A paisagem e a saudade: convergências na representação de Portugal e do eu na poesia de Teixeira de Pascoaes

Teixeira de Pascoaes was one of the greatest authors that reflected upon Portuguese national identity in the 20th century, throughout a vast opus including essays, conferences, critical texts and articles, besides poetry. Adopting an orientation of «mythical patriotism», Pascoaes proposed that saudade should be hoisted as the flag of the Renascença Portuguesa movement, and that there should be a break from the decadent monarchic past of past decades and from the strong foreign influence. Portugal was the centre of Pascoaes’ prose production. However, in his poetry, the explicit references to Portugal are scarce, the place occupied by the self being much more prominent. In Pascoaes’ lyricism, there is a profound search of identity. The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how the search for this identity takes place not only at an individual level but also at a national level. In two different ways – landscape and saudade –, Pascoaes transforms a poetry about the self into a poetry about Portuguese selfhood. Believing that the poet is a privileged interpreter of the mysteries of nature, the poet’s self is identified with the landscape of his homeland as seen from his window, which in turn represents the national landscape. According to his spiritualist pantheism, this lan‑dscape is considered by Pascoaes as having a «soul» made of saudade, such as the «soul» of the Portuguese people, such as the «soul» of the self. It can thus be noted that Pascoaes’ poetry, through several stylistic devices, mixes the construc‑tion of the self with the construction of the national identity.