Oitava visita a Portugal, mesmo?

 I'm in the process of making plans to head back to Portugal for a quick visit in June. I found a conference in Lisbon and I'm in the process of putting together a paper. There is an inherent danger on presenting on Fernando Pessoa in Portugal, clearly, but I obviously don't have the sense that God gave a goose (as we'd say in Indiana). The last heteronym that Pessoa created was Maria Jose, a nineteen year old hunchbacked girl who was dying of tuberculosis. All she produced was a love letter that was never sent, telling of her love for a strong worker who routinely passed beneath her window. It is devastating in its sadness, but it's also very beautiful; my students read it on the first night of class this semester and they really liked it. I want to view the letter in relation to Pessoa's concept of a "factless autobiography," which he tells through the lens of Bernardo Soares in The Book of Disquiet. Doubtless, I'm in over my head, but I love to give myself new challenges.

Obviously, I'll have to head back to the Fernando Pessoa Museum.

This is the astrological chart that Pessoa created for himself. He did ones for his major heteronyms as well (or course, he also identified Fernando Pessoa as a heteronym - this is destroying my students even as we speak); unfortunately, the pictures I snapped on my last visit are pretty blurry, although, happily, not the memory itself.