The lyrical and linguistic journey of Camilo Pessanha through China

Abstract

Camilo Pessanha is widely considered one of the most important poets of modern Portugal. One of the characteristics that immediately stands out in his work is his contribution to Portuguese symbolist poetry. Another of the author’s particularities that set him apart from his peers is the fact that Camilo Pessanha lived in Macau and devoted himself to the study of the Chinese language and culture and was even referred to as “the most Chinese of Western poets, before Ezra Pound” (Sá Cunha, 1999, p. 34). This intercultural devotion led him to translate Chinese poetry, in particular the translation of “The Eight Chinese Elegies”, a collection of poems from the Ming Dynasty compiled by Long-Fong-Kong. During the Conference on Chinese Literature, which, according to a biographical survey conducted by Daniel Pires, was given by Camilo Pessanha on March 13, 1915 and published eight days later in the Macanese newspaper O Progresso, Pessanha analyses and characterizes his own knowledge of the Chinese language, describing it as follows: “the intense spiritual pleasure that the study, however superficial, of this language and its monuments provides to those who dedicate themselves to it, for the beauty it contains, the surprises it causes and, mainly, for the vast horizons it opens to the mind about the general condition of humanity and the light it sheds on the way of being of extinct civilizations.” (Pessanha, 1992, p. 159). In this talk, we will follow Pessanha on a lyrical and linguistic journey in search of a greater understanding between two civilizations.