Taoist thought and Alberto Caeiro’s view Between the Chinese classical taoist philosophy and the ideas of Alberto Caeiro

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to comment and comparatively analyse two literary pieces: the poetic work of Alberto Caeiro, heteronym of the illustrious Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, and the classical Chinese work Dao De Jing(道德经, Dào dé jīng) which is a building block of Taoist Philosophy. This way, we intend to compare the ideologies portrayed in these works, by analysing their similarities and differences, in order to understand them and the reasons behind them. To this end, cultural differences are taken into account, as both works come from very disparate and physically distant countries, and were written in very different times.