Ricardo Reis () is a heteronym of the Portuguese poet

Fernando Pessoa Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa (; ; 13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935) was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, and publisher. He has been described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th c ...

. In his fictional biography, Reis was born in

Porto Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...

in 1887, one year older than

, who describes him as very little shorter and stronger, but slim and a vague matte brown. Reis was educated at a Jesuit boarding school becoming a Latinist by education and a semi-Hellenist by his own, thus writing better than Pessoa, but with a purism that his author considered exaggerated. He was a doctor and Neoclassical poet who wrote

neopagan Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, spans a range of new religious movements variously influenced by the beliefs of pre-modern peoples across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Despite some common simila ...

, epicurist and stoicist odes. Politically a monarchist, he went into exile to Brazil after the defeat of a monarchical rebellion in Porto against the

Portuguese Republic Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it shares the longes ...

in 1919.

Critical overview

Reis ''Odes'' were first published in 1924 in the ', founded by Fernando Pessoa and Ruy Vaz. Further eight odes were later published between 1927 and 1930 in the literary journal ''

Presença ''Presença - Folha de Arte e Crítica'' (lit. "Presence: A Journal of Art and Critique") was a Portuguese magazine published in Coimbra from 10 March 1927 until 1940, producing a total of 54 issues during its existence. History ''Presença'' was a ...

''. The remaining poems and prose were published posthumously. In a letter to William Bentley, director of the journal ''Portugal'', on October 31, 1924, to announce his journal ''Athena'', Pessoa wrote that "a ''knowledge'' of the language would be indispensable, for instance, to appraise the 'Odes' of Ricardo Reis, whose Portuguese would draw upon him the blessing of

António Vieira António (or Antônio) Vieira (; 6 February 160818 July 1697) was a Portuguese Jesuit Priesthood in the Catholic Church, priest, diplomat, orator, preacher, philosopher, writer, and member of the Royal Council to the King of Portugal. Biogr ...

, as his stile and diction that of

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), Suetonius, Life of Horace commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). Th ...

(he has been called, admirably I believe, 'a Greek Horace who writes in Portuguese')". Since Pessoa didn't determine the death of Reis, one can assume that he survived his author who died on November 30, 1935. In the novel '' The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis'' (1984), the Portuguese writer

José Saramago José de Sousa Saramago (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010) was a Portuguese people, Portuguese writer. He was the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony Zenith, Richard. ''Pessoa: A Biography">Richard Zenith">Zenith, Richard. ''Pessoa: A Biography''. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2021, . Also published as ''Pessoa: An Experimental Life''. London: Allen Lane, 2021. * Sadlier, Darlene J. ''An Introduction to Fernando Pessoa, Literary Modernist''. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1998. * Lancastre, Maria José de and Antonio Tabucchi. ''Fernando Pessoa: Photographic Documentation and Caption.''Paris : Hazan, 1997. * Kotowicz, Zbigniew. ''Fernando Pessoa: Voices of a Nomadic Soul''. London: Menard, 1996. * Lisboa, Eugénio and L. C. Taylor. ''A Centenary Pessoa''. Manchester, England: Carcanet, 1995. * Green, J. C. R. ''Fernando Pessoa: The Genesis of the Heteronyms''. Isle of Skye: Aquila, 1982. * Monteiro, George. ''The Man Who Never Was: Essays on Fernando Pessoa''. Providence, RI: Gávea-Brown, 1982. {{DEFAULTSORT:Reis, Ricardo 1920s in modern paganism 20th-century pseudonymous writers Fernando Pessoa Literary characters introduced in 1924 Fictional characters from the 20th century Fictional poets Fictional Portuguese people Male characters in literature Modern pagan poetry Modern paganism in Portugal