Álvaro de Campos' Tavira

"A few more notes on this subject… I see before me, in the colorless but real space of dreams, the faces and gestures of Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Álvaro de Campos. I gave them their ages and fashioned their lives. (…) Álvaro de Campos was born in Tavira, on October 15, 1890… Campos, as you know, is a naval engineer (he studied in Glasgow) but is currently living in Lisbon and not working. (…) Álvaro de Campos is tall (5 ft. 9 in., an inch taller than me), slim and a bit prone to stoop. All are clean-shaven; (…) Álvaro de Campos, after a normal high school education, was sent to Scotland to study engineering, first mechanical and then naval. During some holidays he made a voyage to the Orient, which gave rise to his poem “Opiary.” An uncle who was a priest from the Beira region taught him Latin. 
How to I write in the names of these three? (…) Campos, when I feel a sudden impulse to write and don’t know what."

--From a letter by Fernando Pessoa writing to Adolfo Casais Monteiro, 13 January 1935 (in The Book of Disquiet, Penguin Classics, 2002, p. 474.)

(photos with text best viewed in full-screen - left-click the picture and press F11)

After over 80 years since this letter was written, Tavira, a town located on the south coast of Portugal, in the region of Algarve, is still haunted by the imagination of Álvaro de Campos - one of the heteronyms used by Fernando Pessoa, reported by Pessoa to have been born in the town in 1890.

Learning a language to savour great works of literature

My experience of reading books has always gone hand in hand with learning languages. I have gone through the pain of withholding from reading certain titles for years only with the purpose of reading them, once ready, in their original versions. This painful but rewarding time-killer is something I've done with works in English, Spanish, French and German and as insane as it may sound I have high ambitions of expanding this further to other five languages. Apart from sharing my experience from reading, I would also like to use Confusio Linguarum to document this translingual journey.

Exhumed archive of stories by Angerhuber - printed back in 2005

I set out to learn German over ten years ago so that to read works of Gustav Meyrink, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Philipp Mainländer and Eddie M. Angerhuber among others. Over this time I have read countless other books in German just to improve my reading skills and to be finally able to savour the works that are high on my list. 

It is high time that I delve into "Eddie" M. Angerhuber's oeuvres - Angerhuber is a writer who  seems to have been on my list almost forever.

About Confusio Linguarum

Welcome to Confusio Linguarum - my personal blog dedicated to visionary literature, transligualism and bibliophily.

A few words to explain what CL is about:

First of all, visionary literature, works of surreal/philosophical/metaphysical dimension that also include works of weird/horror fiction. Key areas of interest include:

• weird fiction in the tradition of: Poe's and Gogol's arabesques, Aickman's strange stories, Grabinski's psychofantasies, Ligotti's existenstial/oneiric nightmares or Franz Hellens' réalités fantastiques
• Belgian l'école belge de l'étrange
• French les contes insolites and decadent movement with supernatural elements
• German unheimliche Phantastik
• Latin American magic realism
• Romanian symbolism in fiction and poetry

To make things more interesting this blog will have a translingual dimension. I'd like to spend some time dealing with translingual writing and authors who "flaunt their freedom from the constraints of the culture into which they happen to be born” ... “by expressing themselves in multiple verbal systems” as Steven G. Kellman defines in Switching Languages Translingual Writers Reflect on Their Craft. I am keen on delving into obscure works and identifying translation gaps. Neglected works of visionary literature as well as works lost in translation will find their place here. I will be happy to present noteworthy translations from English into other languages (and vice versa).

There are plenty of niches from which obscure voices of visionary fiction emerge. Those barely ever make it to the other side of the language barrier. I would like to spend some time discussing literary developments and markets in various parts of the globe, with special focus on European countries, mainly: France, Belgium, Germany, Poland and Romania.
If time allows, I would also like to conduct several short interviews with literary visionaries and translators.

Last but not least, this is a personal blog so I will be happy to share with readers my case of bibliophily: unique publications I'm especially fond of, curiosities found in books and in second-hand bookstores (tagged as "cabinet of curiosities"), personal anecdotes and some brief mentions of collaborations I was involved in a more or less significant way plus my own "self-published" volumes. 

For me personally, languages and literature have always gone together with travel, so I will be randomly sharing experiences from literary journeys. I hope these won't be too disappointing of a read.

Some other points to consider:

• I am not a writer, a critic let alone a scholar. I do not support any literary awards nor do I belong to any literary communities/societies with closed membership. My passion for literature stems from the urge of maintaining contact with languages I've learned and I see myself as a reader and independent observer. This blog is just a repository of insights into literature, transligualism and bibliophily and will not be used for promotion. 
• English is my third language from among several in which I can read. I apologize in advance for any infelicitous turns of phrase. I often succumb to confusio linguarum myself!
• I take liberty in linking back to sites containing media in other languages or quoting non-English texts without necessarily finding time to translate them.

I hope the content in each article will compensate for the broad if less coherent array of subjects I will be dealing with and that you will find here something you are looking for!