Wordsworthian Undercurrents in Álvaro de Campos's 'Barrow on Furness'

Donaldson, Christopher (2020) Wordsworthian Undercurrents in Álvaro de Campos's 'Barrow on Furness'. The Wordsworth Circle, 51 (1). pp. 120-134. ISSN 0043-8006

Text (Donaldson_Wordsworth_Circle_Submission)
Donaldson_Wordsworth_Circle_Submission.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial.
Download (222kB)

Abstract

This article explores a seldom considered chapter in the reception history of the English poet William Wordsworth: his influence on the works of the Portuguese modernist poet, Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935). Pessoa wrote both under his own name and under the name of at least seventy distinct heteronyms, each of whom possessed its own unique biography, personality, and style. In keeping with the focus of this special issue, the article focuses on a late, posthumously published poem by the most famous of these heteronyms: Alvaro de Campos (1890–1935). Entitled ‘Barrow on Furness’, and ostensibly a record of de Campos’s time in the west Cumbrian port town of Barrow-in-Furness, the poem, I contend, offers a modernist riposte to Wordsworth that nonetheless pays homage to the wider region from which he drew his inspiration.