A collection of philosophical writings from one of Pessoa’s heteronyms, exploring paganism, nationalism, and the decline of Western civilisation
What the Work Is
The Return of the Gods, and Other Writings by António Mora is a collection of prose writings attributed to António Mora, one of the many heteronyms created by the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa. Mora was one of the less prominent figures in Pessoa’s vast gallery of imaginary authors, standing alongside the more famous Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos, and Ricardo Reis. The writings gathered in this volume represent Pessoa’s attempt to develop a coherent philosophical system through a distinct authorial voice, one that differed markedly from his own temperament and from the other heteronyms. The collection brings together fragments, essays, and reflections that Pessoa left unpublished during his lifetime, as was the case with the great majority of his work.
What the Book Is About
The central concern of these writings is the relationship between paganism and modernity. Mora’s philosophical project, as it emerges from these texts, is an ambitious attempt to diagnose what he saw as the spiritual and cultural crisis of the modern world and to propose a return to pagan modes of thought and feeling as a remedy. The title itself points to this programme: the “return of the gods” refers to the revival of pagan deities and pagan sensibilities that Mora believed was necessary for the regeneration of European civilisation. The writings develop a critique of Christianity and of the rationalist, secular thought that succeeded it, arguing that both have alienated humanity from nature and from the fullness of lived experience.
Key Ideas and Themes
At the heart of Mora’s thought is a distinction between paganism and Christianity as two fundamentally different ways of relating to the world. Paganism, in Mora’s account, is characterised by an immediate, sensuous engagement with nature and by the recognition of multiple divine forces at work in the cosmos. The pagan consciousness does not look beyond the world for meaning but finds the divine embodied within it. Christianity, by contrast, introduces a radical separation between the material and the spiritual, between the human and the divine, and between this world and the next. This separation, Mora argues, has had profound consequences for European culture, producing a sense of alienation and a restless longing for something beyond the given world.
Mora’s critique extends beyond religion proper to encompass the entire trajectory of Western thought. He sees Christianity as having prepared the way for modern rationalism and scientific materialism, both of which continue the process of disenchantment that began with the triumph of the Christian worldview. The modern world, in this reading, is characterised by a loss of the sense of the sacred and by the reduction of nature to mere matter to be exploited. The return to paganism that Mora advocates is therefore not merely a religious revival but a comprehensive reorientation of human consciousness, a recovery of ways of seeing and feeling that have been suppressed for centuries.
The writings also engage with questions of nationalism and national identity. Mora’s paganism is not a universalist philosophy but is closely tied to the idea of particular peoples and their distinctive relationships to their lands and traditions. This aspect of his thought reflects the broader cultural and political concerns of Pessoa’s generation in Portugal, which was grappling with questions of national decadence and regeneration. Mora’s project can be read as an attempt to ground a renewed Portuguese national consciousness in a pre-Christian, pagan foundation, one that would be more authentic and more vital than the Catholic tradition that had dominated the country for centuries.
Another important theme is the relationship between the individual and the cosmos. Mora’s paganism emphasises the embeddedness of the human being within a larger natural and divine order. The pagan individual, in his account, does not stand over against nature as a detached observer or master but participates in its rhythms and powers. This stands in sharp contrast to the modern conception of the autonomous subject, which Mora sees as an illusion that has led to isolation and spiritual impoverishment.
Structure and Approach
The collection is composed of fragments and shorter prose pieces rather than a single continuous treatise. This reflects the nature of Pessoa’s working method, which involved the constant production of notes, drafts, and reflections that were rarely brought to final form. Mora’s writings are scattered across many manuscripts, and the task of assembling them into a coherent volume has fallen to editors working long after Pessoa’s death. The fragmentary character of the material is itself significant, suggesting a thinker who was continually exploring and revising his ideas rather than presenting a finished system.
The style of the writings is philosophical and essayistic, marked by the kind of abstract speculation and cultural criticism that characterises much of Pessoa’s prose work. Mora writes in Portuguese, and his voice is distinct from that of Pessoa’s other heteronyms, more systematic and theoretical than the poetic sensibility of Caeiro or the emotional intensity of Campos.
Significance and Influence
The significance of these writings lies primarily in what they reveal about the scope and ambition of Pessoa’s heteronymic project. Mora represents Pessoa’s attempt to think through philosophical questions that were central to the intellectual climate of early twentieth-century Europe, particularly the critique of Christianity and the search for alternative spiritual foundations. The collection shows that Pessoa’s engagement with paganism was not confined to the poetry of Caeiro but extended into systematic philosophical reflection.
The figure of Mora also illuminates the connections between Pessoa’s literary work and the broader currents of European modernism, which was marked by a widespread revolt against traditional religion and a fascination with myth, the primitive, and the pre-Christian. Mora’s writings participate in this cultural moment while giving it a distinctly Portuguese inflection.
For readers of Pessoa, the collection offers a valuable complement to the more famous works of the heteronyms, deepening our understanding of the philosophical background against which the poetry and prose of the other voices were created. It demonstrates that Pessoa’s heteronymic system was not merely a literary device but a genuine attempt to explore different possibilities of thought and feeling, each with its own coherence and its own claims to truth.
The source material clarifies that Pessoa did not define his imaginary authors as pseudonyms because he felt this did not capture their true independent intellectual life; instead, he called them heteronyms, a term he invented. These figures sometimes held unpopular or extreme views. The material specifies that Pessoa established at least seventy-two heteronyms, with three standing out: Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos, and Ricardo Reis. The heteronyms differ from pen names as they possess distinct biographies, temperaments, philosophies, appearances, writing styles, and even signatures. They often disagree on various topics and argue with each other about literature, aesthetics, and philosophy.
Pessoa’s own description of how he wrote in the name of his three main heteronyms is documented. Caeiro came through sheer and unexpected inspiration, without prior knowledge or suspicion. Ricardo Reis emerged after an abstract meditation that suddenly took concrete shape in an ode. Campos appeared when Pessoa felt a sudden impulse to write without knowing what. The semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares, who resembles Campos, appeared when Pessoa was sleepy or drowsy, with his prose being an endless reverie. Soares is described as a mere mutilation of Pessoa’s own personality—Pessoa without his rationalism and emotions.
Mora’s Philosophical Context
The source material provides context for Mora’s philosophical concerns. Pessoa declared himself a Pagan in the sense of an “intellectual mystic of the sad race of the Neoplatonists from Alexandria” and a believer in “the Gods, their agency and their real and materially superior existence.” His interest in esotericism, occultism, hermetism, numerology, and alchemy strongly influenced his literary work, as did his attention to gnosticism, neopaganism, theosophy, rosicrucianism, and freemasonry.
Pessoa’s political and nationalistic views are also documented. He described himself as “a British-style conservative, that is to say, liberal within conservatism and absolutely anti-reactionary,” and adhered closely to Spencerian individualism. He described his brand of nationalism as “mystic, cosmopolitan, liberal, and anti-Catholic.” He was an outspoken elitist and aligned himself against communism, socialism, fascism, and Catholicism. He initially rallied to the First Portuguese Republic but later reluctantly supported military coups as a means of restoring order. After the establishment of the New State in 1933, Pessoa became disenchanted and wrote critically of Salazar and fascism, maintaining a hostile stance towards its corporatist program, illiberalism, and censorship.
The Nature of the Writings
The source material indicates that Pessoa left a lifetime of unpublished, unfinished, or sketchy work in a domed wooden trunk, comprising 25,574 manuscript and typed pages housed in the Portuguese National Library since 1988. The heavy burden of editing this huge work is still in progress. This context explains the fragmentary nature of the Mora collection, which is composed of pieces assembled from this vast archive.
The material also notes that Pessoa’s interest in spiritualism was awakened in the second half of 1915 while translating theosophist books, and deepened in March 1916 when he began having experiences where he believed he became a medium, experimenting with automatic writing. He stated that he had “astral” or “etherial visions” and was able to see “magnetic auras.” Mediumship exerted a strong influence on Pessoa’s writings, with him feeling “sometimes suddenly being owned by something else.” Looking in the mirror, Pessoa saw several times what appeared to be the heteronyms, with his face fading out and being replaced by that of a bearded man, or in another instance, four men in total.
The Triumphant Day and Its Context
The source material recounts Pessoa’s account of 8 March 1914, when he wrote thirty-some poems in a row in a kind of ecstasy, beginning with the title The Keeper of Sheep, which led to the appearance of Alberto Caeiro within him. Pessoa described this as “the triumphant day of my life.” However, the material notes that as the heteronym Coelho Pacheco, over a long period Pessoa’s “triumphant day” was taken as real, but it has been proved that this event was one more fiction created by Pessoa. This demonstrates the complex and often unreliable nature of Pessoa’s own accounts of his creative process, which is relevant to understanding how the Mora writings were produced and presented.
Mora’s Distinctiveness Within the System
The source material describes how Pessoa’s heteronyms were designed according to their horoscopes, with special reference to Mercury, the planet of literature. Each was assigned to one of the four astral elements: air, fire, water, and earth. For Pessoa, his heteronyms, taken together with his actual self, embodied the full principles of ancient knowledge. This framework suggests that Mora, as one of the less prominent heteronyms, would have been conceived within this elaborate system of correspondences, though the source material does not specify which element or astrological configuration was assigned to him.
The material also notes that Pessoa’s characters were designed with distinct writing styles. Caeiro writes bad Portuguese, Campos writes it reasonably well but with mistakes, and Reis writes better than Pessoa but with a purism Pessoa found excessive. The source material does not provide a similar description of Mora’s Portuguese, but it does establish that each heteronym possessed a distinct style and temperament within the system.
