To feel, to think and to say : the human con(tra)di(c)tion in Alberto Caeiro

Abstract

Not without contradiction, the poetry of Alberto Caeiro, of Greco-Pagan aesthetics, which defends the sensitive world as the only reality and insists on the use of the five senses as the only possible way of acquiring knowledge, can only be better understood when read against the backdrop of a Christian worldview. Based on a reading of the Christian myth of the Fall of man, the article analyses the fundamental contradictions of Caeiro's poetic project, categorically contesting his "bucolic naivety". Through reflections on human self-consciousness and the naturalness or artificiality of "(not) to think", together with a look at the ontology of language, we argue that, according to Caeiro, the human condition is essentially a contradiction, and that the apology of the "sensations" in his poetry does not stem from a naïve hedonism, but can be considered an alternative way to rescue man from the prosaic world, restoring him to an Edenic vision.

Keywords

• Alberto Caeiro
• self-consciousness
• the Fall
• naturalness
• artificiality
• contradiction