Alvaro de Campos

Álvaro de Campos (European Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈalvɐɾu ðɨ ˈkɐ̃puʃ]; October 15, 1890 – November 30, 1935) was one of the poet Fernando Pessoa's various heteronyms, with a reputation for a powerful and angry style of writing. This alter ego is recounted to have been born in Tavira, Portugal. He studied mechanical engineering, to finally graduate in ship engineering at Glasgow. After some time in Ireland, Campos sailed to the Far East, and wrote his poem "Opiário" on board ship in the Suez Canal. He eventually returned to work in 'Barrow-on-Furness' (sic) (about which Pessoa wrote a poem) and Newcastle-on-Tyne (1922). Unemployed, Campos returned to Lisbon in 1926 (where he wrote the poem "Lisbon Revisited"), and settled there for the rest of his (fictitious) life. He was described as having been born in October, 1890. However, Pessoa never indicated how Campos met his end, leaving it in the air whether he would have survived beyond November 1935, when Pessoa died. Works written as from Campos' pen suggest three phases: the decadent, the futuristic and a final sad chapter. He chose Whitman and Marinetti as masters, showing some similarities with their works, mainly in the second phase: hymns like "Ode Triunfal", "Ode Marítima", and "Ultimatum" praise the power of rising technology, the strength of machines, the dark side of industrial civilization, and an enigmatic love for machines. The first phase (marked by the poem Opiário) derived some of its pessimism from Pessoa's friend Mário de Sá-Carneiro, with whom he had collaborated on the Orpheu magazine. In the last phase, Pessoa drops the mask, and affords a glimpse, through Campos, of the emptiness and nostalgia that took over during his own last years. It was during this last phase that the fictional Campos wrote the poems "Lisbon Revisited" and the well-known "Tobacco Shop".