A great emotion is too selfish ; it takes into itself all the blood of the spirit, and the congestion leaves the hands too cold to write. Three sorts of emotion produce great poetry - strong but quick emotions, seized upon for art as soon as they have passed, but not before they have passed ; strong and deep emotions in their remembrance along time after ; and false emotions, that is to say, emotions felt in the intellect. Not insincerity, but a translated sincerity, is the basis of all art.
Interpretation
The quote explores the relationship between emotion and poetry, suggesting that true artistic expression arises from a balance of genuine feelings and intellectual understanding.
Fernando Pessoa reflects on how different types of emotions influence the creation of poetry. He argues that while great emotions can overshadow the ability to express oneself artistically, strong and fleeting emotions can inspire immediate creativity. Additionally, he emphasizes that deeply felt memories of emotions can also fuel artistic expression. Ultimately, he suggests that even emotions that are processed intellectually can lead to sincere art, as they represent a transformed form of true emotion.
In practice
In a literary workshop discussing how emotion fuels creativity, this quote can be used to highlight the balance between feeling and expression.
I have at this moment so many fundamental thoughts, so many truly metaphysical things to say, that I suddenly get tired and decide not to write any more, not to think any more, but to allow the fever of speaking to make me sleepy, and with my eyes closed, like a cat, I play with everything I could have said.
It's been months since I last wrote. I've lived in a state of mental slumber, leading the life of someone else. I've felt, very often, a vicarious happiness. I haven't existed. I've been someone else. I've lived without thinking.
We all have two lives: The true, the one we dreamed of in childhood And go on dreaming of as adults in a substratum of mist; the false, the one we love when we live with others, the practical, the useful, the one we end up by being put in a coffin.
I'm a man for whom the outside world is an inner Reality.
My dreams are a stupid refuge, like an umbrella against a thunderbolt.
The chill of what I won't feel gnaws at my present heart.
A few years back I was asked if I would go and meet a director and his various acolytes, and it occurred to me halfway through the meeting that what I was doing was auditioning. And I thought, 'Well, hang on buddy. I've done half a century of this.'
I don't design clothes, I design dreams.
The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful.
I don't really need to be remembered. I hope the music's remembered.
I'm very representational some of the time, and a little all of the time. But when you're painting out of your unconscious, figures are bound to emerge.
The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.
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