e Loucura, 2006, vol. I, p. 167).
Vemos assim como o interesse pelo mais
minúsculo seria comum às preocupações
«científicas» e «literárias» de Pessoa, que num
diário de 1906 estabeleceu como objectivo ler
pelo menos dois livros por dia, um de poesia, ou
belles letters, outro de ciência ou filosofia (ibidem,
vol. II, p. 619).
[I was a poet animated by philosophy]
I was a poet animated by philosophy, not a
philosopher with poetic faculties. I loved to admire
the beauty of things, to trace in the imperceptible
through the minute the poetic soul of the universe.
The poetry of the earth is never dead. We may say
that ages gone have been more poetic, but we can
say [ ]�
Poetry is in everything – in land and in sea, in
lake and in riverside. It is in the city too – deny it
not – it is evident to me here as I sit: there is poetry
in this table, in this paper, in this inkstand; there is
poetry in the rattling of the cars on the streets, in
each minute, common, ridiculous motion of a
workman who the other side of the street is
painting the sign-board of a butcher's shop.
Mine inner sense predominates in such a way
over my five senses that I see things in this life – I
do believe it – in a way different from other men.
There is for me – there was – a wealth of meaning
in a thing so ridiculous as a door-key, a nail on a
wall, a cat's whiskers. There is to me a fulness of
spiritual suggestion in a fowl with its chickens
strutting across the road. There is to me a meaning
deeper than human fears in the smell of
sandalwood, in the old tins on a dirt heap, in a
match box lying in the gutter, in two dirty papers
which, on a windy day will roll and chase each
other down the street.
For poetry is astonishment, admiration; as of a
being fallen from the skies taking full
consciousness of his fall, astonished at things. As
of one who knew things in their souls, striving to
remember this knowledge, remembering that it
was not thus he knew them, not under these forms
and these conditions, but remembering nothing
more.
(BNP/E3, 20-11)
________________
� Espaço deixado em branco pelo autor.
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