Politically outspoken Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda, born in Parral, Chile is the most widely read of the Spanish American poets. Originally named Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, he used the pen name Pablo Neruda for over 20 years before adopting it legally in 1946. This prolific and adventurous writer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971. Neruda started to write poetry when he was just ten years old.

Neruda’s first publication was Entusiasmo y perseverancia (“Enthusiasm and Perseverance”), he wrote for La Matana, at the age of 13. He passed through several literary and political stages in his life. He was in certain periods intensely political.

His poetry consistently celebrates love, nature and human experience. In 1923 his first volume of verse, Crepusculario (Book of Twilights), was published, followed the next year by Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada (“Twenty Poems of Love and a Desperate Song”), which was controversial for its eroticism, especially considering the author’s young age. In its poems, Neruda presents woman and nature as ‘two aspects of the same reality’ and uses nature imagery to describe women.

Neruda’s poetry of that time is extremely personal and characterized by melancholy and a preoccupation with unrequited love. In Tentativa del hombre infinito (“Venture of the Infinite Man”) Neruda employs freer style and surreal imagery. This culminated in Residencia en la tierra (“Residence on Earth”).

The poems in this collection are anguished and despairing, full of surreal images of nature. During his exile in Mexico, due to his allegiance to Communism which was outlawed at the time, he wrote Canto general . The collection expresses his outrage at the Chilean political situation in the 1940s.

It was an attempt to analyze and interpret the political and cultural directions taken by South America. After Canto general , Neruda’s poetry underwent an important change.

His poems took a clear and simple style to powerful effect. The poems in Odas elementales (Elemental Odes), for instance, took as their subjects everyday, familiar objects and elevated them. Although these earthy, realistic poems came under critical scrutiny for being too simple, they are considered among Neruda’s most significant works.

At the time of his death Neruda was working on his memoirs and several volumes of poetry. Although the subjects of these collections are similar to his previous works, they were written with the knowledge of his imminent death. Consequently death and winter are the most dominant themes.

Compiled by Ishara Mudugamuwa

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