António Gedeão, Poemas/Poems

It would be nonsensical, although not entirely without import, to say that the Portuguese poet antónio Gedeão never existed. Indeed, this pseudonym, adopted by the teacher and historian of physical and chemical sciences Rómulo de Carvalho (Lisbon, 1906-Lisbon, 1997), led a private though rich, parallel existence to the flesh-and-bone pedagogue’s prolific writings in the history of science, Enlightenment culture and education. Private and prolific: Gedeão, i.e., the shadow named Gedeão who orphically descends into underworlds of thought and feeling inaccessible to Rómulo de Carvalho, published his first volume of poetry, Perpetual Movement, in 1956, when Rómulo de Carvalho was already fifty years old. Publishing six volumes during his lifetime, his final collection, New Posthumous Poems, appeared in 1990, when the historian was well into his eighth decade and his pseudonym was close to completing forty years of poetic activity. True to his nature as shadowy counterpart to the historian and teacher, who in 1987 was awarded the Medal of Highest Merit of the Order of Public Education by the Portuguese government, Gedeão is a master of self-elision and deceptive transparencies of expression. It is this self-distancing, imbued with a highly nuanced awareness of the sources and evolution of modern beliefs, which gives critical momentum and emotive depth to his poetry.