Understanding The Portuguese Poet Joaquim Pessoa, 1942-2007: A Study In Iberian Cultural Hybridity
Department
Foreign Languages
Document Type
Book
Publication Date
12-5-2008
Abstract
This work examines the role of mystical love in Joaquim Pessoa's poetry through a reconsideration of the signifier and the signified based on the tenants of Sufi mysticism. Joaquim Pessoa emerged in the 1970's during the final years of Portugal's Salazar dictatorship. Over the past thirty years, has been the source of study for his socio-political views. In the early stages of his career, Pessoa applied a deconstructionist approach to his writing in the face of censorship under the Salazar regime. Robert Simon argues that this was the first of three stages of a progressive evolution of Pessoa's work, citing Pessoa's deconstructionist stance as only a starting point for a longer, metaphysical journey that would lead the author to explore his own conceptions of society and love, eventually leading him towards mystical enlightenment.