Yeats Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

MCNEILL, Patrícia Silva, "Sacred Geometry of Being: Pessoa's Esoteric Imagery and the Geometry of Modernism" (2014). Pessoa Plural―A Journal of Fernando Pessoa Studies, No. 6, Fall, pp. 20-45. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University... more

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Pessoa Plural―A Journal of Fernando Pessoa Studies, Issue 6

The Sacred Geometry of Being: Pessoa’s Esoteric Imagery and the Geometry of Modernism
[Geometria Sagrada do Ser: imagética esotérica de Pessoa e a geometria do modernismo]

https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0GF0S0D

ABSTRACT

It is a known fact that throughout his life Pessoa was interested in and conversant with an array of esoteric currents and doctrines. Underpinning that interest was a marked tendency to a form of symbolic thinking encapsulated in the lines "[…] my thinking is condemned / To symbol and analogy" from a 1907 poem by the incipient heteronym Alexander Search, which recur in a fragment from 1932 of the dramatic poem Fausto. Pessoa's continued symbolic thinking, informed by copious readings mainly in Western Esotericism, allowed him to develop a creative hermeneutical approach to esoteric epistemologies. This essay will be concerned specifically with Pessoa's conception of the mystical significance of geometrical forms, arguing that they not only enriched the figurative expressiveness of his poetry but also played a crucial role in his formulation of a poetics of Sensationism. Pessoa's use of geometric imagery will be considered in the context of the fascination with sacred geometry and exploration of its aesthetic potential displayed by other modernists, like Yeats and Pound, and by avant-garde movements from the early XX th century which were also driven by analogous concerns, such as Futurism, Vorticism, Cubism, Expressionism and Suprematism.

RESUMO

É conhecido o interesse de Pessoa por e a sua familiaridade com uma variedade de correntes e doutrinas esotéricas ao longo da sua vida. A esse interesse subjaz uma tendência marcada para uma forma de pensamento simbólico cristalizada nos versos "[…] o meu pensamento está condenado / ao símbolo e à analogia" de um poema de 1907 pelo heterónimo incipiente Alexander Search, que seriam retomados num fragmento de 1932 do poema dramático Fausto. O pensamento simbólico continuado de Pessoa, informado por leituras abundantes sobretudo acerca do esoterismo ocidental, permitiu-lhe desenvolver uma abordagem hermeneutica criativa às epistemologias esotéricas. Este ensaio prender-se-á especificamente com a concepção do significado místico de formas geométricas por parte de Pessoa, defendendo que estas não só enriqueceram a expressividade figurativa da sua, mas também desempenharam um papel crucial na sua formulação de uma poética do sensacionismo. O uso da imagética geométrica por Pessoa será considerado no contexto da
fascinação com geometria sagrada e da exploração do seu potencial estético por outros modernistas, como Yeats e Pound, e pelas vanguardas artísticas do início do século XX
igualmente motivadas por preocupações análogas, tais como o futurismo, o vorticismo, o cubismo, o expressionismo e o suprematismo.

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