This essay is an introductory analysis of what I would like to label as “Pessoan theory of Ideas”. This expression is an allusion to Plato’s theory of Ideas, and designates Fernando Pessoa’s attempt at refuting Plato by elaborating his own theory of Ideas. As this text is an introductory analysis of this theme, it will only concern itself with O Marinheiro. The reason why I think there is every advantage in analysing O Marinheiro as a stand-alone piece, that is, independently of the rest of Pessoa’s literary corpus, has to do with the fact that O Marinheiro is the only text purposely written to tackle the theory of Ideas which has been completed and published during Pessoa’s lifetime. There are many other texts, both complete and incomplete, published and unpublished (during Pessoa’s lifetime), which have important implications for the Pessoan theory of Ideas; nevertheless, due to the fact that these texts have not been written with the main purpose of developing Pessoa’s theory of Ideas, I think that an introductory analysis must not consider them, although their importance is fundamental for the full understanding of the subject. This, however, is not my aim here. What I purport to do in this essay is to sketch Pessoa’s alternative to Plato’s theory of Ideas, which can be summed up in the following conception of Literature: the possibility of sharing realities conceived by someone’s mind through written texts, regardless of the thoughts produced by that mind being about corporeal or incorporeal realities. The point is that, for Pessoa, the Ideas are the result of people’s thoughts, and not ethereal incorporeal realities which are inaccessible to the senses.
