35 Sonnets

About

Pessoa's 35 Sonnets were written in English — the only significant collection he published in his lifetime — and are among the strangest works in the sonnet tradition: metaphysically dense, formally impeccable, and written by a Portuguese poet who dreamed in English. The poems meditate on identity, fate, and the dissolution of the self with a philosophical intensity that anticipates his later work under the heteronyms. As reading texts they reward careful attention to their unusual thought-movements.