Pessoa created over 70 heteronyms, imaginary characters allowing him to write in different styles. The best known are: Alberto Caeiro (1889-1915), the ‘master’ of the other heteronyms and even Pessoa himself, a rural, uneducated poet of ideas who wrote in free verse (Complete poems and more | Uncollected poems) Álvaro de Campos (1890- ), a well-travelled naval engineer who returned to Lisbon to stay in the fateful year of 1926; influenced by Futurism (poems inc Lisbon revisited, from visits in 1923 and 1926) Ricardo Reis (1887- ), a doctor who composed Horatian odes; as a Royalist Reis fled to Brazil in 1910 Bernardo Soares, bookkeeper and flâneur, a ‘semi-heteronym’ who … Continue reading Fernando Pessoa