Ophelia's lovers

Abstract

Pessoa's interest in the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe, evidenced early, influenced not only his own writings. Besides translating the American poet's poems (notably "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," and "Ulalume"), he edited collections of Poe's tales. He also tried his hand at writing original ratiocinative tales in the Poe vein. Unstressed, however, has been the effect that the details of Poe's life, as related by Charles Baudelaire in the English-language translation of the French poet's essay printed as the introduction to The Choice Works of Edgar Allan Poe published in London in 1902 (a copy of which Pessoa owned), had on Pessoa's love affair with Ophelia Queiroz in 1920 and, after a hiatus of 10 years, in 1930. In both instances Pessoa managed to escape this pre-marital situation by invoking his heteronym Álvaro de Campos, categorized by Ophelia as the "mau" one. Parallels to Poe's behavior towards women, both the sometimes very young ones he favored and often featured in his work but especially, calculatingly, toward Sarah Helen Whitman (showing up drunk at her door), is echoed in his continual drinking (even though she would tolerate the drinking, but not the smoking), emblematically established in the famous photograph of himself at Abel's that he autographed for Ophelia with the portentous words "em flagrante delitro."

Keywords

• Queiroz, Ofélia
• Campos, Alvaro de
• Poe, Edgar Allan
• Queiroz, Carlos
• Love-letters
• Cartas de amor