This is how this note would begin: “In Os sonetos completos, by Antero de Quental, for the first time I felt before Portuguese compositions that seemed like sprouts of myself.” Incredible! And I feel unfit to criticize them, since doing so, in a strange way, seems to me to be criticizing my own compositions. Why is that? My first impulse is to think: are Antero’s poems commonplace? Except for something from his youth, not at all! How, then, do I feel expressed by countless of his verses? Aesthetically, I think, there is a notable difference between our compositions: the speech, above all, comes out differently. And so? I conclude, after much reflection, that Antero’s torments are mine. Antero’s psychological conflict is identical to the one I experience. Antero’s expression is the corollary of the paths I have walked. And even Antero’s look before existence seems to keep an enormous similarity with mine. Incredible! And to think that Antero, at the end of it all… let’s leave that aside.
Os Sonetos Completos, by Antero de Quental
