Father, Son, and Holy Ghost―Love triangles in Portuguese Modernismo

Abstract

This article explores a melodramatic pattern in early-twentieth-century Portuguese literature that leads to the publication of Contemporânea in 1922: the repeated allusions to God and the Christian Holy Trinity as a dramatic metaphor of the poet’s process of creation. The insistence on these divine metaphors of eroticism, faithfulness, and love triangles points to the way Portuguese writers view religion in dramatic terms. This article traces an aesthetic line that leads to Contemporânea, through three authors and a selection of their publications in specific moments throughout the first decades of the twentieth century: Fernando Pessoa’s dramatic poem Portugal, an unfinished project whose writing process took place between 1910-1913; Alfredo Pedro Guisado’s poem “Ante Deus”, published in the 1915 first issue of Orpheu; and a selection of José de Almada Negreiros’ illustrations included in Contemporânea in 1922.

Keywords

• pessoa, fernando
• literature
• almada negreiros, josé de
• guisado, alfredo pedro