Pablo: Poems, Politics, and People

1. Pablo: Poems, Politics, and People Pablo Neruda By: ChristaniaFraenkel and Leah Hoogerhyde

2. Early Life • Born- July 12, 1904 in Parral Chile • Father- railway worker. • Mother- died shortly after his birth. • Began to write articles at age 13

3. Early Life (Continued) • Was encouraged to purse writing by school teacher, Gabriela Mistral(who later bcame the first Latin American to win a Nobel Prize for literature) • 1921- moved to Santiago,Chile to study French literature at the University of Chile , but left after three years

4. Poetry: Commonalities • Topics/Themes- love, loss, dependence, desire, worship, beauty, politics, isolation • Style • Structue- varies, many commas and single words alone • Tone/Mood- smooth, light, whimsical, lighthearted, sincere, passionate • Literary Devices- metaphors, symbolism, imagery, repetition, unique similes

5. Example of Many Commonalities Lovely one,just as on the cool stoneof the spring, the wateropens a wide flash of foam,so is the smile of your face,lovely one.Lovely one,with delicate hands and slender feetlike a silver pony,walking, flower of the world,thus I see you,lovely one.Lovely one,with a nest of copper entangledon your head, a nestthe color of dark honeywhere my heart burns and rests,lovely one. Lovely one,your eyes are too big for your face,your eyes are too big for the earth.There are countries, there are rivers,in your eyes,my country is your eyes,I walk through them,they light the worldthrough which I walk,lovely one.Lovely one,your breasts are like two loaves madeof grainy earth and golden moon,lovely one.

6. Continued Lovely one,your waist,my arm shaped it like a river whenit flowed a thousand years through your sweet body,lovely one.Lovely one,there is nothing like your hips,perhaps earth hasin some hidden placethe curve and the fragrance of your body,perhaps in some place,lovely one. Lovely one, my lovely one,your voice, your skin, your nails,lovely one, my lovely one,your being, your light, your shadow,lovely one,all that is mine, lovely one,all that is mine, my dear,when you walk or rest,when you sing or sleep,when you suffer or dream,always,when you are near or far,always,you are mine, my lovely one,always.

7. 1927- was appointed as the Chilean consul in Rangoon(the capital of Burma) • Began to take a active part in supporting the Communist Party • 1945- was elected a Communist party senator • opposition to the Chilean government in power of GonzálezVidela forced him to go into hiding Political Life

8. 1949- left Chile and began a time of exile • Was eventually pardoned by the Chilean government and was allowed to return to Chile • remained active in politics and was an avid supporter of the government ran by Salvador Allende Political Life An odor has remained among the sugarcane:a mixture of blood and body, a penetratingpetal that brings nausea.Between the coconut palms the graves are fullof ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles.The delicate dictator is talkingwith top hats, gold braid, and collars.The tiny palace gleams like a watchand the rapid laughs with gloves oncross the corridors at timesand join the dead voicesand the blue mouths freshly buried.The weeping cannot be seen, like a plantwhose seeds fall endlessly on the earth,whose large blind leaves grow even without light.Hatred has grown scale on scale,blow on blow, in the ghastly water of the swamp,with a snout full of ooze and silence • “The Dictators”

9. Relationships and How They Affect His Poetry • Married three times and divorced twice • In 1933, he went to Chile and met  Federico García Lorca, who at that time was traveling in Argentina and who was to become a close friend and an enthusiastic defender of Neruda’s poetry • In 1930, he was appointed to Jakarta, and met his first wife, a Dutch woman,  Maria AntonietaHagenaar • Married his third wife in 1946

10. Primary Sources • Interview- “Neruda, poète des Amériques,” broadcast by Radio-Canada in the fall of 1971 • Neruda- “I insist on telling you that I am not a political poet”. • Neruda- “My ambition as a writer, if there is an ambition, is to write about all the things that I see, that I touch, that I know, that I love, or that I hate”. • Neruda- “I am only the echo in a certain part of my poetry of the anxieties of the contemporary world, of the anxieties of the Latin American world.” • Neruda- “I became aware of the social order of Latin America and of the world as I became aware of the ocean, or of flowers, or of life”. • “Indeed, the Spanish war gave a new perspective to literature and enormously moved the writers of Latin America. “ (Neruda) • http://www.memorious.org/?id=76

11. Criticism- We Agree With… • “Neruda is not only a poet of extraordinarily diverse styles, but of very mixed achievement, ranging from bathos to the high Sublime.”

12. Criticism- We Disagree With… • Neruda is “excessive and expressionistic, overtly rhetorical” • “American political poetry is perhaps too belated, and Neruda is hardly an exception, nor ought he to have been.”