This World and beyond

PORTUGAL has produced many outstanding poet over the centuries. One of the most gifted of the twentieth century was Mario de Sai-Carneiro, who, with Fernando Pessoa, represents the apex of the Modernist movement in Portugal-a movement which sprang from a general feeling of anguish present during the turn of the century in Europe and in most of the world. Other writers who formed part of the Portuguese Modernist current and who emphasized notes of despair, solitude, and anxiety in their poetry include Ant6nio Botto, Jose Regio, Adolfo Casais Monteiro, and Miguel Torga. This movement in Portugal is paralleled chronologically and thematically in such Spanish poets as Antonio Machado and Juan Ram6n Jiminez. Essential themes present in their poetry revolve around sensations of anguish produced by the uncertain and temporal nature of existence and the search for Beauty which is, supposedly, the font of all truth. There are also thematic links between Portuguese Modernism and the movement in Spanish America as exemplified in the works of such poets as Julian del Casal, Manuel Gutierrez Nijera, and Jose Asunci6n Silva. These themes also emphasize the same anguish and despair that was present during this time in history. These are the thematic elements, then, which we will attempt to study in this article as we assess Mairio de Sa-Carneiro's role in the Portuguese Modernist Movement. Critics agree that the ultimate preoccupation in the poetry of Mairio de Sai-Carneiro was a struggle to discover some meaning in life and to put his thoughts together in a coherent mental balance. Dispersdio or dispersion, breakup, was the keynote of the poet's literary production. A complete state of dispersion or separation between the poet and the world, the poet and life, and the poet and himself, is summed up in Si-Carneiro's poem Dispersdo. Two metaphors used in this poem, namely Castelos desmantelados, and Ledes alados sem juba ...1 express very well the resultant state of dispersion that the poet experiences because of his deep anguish. This theme, which is so predominant here, occurs frequently in the three genres used by Sa-Carneiro to record his houghts. Throughout the author's poetry, short stories, and letters to Fernando Pessoa, there are allusions to a lack of stabilizat on in time, space and psyche. The poet confesses that he is torn apart by some mysterious force and hurled in many different directions simultaneously. This cl avage in Sa-Carneiro's poetry is the result of his anxiety to comprehend entirely all which is perfect in life, and to be able, in turn, to create this perfection through literature. In SA-Carneiro's poem Dispersio, a feeling of complete disorientation in life is very evident: Perdi-me dentro de mim Porque eu era labirinto

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