page_title: Heteronym (literature)
section_title: Ricardo Reis
hierarchical_section_title: Heteronym (literature) / Ricardo Reis
context_page_description: The literary concept of the heteronym refers to one or more imaginary character created by a writer to write in different styles. Heteronyms differ from pen names in that the latter are just false names, while the former are characters that have their own supposed physiques, biographies, and writing styles.
  Heteronyms were named and developed by the Portuguese writer and poet Fernando Pessoa in the early 20th century, but they were thoroughly explored by the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard in the 19th century and have also been used by other writers.
context_section_description: This heteronym was created by Pessoa as a Portuguese doctor born in Oporto, in September 19, 1887. Reis supposedly studied at a boarding school run by Jesuits in which he received a classical education. He was an amateur latinist and poet; politically a monarchist, he went into exile to Brazil after the defeat of a monarchical rebellion against the Portuguese Republic in 1919. Ricardo Reis reveals his Epicureanism and Stoicism in the "Odes by Ricardo Reis", published by Pessoa in 1924, in his literary journal Athena.
  Since Pessoa didn't determine the death of Reis, one can assume that he survived his author who died in 1935. In The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (1984), Portuguese Nobel prize winner 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.
caption: Astrological chart of the heteronym Ricardo Reis by Fernando Pessoa.
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