O Susto como paixão da ausência entre Teixeira de Pascoaes e Fernando Pessoa

Abstract

Published in 1958, O Susto is a living being novel that, in addition to exalting the figure of José Midões – who we know to be Teixeira de Pascoaes, highlights the poet's relationship with another artist – Álvaro Carmo, who is Fernando Pessoa.

More than a biographical novel or a roman à clef, O Susto went practically unnoticed on the national literary scene.

In fact, using various narrative mechanisms, Agustina's novel highlights the importance of Pascoaes and Fernando Pessoa in the history of contemporary Portuguese literature.

Long before the criticism, Agustina understood how Alberto Caeiro is, in the words of Pessoa in Páginas Íntimas e de Auto-Interpretação, published in 1966, that is, eight years after the novel, “Pascoaes turned inside out, without taking him out of where you are.”