Is the absurd a male-dominated terrain? Pessoa and Beckett as case studies.(Fernando Pessoa, Samuel Beckett)(Critical essay)

Abstract. The present article examines the notion of the absurd as it transpires in the form of Modernist literature; more specifically, in the works of Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) and Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). On the basis of how these authors responded to a sense of existential disquiet, experienced as the absurd, an examination of the latter as a particular terrain proposes that the bewildered self sought a refuge in literature from a sensation of nothingness. The idea of literature as a territory of signification is, moreover, analogous to that of an inner, psychological terrain where the creation of an identity originates and where the question of a male-female difference might possibly be obliterated.

Keywords. Fernando Pessoa; Samuel Beckett; the absurd; Modernism

Resumo. O presente artigo pretende investigar a nocao do absurdo, como e visivel na forma de literatura modernista, mais especificamente, nas obras de Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) e Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). Baseada na maneira como os autores responderam a uma sensacao de desassossego, visto como o absurdo, a investigacao deste como se fosse um terreno propoe que o eu desorientado procura um refugio na literatura, escapando assim a sensacao do nada. A ideia da literatura como um espaco de significacao e, alem disso, analoga a de um terreno psicologico, interior, de onde a criacao da identidade se origina e onde a questao da diferenca entre o masculino e o feminino, talvez, se anule.

Palavras chave. Fernando Pessoa; Samuel Beckett; o absurdo; Modernismo

In an interview with Derek Attridge dating from April 1989, Jacques Derrida gives an account of his deeply felt proximity to the work of Samuel Beckett. It is a relationship which the philosopher describes as even 'too close', (1) so that it causes him to persistently enquire what could possibly be an adequate response to the Beckettian texts: 'How could I write, sign, countersign performatively texts which "respond" to Beckett?' (2)

Like Derrida, most readers, or spectators, of Samuel Beckett's work would not have failed to notice a sense of bewilderment and profound inadequacy whenever engaged in a dialogue with these texts, insofar as they seem to reflect one of the author's favourite quotations, the preSocratic 'nothing is more real than nothing'. (3) Likewise, as readers of Fernando Pessoa would know, the same expression of scepticism voiced by Democritus of Abdera (4) has hardly ever found a better translation, or literary representation, than in the notorious drama in gente. If nothingness could, thus, be regarded as an experience of reality in its utmost, or fullest, form, then we are, in the cases of Beckett and Pessoa, confronted with a display of a sense and, indeed, a sensation of being what may best be described as 'absurd'. In what follows I intend to outline more closely how a sensation of the absurd is represented in the works of Beckett and Pessoa as representatives of what is generally known as Modernism. Summarily, the modernity of Beckett and Pessoa, despite their obvious differences, is shown in the way their texts persistently seek to relate to a deeply felt sensation of existential disquiet, spleen, or desassossego. Pessoa, in the voice of his semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares, writes:

Toda a vida da alma humana e um movimento na penumbra. Vivemos, num luscofusco da consciencia, nunca certos com o que somos ou com o que nos supomos ser. [...] Somos qualquer coisa que se passa no intervalo de um espectaculo; por vezes, por certas portas, entrevemos o que talvez nao seja senao cenario. Todo o mundo e confuso, como vozes na noite. (5)