Sentimento dum Ocidental

Symbolist/Modernist Elements in the Poetry of Cesário Verde

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to place the poetic work of Cesário Verde (Lisboa 1855 - 1886) in the context of the modernity of the end of the nineteenth century which, following the example of what was being created on the other side of the Pyrenees with Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine and Mallarmé, found the most genuine solicitations to abandon the old poetic style. This style, to which the poet had dedicated himself, at the beginning, with a strong ironic spirit, through a series of lyrics of burlesque romantic intonation. The transition to a new style was not easy, given the strong criticism from which the young poet was invested by the official critics, who did not welcome his poetry, which seemed to move away from the Lusitanian traditions, to start on highly innovative paths, and set as an example of the new advancing from foreign lands. Only Fernando Pessoa, in the early twentieth century, was able to grasp the spirit of renewal of Portuguese letters, operated by the young lisbonese, seen as a master of modernity. So much so that one could say that Cesário continued to live in Pessoa's verses and in those of the heteronyms. And Pessoa also claimed that Cesário had set himself up as a model for the new stylistic features of Portuguese fin-de siécle poetry.