖然這些公共事業未能成功, 且佩索亞積欠債務又常常搬遷, 他最偉大的實驗卻是在私下進行的。 佩索亞以瑪莉亞‧荷西(Maria José)的身分, 精心寫下一封夢幻的情書, 在信封上、書皮上,和零散的 紙張上潦草地書寫各種語言, 瑪莉亞是患有脊椎疾病的 青少女,愛上了一名金屬工匠; 他以霍勒斯‧詹姆士‧費伯 (Horace James Faber)的 身分撰寫偵探故事; 並以拉斐爾·鮑達亞(Raphael Baldaya)的 身分分析占星圖。
He used three heteronyms most frequently. Alberto Caeiro was a shepherd-poet who used simple diction to describe the world as he saw it. Ricardo Reis, a doctor, favored the epic style of Classical poets. And Álvaro de Campos, a bisexual naval engineer and nomad, wrote poetry extolling the wonder and hardship of daily life. Using de Campos, Pessoa said he could channel all the emotions he denied himself. And at one point, de Campos claimed it was Pessoa who didn’t truly exist.
他最常用的異名有三個。 阿爾貝托‧卡耶羅 (Alberto Caeiro)是牧羊詩人, 用簡單的措詞來形容他所見的世界。 雷卡多‧瑞許(Ricardo Reis)是醫生, 偏愛古典詩人的史詩風格。 阿瓦羅‧德‧坎伯斯(Álvaro de Campos) 是雙性戀海軍工程師和遊牧者, 他寫詩來讚頌日常 生活的奇妙與艱辛。 佩索亞可以利用德‧坎伯斯 來傳遞他否定自己擁有的情緒。 有一度, 德‧坎伯斯還聲稱真正 不存在的人是佩索亞。
During his lifetime, Pessoa published poems, letters, essays, and literary criticism— some as heteronyms, others under his own name. He also produced a handful of books, just one in Portuguese— a poetry collection about Portugal’s mythic history called “Message.” He gained local recognition, but the full scope of his creative endeavours only revealed itself when Pessoa died a year after the book’s release.
在一生中, 佩索亞出版了詩作、信件、 短文,和文學評論—— 有些是用異名,有些 則是用他自己的名字。 他還創作了許多書籍, 只有一本是葡萄牙文的, 那是本關於葡萄牙神話歷史的 詩集,名為《訊息》。 他獲得了當地的認可, 該書出版後一年, 佩索亞過世,那時他所有的 創作心血才見到天日。
From among almost 30,000 pages of unpublished work stashed in his trunk, critics eventually assembled “The Book of Disquiet” in 1982, which Pessoa spent two decades developing. It declares itself, in typically cryptic fashion, “the autobiography of someone who never existed.” Pessoa wrote it as the fictional diary of his so-called semi-heteronym, Bernardo Soares, whose personality he described as a “mere mutilation” of his own. Often frustrated by life’s demands, the book’s narrator explores how delving inwards through literature helps him escape reality’s confines. He continuously challenges conceptions of the self as a singular, reliable unit— instead grappling with identity as indefinite, each person a shifting sum of their parts. “My soul is a hidden orchestra,” the first entry reads. “I do not know what instruments, what violins and harps, drums and tambours sound and clash inside me. I know myself only as a symphony.”
在他的皮箱中裝了 近三萬頁未出版的作品, 評論家終於在 1982 年從這些 素材拼湊完成了《惶然錄》, 佩索亞花了兩十年的時間撰寫它。 這本書以典型的神秘方式宣稱它是 「從未存在過的人的自傳」。 佩索亞把這本書寫成他的半異名 身分伯納多‧索瓦許 (Bernardo Soares)的日記, 他描述伯納多的性格是他自己 性格「切割出來的一部分」。 因為日常生活的要求感到沮喪, 這本書的敘述者探討了 如何透過文學深刻內省 來協助他逃離現實的限制。 他不斷挑戰「將自我視為單一、 可靠的單位」的觀念—— 反而將身分當作是不確定的, 每個人都是其各部分的總和, 且這總和會不斷變動。 第一篇寫道:「我的靈魂 是個隱藏的管弦樂團。」 「我不知道有什麼樂器, 有什麼小提琴和豎琴、鼓和定音鼓、 聲音和碰撞存在我體內。 我只知道我自己是一首交響曲。」