Tabacaria | Poema de Fernando Pessoa com narração de Mundo Dos Poemas

"Tabacaria" - Analysis Perhaps this is Álvaro de Campos' best-known poem. Oscillating between the inner world and cosmic, universal reality, the poet deals simultaneously with the anguish of daily life and dreams of liberation. This can be observed from the first verses, whose meaning will form the basis of his entire poem. Note that the poet is absolutely nihilistic in relation to himself ("I am nothing. / I will never be anything. / I cannot want to be anything"), but, in compensation, he knows that he has "all the dreams of the world." Locked in his room, alone, the poetic self contemplates a street, where he perceives a mystery: death and destiny that no one sees. This extraordinary perception of things is due to his great imaginative capacity, which allows him to see what others cannot see. Living his dreams, he seeks to forget all learning (that is, everything he learned from men) and sets off in search of nature; however, this solution does not satisfy him, insofar as he feels uncomfortable wherever he is ("a stranger here, as everywhere," the poet will say in another poem). Álvaro de Campos is radically different from Alberto Caeiro (and even from Ricardo Reis); his anguish, his lucidity, do not allow him to be innocent, natural. Returning to nature becomes a useless utopia. Subsequently, the poet again contrasts the fantastic capacity to dream with the limitations of the external world. But the feeling of euphoria with the dream does not last long; later in the poem, he becomes aware that dreams are worthless, because high, noble, and lucid aspirations may not even see the light of day, nor reach the ears of people. In truth, "The world is for those born to conquer it / And not for those who dream that they can conquer it," even if he is right. Therefore, despite having conquered more than the great conqueror Napoleon, having loved more than Christ, and having philosophized more than Kant, it is all worthless, insofar as everything took place in his imagination. To express his impotence in the face of reality, Álvaro de Campos uses the image of a man waiting for a door to be opened in a wall without a door, or of a man trying to make his voice reach God, singing inside a covered well. Thus, the poet sees himself as a "cardiac slave of stars," that is, a person who dreams of the stars and suffers from a heart condition that prevents him from experiencing strong emotions, or as someone who only conquers everything in dreams. The result is an ever-increasing detachment from reality, from the visible world. The awareness of this causes him weariness and suffering, so that he begins to envy a girl he sees from the window, innocently eating chocolates. At this point, Álvaro de Campos touches on an aspect that is a constant in Fernando Pessoa's work: thinking is painful, because it prevents man from being happy. In the next stanza, feeling the emptiness within himself, the poet seeks something to inspire him. Therefore, he resorts to inspiring muses of the past, but the feeling of emptiness remains the same, since his "heart is an emptied bucket." In reality, Álvaro de Campos expresses here the anguish of modern man, who no longer finds a point of support for his anxieties and, therefore, succumbs to despair. This awareness of the futility of everything leads Campos to feel like an exile, a being apart from humanity. He imagines the world as if it were a theater, where everyone acts and the "I" is the only one who neither knows nor can act. Because of this, his place in the theater is in the dressing room and never on the stage. The final verses of the poem place the poetic self face to face with the tobacconist, who represents the common man, the man without metaphysical anxieties. Upon seeing him, the poet experiences a feeling of discomfort and begins to feel the absolute futility of everything, even poetry itself. The poem closes with the poet's absolute solitude, aware that nothing is worthwhile, while the tobacconist, completely unaware of his surroundings, simply smiles. So many hours of poetry and an incalculable number of emotions. We smiled, discovered, revealed, debated, laughed, cried, always together, always with you. We did all this, every day uniting people through poetry, because we have you, always with the same passion keeping us company. We need your support, consider joining the channel. Help us! Without your support none of this would be possible and without your presence this is no fun at all. Support the channel, subscribe here:    / @mundodospoemas   Eternal Gratitude World of Poems Video Link:    • Tabacaria | Poema de Fernando Pessoa com n...   If you wish to purchase a fundamental work by Fernando Pessoa, here is the Amazon link for: "The Book of Disquiet" - Fernando Pessoa: https://amzn.to/3zqR7FY