Ricardo Reis

He was a doctor and Neoclassical poet who wrote neopagan, 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 in 1919.

• Name — Ricardo Reis • Born — 19 September 1887 • Birthplace — Porto, Portugal • Place of death — Brazil • Occupation — * Doctor • poet • Language — Portuguese, English

• Illustration — Athena: Revista de Arta (1924–1925) Issue Nr. 1. Reis Odes were first published in 1924 in the Athena: Revista de Arte, founded by Fernando Pessoa and Ruy Vaz. Further eight odes were later published between 1927 and 1930 in the literary journal Presença. 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, as his style and diction are that of Horace (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 rebuilds, in his own personal outlook, the literary world of this heteronym after 1935, creating a dialog between Ricardo Reis and the ghost of his author.