A “Tabacaria” revisited by Valter Hugo Mãe. The polysemy of metaphysics in A Máquina de Fazer Espanhóis

Abstract

This article analyses the the dialogue between the Valter Hugo Mãe’s novel A Máquina de Fazer Espanhóis (2012) and the poem “Tabacaria”, written by Fernando Pessoa with heteronym Alvaro de Campos, a prominent name in the context of Orpheu magazine. It is an interesting case of intertextuality that could be classified in terms of Tiphaine Samoyault as a review of “memory literature”. This concept is defined as a reframing act of the past by the present texts. In his novel, Valter Hugo Mãe reviews the Pessoa’s poem through Esteves character (the “without metaphysics”) and its interaction with other internal of the asylum “Feliz Idade”. The romance proposes a debate on the Portuguese cultural identity and disasters of the country’s history in the twentieth century, including the permanence of the legacy of Salazarism mentality of the Portuguese people to the contemporary. We study on the polysemy of the concept of metaphysics from the way the book Mãe of the relay in Fernando Pessoa’s poem.