Sá-Carneiro, Mário de (1890–1916)

Abstract

Mário de Sá-Carneiro was one of the major exponents of Portuguese modernism. Although his literary production is limited to just a few years, from 1913 to April 1916. His earlier writings, even when they maintain thematic affinities with his later texts, are alien to the peculiar Sá-Carneirian interpretation of modernism. Sá-Carneiro’s works in verse and prose are among the most significant of the period and, more generally, of Portuguese literature of the twentieth century. From this point of view, two events are fundamental for Sá-Carneiro’s modernist poetics: his meeting with Fernando Pessoa in Lisbon probably during the first months of 1912 (Sá-Carneiro gives a copy of Princípio to Fernando Pessoa with a dedication dated 29 August 1912) and his departure to Paris—the city where, from October 1912, the poet will spend three long periods and where he will end up taking his own life on 26 April 1916.