Fernando Pessoa is often described as a modern poet. Octavio Paz says of Pessoa that he "fits into the tradition of the great poets of the modern era,"" C.K. Williams calls him "the poet of modernism,"" and Hong and Brown say he "deserves to be viewed with the major modernists."" .
But modernism as a frame of reference, when reading Pessoa's poetry and prose, falls short. His work, despite the fact that he "single-handedly brought modernism to Portugal,"" is more closely aligned with a postmodern sensibility. .
According to Madun Sarup, modernism and postmodernism share many elements. Postmodernism is literally what comes after, or post-, modernism, and is grounded in a similar tradition. The elements of postmodernism that differentiate it from modernism can be simplified as follows: no boundary between art and everyday life; self-referentiality; fragmentation of time into a series of perpetual presents; parody/playfulness; stylistic eclecticism and the mixing of codes, and reality transformed into images. Space constraints require that we deal in depth only with the first three elements.
In a letter to his beloved friend, Mario de Sá-Carneiro, Pessoa speaks of his despair and sorrow: ".I find myself today at the bottom of a bottomless depression.I am a sad child abused by life."" He assures his friend, "If I weren't writing to you, I would have to swear to you that this letter is sincere and that the hysterically linked things in it spring spontaneously from what I feel."" Yet a few paragraphs down the page, he adds, "If I don't mail this letter today, it may be that when I reread it tomorrow, I'll make a typescript of it, so I can insert sentences and expressions from it into The Book of Disquiet."" We see from these words that the boundary between Pessoa's art and his life was blurred. He was able to feel and experience emotions of great intensity while at the same time dispassionately viewing them as fodder for art.