Based on considerations by Eduardo Lourenço and Adolfo Casais Monteiro, this essay discusses the problem of a critical reduction of the phenomenon of heteronymy. According to both critics, this reduction is associated with an explanation of heteronymy based on external motives, recurrent in the critical tradition of Pessoa’s work. In opposition to this kind of reading, and through the analysis of the proposals of both these critics, the essay points out interpretative lines, which are based on a textual, literary and editorial dimension of the phenomenon, rejecting references to motives exceeding these dimensions.
