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An Intertextual Intertwining of Mystic Nationalisms; Saramago's Post- Modern Challenge to the Pessoan and Salazarist Discourses in 0 Ano Da Morte De Ricardo Reis

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An Intertextual Intertwining of Mystic Nationalisms; Saramago's Post- Modern Challenge to the Pessoan and Salazarist Discourses in 0 Ano Da Morte De Ricardo Reis UC Berkeley Lucero Title An Intertextual Intertwining of Mystic Nationalisms; Saramago's Post- Modern Challenge to the Pessoan and Salazarist Discourses in 0 Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3tz2f5vd Journal Lucero, 10(1) ISSN 1098-2892 Author McNee, Malcolm Publication Date 1999 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California An intertextual Intertwining of Mystic Nationalisms; Saramago's Post-Modern Challenge to the Pessoan and Salazarist Discourses in 0 Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis Malcolm McNee University of Minnesota, EE. UU. Approaching contemporary Portuguese of any universalizing, reifying, mythic, or fiction in light of its relationship to questions utopian discourse that would define Portugal of national identity and the post-modern or a Portuguese messianic vocation. concern with exposing fissures in the mono­ Demonstrating, as Ellen Sapega has put it, "a liths of History, an exceptionally complex lack of confidence in the traditional or peda­ and fruitful starting point is José Saramago's gogical discourses of identity", Saramago 1984 novel, 0 Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis. contrasts and intertwines the Salazarist dis­ This work is a clear attempt to deconstruct course with a number of other corresponding and problematize the symbols and ultrana­ and competing discourses, in what might be tionalist ideology of Salazar’s Estado Novo1. read as an effort to relativize all potentially By re-presenting many of the historical reductionist uses of language. He encourages events as well as the socio-economic and a reflection on History in general terms, political landscape of 1936 Lisbon, Saramago unveiling the discursive mechanisms of its effectively demonstrates the relativity and construction. He achieves this in O Ano da propagandistic nature of the official, repres­ Morte de Ricardo Reis through what Helena sive, reductionist discourses controlled by Kaufman has termed "historiographic com­ the Salazar regime. mentary”: Saramago, however, has a larger project Este tipo de comentário historiográfico, in mind than a simple dismantling of Salazar’s que reflecte sobre o construir da Historia, proto-fascist political ideology. Thus, while constrói urna das características essenciais refraining from a direct analysis of Portugal’s que distinguem a ficfáo histórica contem­ contemporary situation, he illuminates much poránea do romance histórico tradicional. of the problematic grounding; perhaps most Somente na ficfáo histórica contempornea a clearly and troublingly visible in the Historia em si surge como tema que recebe Salazarist appropriations and manifestations; tratamento reflexivo-historiográfico ó co­ of still pervasive if perhaps no longer domi­ rrespondente as tendencias da historiografía nant discourses on Portuguese national iden­ actual. Enquanto a metafic^áo historiográfi- tity. Saramago, it would seem, is distrustful ca, como o romance de Saramago, continua a LUCERO 57 recorrer a urna visáo metafórica da Historia explore in greater detail Pessoa’s own con­ ou da relagáo presente/passado, a visáo cerns with reformulating and reinvigorating utópica foi totalmente rejeitada e substituida the Portuguese national identity/mythologi- pelo olhar irónico e consciente (132-33). cal discourse in an era of relative socio-eco­ This historiographic commentary is sus­ nomic stagnation and political instability. tained by the revelations and observations of Without intending a conveniently reduction­ an omniscient and critical narrator and the ist reading of Pessoa’s literary output and its reflections, conversations, and respective powerful existential and spiritual dimen­ gazes of two primary characters who bring to sions, for the purposes of this essay the the text their own historical dimension and exploration of Pessoa's work will be confined immense discursive baggage. Through these to the surface level evidence of his political two characters; Fernando Pessoa, Portugal's ideology and its relationship to the Salazarist most celebrated poet since Camóes, and one rhetoric and symbolism that Saramago resur­ of Pessoa’s heteronym's, Ricardo Reis; rects in his novel. Saramago introduces into the narrative the * * * Pessoan discourse — "um grande intertexto Perhaps the most apparent intersections cultural portugués", as Kaufman describes it of Pessoan thematics and Salazarist political (131) — which then engages throughout the rhetoric and symbolism center around the novel in a dialogue, directly and indirectly, utopian discourse of the imminent advent of with the Salazarist ultranationalist political King Sebastian's Fifth Empire. Under the narration of the Portuguese nation. leadership of a single, unifying spiritual and It is this dimension of Saramago’s novel political figure, Portugal was to emerge as that 1 would like to explore in this paper: the the center of a European empire which would juxtapostion and intertwining of the Pessoan be truly global. As Pessoa wrote in defense and the Salazarist discourses, and the implic­ of Portugal's privileged bid for the position it critique of both thus made by the author. of leader of a new world order: As Fernando Arenas has written: Este critèrio tern a confirmà-lo a pròpria O regresso de Ricardo Reis a Portugal em sociologia da nossa civilizagáo. Esta é forma­ 1936 (um ano depois da morte de Fernando da, tal qual está hoje, por quatro elementos Pessoa) implica a sua insergáo na Historia [inherited from the First through Fourth (aqui o Ano do título do romance é crucial). Empires as identified by Pessoa]: a cultura ...a insergáo do Ricardo Reis-personagem e grega, a ordem romana, a moral cristá, e o Fernando Pessoa-personagem fantasma na individualismo inglés. Resta acrescentar-lhe Historia (no Portugal Salazarista), que per­ o espirito de universalidade, que deve nece­ mite ao autor de fazer, duma parte, urna críti­ ssariamente surgir do carácter policontinen- ca mordaz ao regime de Salazar, e doutra tal da actual civilizagáo. Até agora náo tem parte, urna crítica igualmente mordaz ao havido senáo civilizagáo europeia; a univer- Fernando Pessoa-ente politico e ao Ricardo salizagáo da civilizagáo europeia é fogosa­ Reis-ente estético, que reflete até certo mente o mister do Quinto Impèrio (Portugal, ponto o modo de estar político do seu Sebastianismo e Quinto Impèrio 123-124). criador (39). Pessoa also grounded his conception of a In discussing this complex intertextuality Portuguese-led Fifth Empire in his character­ and metatextuality, it will be useful to ization of the distinct nature of the past LUCERO 58 imperial mission of the Portuguese. The unifying force. Pessoa felt that Sebastianism ancient imperial impulse of the Portuguese was unique as a salvageable source of nation­ aspired to the discovery of new lands and the al inspiration and unity. As Gilbert R. Cavado conversion of their populations to has noted, as early as 1912, Pessoa had proph- Christianity, rather than simple material esized the coming of a "Super-Camóes" as domination. The idea of conquest was, well as a man of political force and power according to Pessoa, never a factor of great who would restore Portugal to its former importance in the Portuguese colonial expe­ glory and triumphantly usher in a Luso- rience. It was his assertion that Portugal was European civilization of truly global dimen­ the European nation that had exhibited sions (61). And as Pessoa asserted in writings toward, and inspired in, other races and from 1924: nations the least amount of hatred, thus 0 sebastianismo tern sido incompreendi- favoring it as a globally unifying force. do. Tornado por uns como sendo urna mera Pessoa verifies his assertion with a specific superstiçâo popular, por outros como um differentiation between Portugese and devaneio imperialista da decadéncia, o facto English imperialisms: é que ele tem sido, em geral, tido por assun­ Os indios da India inglesa dizem que sao to desprezível e obscuro .... Desprezível indios, os da Ìndia portuguesa que sao por­ está longe de serótanto pela rezáo, estrita- tugueses. Nisto, que nao provém de qualquer mente exotérica [sic] e sociológica, de que o cálculo nosso, está a chave do nosso possível sebastianismo é o único movimento profun­ dominio futuro. Porque a esséncia do grande damente nacional que tem havido entre nós, imperialismo é o converter os outros em tendo toda a força de um movimento reli­ nossa substáncia, o converter os outros em gioso, que é, e todo aquele cunho nacional nós mesmos (Portugal, Sebastianismo e que falta a todos os movimentos políticos Quinto Impèrio 129). entre nós . (Portugal, Sebastianismo e Pessoa, thus, conceived of the Portuguese Quinto Impèrio 133). Fifth Empire as cultural, spiritual, and lin- Pessoa’s concerns with fictionalizing into guistic/literary rather than material: "an poetic language, and thus revitalizing, the imperialism of poets”; or the Portuguese lan­ Sebastianist myth would coalesce into guage as the fatherland, transcending the Mensagem. Exploring the rich thematics of traumatic experience of geo-political and Portugal's past glories and its fall into rela­ economic decline Portugal had suffered since tive obscurity; the fog into which Sebastian the sixteenth century. As Maria Irene disappeared and from which will inevitably Ramalho de Sousa Santos writes: "The 'bro­ return; Pessoa also appoints himself as the ken tradition' of the Portuguese seaborne singer of the Fifth Empire. As Santos writes: empire will thus be made to
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