ABSTRACT
'Desolation' is an almost forgotten poem, written in 1916 and published posthumously by George Lind. In spite of its length, it is possibly the poem that most resembles some passages of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, suggesting his use of the objective correlative. Fernando Pessoa's readings play, in most part of his work, the role ascribed by Eliot to the poet's personal emotions in the famous analogy of the catalyst: readings function like filiated platinum — they enable the process, but in the end there are either no signs of it or only some traces of it. Pessoa's engagement in art movements does not have the frenetic touch of Ezra Pound's activities, but in the period 1914–15 Pessoa seems firmly decided to put his ideas into actions. Those years are a key moment in Pessoa's career as the 'maker of civilization' which he intended to be; a period of fertile production and public intervention.
