I.
In “Erostratus” alone―that planned, unfinished, posthumously reconstructed essay on “the problem of celebrity” (p. 127) of literary works―, we find the strongest, most ambitious, and most interesting account of creativity (wit, talent, and above all genius) that Pessoa has written. Explicit, direct, bold, clear, as well as far-reaching, this concise work is of significant importance for art theory and art practice (for literature especially) today, and I shall be claiming that it matches in worth Pessoa’s most ambitious poetry. Written in English (the world-readership ambition is evident), the only reason why it is not more well-regarded is because Fernando Pessoa’s philosophy has remained largely unknown except to Pessoa experts. What follows here is a brief presentation of what we have of the essay, with the recommendation that it be studied widely.[1]
Pessoa’s penchant for philosophy is apparent in Pessoa’s poetry, but Pessoa’s capacity as a philosopher is superior to what is apparent in his published poetic work. I wish to suggest that his planned work as a philosophical writer matches his best poetry, being very interesting even independently of it. In addition, “Erostratus” advances a most interesting and modern theory of literary (and artistic) creativity, and a discussion of the great artists’ search for immortality. Although the explicit aim of the essay is to analyse notoriety or celebrity, “the acceptance of any man or of any group of men as in some way valuable to mankind” (p. 127), it is in fact with genius that the author is concerned, understood as the capacity to create something of outstanding and perennial value to mankind, and hence worthy of immortality. If Pessoa had not written anything else but this essay, of which we have typed and manuscript fragments, it alone should set Pessoa apart as a philosophical writer worthy of attention and appreciation. Here are some reasons why.
1. Abundance and originality of ideas
First of all, Pessoa’s work is unusually rich in ideas. Pessoa does not save them for later: the philosopher is radically generous, almost every sentence being worth noting and quoting. This is also very general philosophy, and of wide application.
Erostratus was the obscure Greek who became famous by setting fire to the temple of Diana, in Effesus, on the day of the birth of Alexander (in 356 BCE). Erostratus is cited as an example of someone who achieved immortality. Of course, Erostratus is now largely obscure, and his deed was destructive, not constructive (this Pessoa does not mention), a product of malign genius (if genius it can be called), whereas Pessoa is concerned in the rest of the essay with benign, genuine, constructive genius: with builders. This is genius proper, since destroying is much easier than building, or rebuilding.
Pessoa begins by connecting celebrity with a special skill, or intelligence, when these are recognised by others: “Except when it is the product of chance, […] celebrity is the result of the application of some sort of special skill, or of intelligence, and of the recognition by others” (p. 128). And Pessoa puts forward the conditions that make the hero and the genius: “a product of temperament, which is inborn, of education and environment, which no man givens himself, of opportunity and occasion, which very few men can choose or create” (ibid.).
2. Fine, decided analysis
Pessoa’s fine and exact analysis distinguishes “three high forms” (p. 129) of intelligence, “which we can conveniently call genius, talent and wit” (ibid.), forms “not continuous with one another; they are not grades or degrees of one single faculty or function” (ibid.). The analysis is also precise: “Genius is abstract intelligence individualized […]. Talent is concrete intelligence made abstract […]. Wit is concrete intelligence individualized. That is why it is so easy to mistake great wit for positive genius. Talent, on the other hand, is between both and opposed by nature to both” (ibid.). I focus on the most important form of intelligence or skill for Pessoa: genius, the form that distinguishes those who produce great art (and literature) worthy of immortality.
Pessoa is expecting the appearance of a great poet, as we read in several places in his prose on literature, such as at the end of his “Impermanence,” a congenial essay on the topic of the survival of literary works, and of the permanence of elements in literature (p. 231):
Unless we are an age of final decadence, in which case nothing of us can or ought to remain (this point we cannot judge), we shall survive in one manner. A great poet will appear with an appeal to eternity—a builder, a master of the intellect. In his work the “genius” of the age will be reflected. All the literary talkers […] shall have only been aids to his individuality. (p. 244)
The “appeal to eternity” is the mark of the builder who will (hopefully) appear. Interesting enough, Erostratus had been a destroyer, surely not a builder. And almost anyone can destroy something, whereas building something worthy of immortality requires well-above-average skill. The title of the essay on celebrity is therefore provocative and can be seen as ironic, as if the genuine builder Pessoa has in mind was perhaps one without a comparable predecessor, one individual whose intellect is elevated and who is constantly applied to the creation of work worthy of perennial attention from mankind. It is for this reason that Pessoa is interested in describing good criticism: good critics are forthcoming, who can recognise genius and thus acknowledge the rise of a builder. “Erostratus” is also meant to teach what makes criticism good.
3. Insight into the general and the perennial
Pessoa is constantly interested in the generality that is involved in genius (as opposed to mere talent and wit): “genius involves an adaptation to the abstract environment which is formed by the general nature of mankind, which is common to all nations and to all times; the proper reward of genius is therefore immortality” (134-135). It is no less than this reward, and this “abstract environment,” “formed by the general nature of mankind” and “common to all nations and to all times,” that Pessoa’s intellectual efforts are after. Hence the work in English, aiming to be widely read, and a focus on the greatest authors from the European literary tradition.
The product of genuine genius is a form of “novelty” that conforms to “general laws”: “Genius’s proper product is abstract novelty—that is to say, a novelty that conforms at bottom to the general laws of human intelligence” (p. 145).
4. Honesty and individuality
One condition for this strong individuality that constitutes genius is a sort of passion (“fire”) or sincerity:
some sort of sincerity […] is required in art, that it may be art. A man can write a good love sonnet in two conditions—because he is greatly in love, or because he is greatly in art. He must be sincere in the love or in the art; he cannot be great in either, or in anything, otherwise. […] he must be on fire somewhere. (p. 150)
That a poet must be “on fire somewhere” just means that he should be strongly himself, himself at his strongest. Genius is equated with this passion, or this strength, for being passionately individual in seeking what is common, general, perennial to mankind.
5. Insightfulness and succintness
It is also very interesting how the problem of the interpretation of poems, and its objective content and opportunities for subjective engagement with the poem, are brilliantly, subtly, summed up: “In a poem, we must understand what the poem wants, but we may feel what we like” (p. 162). An insightful way of capturing the philosophy of literary interpretation, with all its problems. Interpretation has its requirements, and our understanding must conform with those, but we are granted permission to feel what we will. We ought to respect the poem’s wants, but our own wants (within those limits) are free.
Ultimately, the verdict is negative towards the capacity for the temporal recognition of genius: “No age is favourable […] to the detection of genius” (p. 163). Like genius, good, insightful criticism is rare, exceptional.
“This little pamphlet” (p. 166) is clear when it grounds the art of literature on insights: “literature being fed on ideas, the composition of literature is fed on reasoning, which is an organism of ideas—that a work of literature must be, at birth, a reasoning, however void the argument may be, that has a body, a poem must have a skeleton” (p. 166). I would correct only that the argument should not be “void”: literature is judged also by the ideas it puts forward, and there are better ones and worse ones. In fact, Pessoa agrees that it is ideas, as form, that constitute great works that are worthy of immortality: “It is ideas, as distinct from purposes, that make immortality—ideas as form and not as substance. In art everything is form, and everything includes ideas” (p. 172).
6. Moral dimension
As to the relationship between art and morals, Pessoa’s answer is simple: “to elevate is the end of the highest art, and the end is therefore the same as that of morals” (p. 175).
And poetry is (indirectly) presented as the highest form of literature: “Verse is the ideal—the artificially superior—form of speech; rhythm is the ideal—the artificial shape—form of sound” (p. 175).
II.
This is for the most part clear philosophy, worth quoting, even more than discussing.
For Pessoa, what remains for posterity will be the best and the most concise works: “the past will appeal […] only by perfection and brevity” (p. 180), a topic presented with what can be seen as subtle humour: “Competition among the dead is more terrible than competition among the living” (ibid.). Indeed, we see the giants of giants still battling, with their work and readers, for prominence in the canon, for the immortality Pessoa is discussing. It is as if, instead of resting in peace, they would continue a life of their own, like their works, susceptible of interpretation by new readers.
For Pessoa, our day and age is defective and uncongenial to the production of outstanding poetry: “The concentrated effort required to produce even a small good poem exceeds the constructive incapacity, the meanness of understanding, the futility of sincerity, the disordered poverty of imagination which characterises our times” (p. 181).
What is it that stays immortal, the fruit of genius? What is perfectly beautiful: “A Blake or a Shelley can never appeal to the generality of any age; they have the beauty of rarities rather than the beauty of perfect things” (p. 185). Geniuses are accomplished artists, creators of perfect things, not forerunners: “The central thing about really great geniuses is that they are not forerunners. […] The genius will be the final product” (p. 193).
After all this elevated description of what makes for immortality, Pessoa’s final words in the essay are disappointed, unhappy ones: “The Gods will not tell us, nor will Fate. The Gods are dead and Fate is dumb” (p. 199). This ending points to a lacuna in Pessoa’s work: the author’s inclination for certain lower forms of understanding (such as astrology), and a notorious neglect of the single major common source of the Western literary tradition: the Bible. Pessoa values highly the cultivation of major poetry, favouring the very best in the Western literary canon, and yet seems to overlook the literary tradition of the Bible, that would have given him more wisdom than the astrology he digested. Pessoa hints on the importance of this in this passage in “Erostratus,” but his insight is, alas, without much effort, consequence:
There are only two types of constant mood with which life is worth living—with the noble joy of a religion, or with the noble sorrow of having lost one. The rest is vegetation, and only a psychological botany can take interest in such diluted mankind. (p. 142)
The provocative title and topic of the essay comes to mind: Erostratus sought immortality through setting a temple on fire. Are all great artists doing the same? I do not think so. Artists are not necessarily irreverent and the greatest ones are those who manage to build new beautiful form in the world. If Pessoa is right about the two types of constant mood worth having in life, then artists do balance between that joy and that sorrow. More than a religion, artists perhaps miss something higher than themselves that is itself the source of that genuine joy that Pessoa mentions.
Who killed the gods? Surely Erostratus wasn’t successful in destroying the goddess Diana even if the entire temple was destroyed. Are the gods dead because many people say so? This is in fact against Pessoa’s not so tacit view that some elevated men can see better, even if they are a minority. (And they should teach, I would add.)
We see from the last words of the essay, with a (dull) reference to the death of the gods, that Pessoa was more inclined to the sorrow of having lost a religion than to the joy of one. And from this we cannot but wonder how the philosopher’s and the poet’s work would have been if his high-canon literary inclinations had been more accommodating.
