The poetic universe of Pablo Neruda
By Prof. Wimal Dissanayake
I have, from a young age, been interested in Neruda’s poetry, and as
an undergraduate at Peradeniya, translated some of his love poems into
Sinhala. I know how difficult it is to translate Neruda; his subtle and
dazzling effects are vitally connected with language.
Critics of Latin American literature say that most of the time his
subtle effects cannot be dissociated from the musicality of the Spanish
language. Distinguished translations of Pablo Neruda such as W.S Merwin,
Robert Bly and James Wright, who are eminent poets in their own right,
have admitted that translating Neruda is a daunting task. When we
translate Neruda into Sinhala from English, we are at two removes from
the cherished object. Even so, I am persuaded that some of his strengths
survive the rigors of translation.
I would like to discuss the nature, and contours of Neruda’s poetry,
the kind of impact he had in Latin America and beyond and his evolution
as a highly critically acclaimed and popular poet. I am no expert on
Latin American or Spanish literature. My assessment of Neruda is based
purely in my readings of English translations of his work. And as I map
his poetic universe I would like to highlight the possible relevances
and enforceable connections we can make with Sri Lankan literatures.
Neruda’s passion, his startling juxtaposition of imagery, and pubic
consciousness converge to produce a body of poetry of exquisite beauty.
Why we can appreciate Neruda’s poetry even at two removes is because of
his great capacity for empathy. As he remarked in his Memoirs, ‘My life
is a life put together from all those lives: the lives of the poet.’
I have periodically returned to Neruda and read his major works as a
source of inspiration. I read The Poetry of Pablo Neruda edited by Ilan
Stavans - all 995 pages encompassing 600 poems. I had the opportunity to
read some of his lesser and less successful works which I had not read
before.
Great poet
Pablo Neruda was one of the greatest poets of the twentieth-century.
He was well-liked by literary critics and widely popular among ordinary
readers - indeed the ideal that all poets cherish. It is said that his
collection of poems Twenty Poems has sold over three million copies
among Spanish-speaking readers. In 1971 he was awarded the Nobel Prize
for literature and the committee in charge said, ‘in Neruda’s work a
continent awakens into consciousness’. The prize was awarded ‘for a
poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a
continent’s destiny and dreams.’ Neruda’s poetry succeeded in forcing a
delectable union of lyrical beauty and public consciousness that
remains, for the most part, unsurpassed.
Pablo Neruda is a pen name; his real name was Neftali Ricardo Reyes.
He was born on July 12 1904 in Parral, a small town in Chile. His mother
Rosa was a schoolteacher who died just one month after Pablo Neruda’s
birth. His father was a railroad engineer; he was stern and meant
business. Pablo Neruda both admired and resented him. In a vivid image,
he once recalled his father ‘The golden beard of my father advancing
towards the majesty of the iron roads’.
Literary talents
When he was two years, the family moved to another village called
Temuco, his father remarried and Pablo Neruda spent the next 15 years in
this village. There he developed a love for reading as well as taking
long walks in the woods and observing nature.
The Principal of the girl’s school in Temuco was Gabriela Mistral,
who later went on to win the Nobel Prize for literature before Neruda.
She recognised young Pablo’s literary talents and encouraged him by
giving him books that he could profitably read
At the age of 17, having completed high school in Temuco, he decided
to go to the capital Santiago to pursue studies and find employment as a
teacher of French. He left the pastoral tranquility of Temuco for the
hustle and bustle of the city. He began to experience an intense
loneliness and the threat of hunger was always around the corner.
It was during this period that he came across the name of a Czech
writer, Jan Neruda and decided to change his name from Naftali Ricardo
Reyes to Pablo Neruda.
He cultivated the friendship of many Bohemian and iconoclastic
artistes and writers; he pursued with intense devotion his commitment to
literary writing. In 1923, he published his first book of poetry
Crepusculario – a book that bears clear traces of symbolist-modernist
traits that were in the ascendancy in Latin America at the time.
He wrote another book titled The Ardent Slingsman; however, it was
published only ten years later. In 1924, he published Twenty Love Poems
and a Song of Despair. It was a stunning success, both critical and
popular, and Neruda gained international recognition as a formidable
poet. This slim volume of poetry, which depicts an adolescent speaking
to a woman about erotic life with a rare intensity and imaginative
power, made a profound impact on world literature. I shall discuss the
book later in this column.
Pablo Neruda was always interested in literary and artistic
developments taking place in Europe, and during this period was
attracted by the possibilities of surrealism. According to Andre Breton,
one of the architects of surrealism maintained that writers can achieve
a higher form of reality by freeing the mind of rational and logical
coordinates. His book of poems, Residence on Earth 1, bears the
influence of surrealism.
Neruda by now had acquired a wide reputation as a brilliant poet and
an equally brilliant reader of his poetry. In Latin America there was a
tradition of appointing distinguished writers for posts in the
diplomatic service.
The Mexican poet and Nobel laureate Octavio Paz was appointed to the
consulate in India and so was the Chilean Nobel Laureate Gabriela
Mistral. Similarly, Pablo Neruda was appointed consul of Chile in Burma
in 1927. Subsequently, he was appointed consul in Sri Lanka (then
Ceylon) and arrived in Colombo in 1929.
Various poet-diplomats reacted in different ways to South Asia.
Octavio Paz was passionately interested in Indian philosophy and art and
culture and wrote a number of insightful essays on these subjects; at
the same time he also wrote several memorable poems based on his Indian
experience. Neruda, on the other hand, felt that his life in Rangoon and
Colombo were marked by an intense loneliness and implacable alienation.
Unfortunately, he made no serious attempt to understand Buddhist and
Hindu art and philosophy in the way that Octavio Paz did. He wrote many
of the poems appearing in Residence of the Earth 1 and 2 while working
in Burma and Sri Lanka, and they bear traces of a dark and unforgiving
mood.
He felt that he was living in a decaying and disintegrating world and
the poems collected in these two volumes reflect this frame of mind.
His language which was marked by a precision in the early poetry gave
way to a kind of hermetic isolationism that was designed to capture the
decay of the external world.
I plan to discuss Neruda’s experiences in Colombo in a later column.
In 1934 he was appointed consul to Barcelona and then Madrid. He
found his Spanish experience more nurturing and stimulating than the
Asian experience. While in Madrid he was able to come into contact with
and establish bonds of friendship with Garcia Lorca and other
distinguished writers. There emerged a community of writers who had a
deep and informed interest in literature and Neruda loved their company.
In 1936, the Spanish civil war erupted and this had a profoundly
devastating effect on Neruda and his fellow writers. The same year his
good friend, Garcia Lorca was assassinated by Fascists. It had a
shattering impact on him. The following year, at a public lecture in
Paris, he paid a touching tribute to Lorca and his work.
With the outbreak of the Spanish civil war a new mind-set took hold
of Neruda. His political and social conscience was awakened. He attended
numerous writers’ conferences, public meetings and began to express his
desire for consolidated political action. The intensely personal poetry
of the early period now gave way to a more public poetry. His poem Spain
in My Heart captures vividly the tragic experiences connected to the
civil war.
Choose in style
One began to observe a change in Neruda’s poetic style. The hermetic
and highly subjective style that characterised his Residence of the
Earth 1 and 2 was replaced by a more direct, objective style that
combined the power of historical narrative and epic imagination.
His book of poems, Canto General published in 1959 illustrates this
new trend. I shall discuss this work later. Not only in terms of form
and style but also in terms of theme and content there is a clear
departure from his early work. Inspired by the Spanish experience, he
increasingly began to turn towards the theme of the Americas and their
social problems.
Neruda, in the decade of 1940-50 travelled extensively in Latin
America and began to develop a feel for and a commitment to, Latin
American history. In 1945 he was elected communist party senator.
During this period he also began to garner prestigious literary
awards and honours. Now there was a further development in his poetry –
the exuberance that marked the Canto General disappeared; everyday life
and material objects associated with it began to receive the dignity of
poetic attention in his hands.
If Canto General represented a historical panoramic view of the
Americas, his subsequent poetry reconfigured the simple things of day to
day existence through the power of poetic imagination.
In 1970, Neruda was diagnosed with cancer. One year later he was
awarded the Nobel Prize for literature for his ability to awaken a
continent into a newer consciousness. Since 1972, although he was
bed-ridden, he continued to work on his verse and prose creations with
unabated vigour.
Neruda died in 1973 at his home. Four decades after his death,
Neruda’s poetry enjoys an undiminished international popularity. I have
sought to present a thumb-nail sketch of his life so that his poetry can
be appreciated better in terms of his evolution as a human being. His
poetry adds up to a biography of his emotional life. It signals the
inner flow of his submerged self.
Literary works
Pablo Neruda is the author of over 40 important literary works. It is
not possible to discuss all his works in a few columns. Therefore, I
propose to select a few of his works, six in all, that apart from being
significant creations in their own right, mark important stages in his
growth as a poet.
These poems stand as vital signposts in his advancing poetic
trajectory. The six works I have selected for brief discussion are:
Twenty Love poems and a Song of Despair – Residence on Earth 1 –
Residence on Earth 2 – The Third Residence – Canto General – One Hundred
Love Sonnets
Let us begin with Twenty Love Poems, which can be counted among the
most popular book of erotic poetry written in modern times. These poems
have been translated into Sinhala, some more than once. There is an
intensity of feeling and startling juxtaposition of imagery in these
poems that generate a hypnotic effect on the reader. The following poem
titled The Morning is Full is a representative example. (The translation
is by W.S. Merwin).
The morning is full of storm
in the heart of summer
The clouds travel like white
handkerchiefs if goodbye
The wind, travelling, waving
them in its hands.
The numberless heart of the wind
beating above our loving silence
Orchestral and divine, resounding
among the trees
like a language full of wars and songs
Wind that bears off the dead leaves
with a quick raid
and detects the pulsing arrows
of the birds.
Wind that topples her in a wave
without spray
and substance without weight,
and leaning fires.
Her mass of kisses breaks and sinks
assailed in the doors of the
summer’s wind.
The central image of the poem is that of the wind, its power and
impact; against the power of the wind is located the poet’s beloved. We
see in this poem, as in many other poems gathered in this volume, how
the poet is straining to move away from modernism that was current at
the time to a form of surrealism.
Let us consider another example, the poem titled, ‘Tonight I can
Write – this is, probably my favourite poem in this collection.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines
Write, for example, that night
is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver
in the distance.
The night wind revolves in the
sky and sings
Tonight I can write the saddest lines
I loved her, and sometimes she
loved me too..
Having carefully developed this relationship between the
poet-narrator and his beloved against a natural world alive with
romantic sentiment, the poem concludes in the following manner.
I no longer love her, that’s certain,
but maybe I love her
Love is short, forgetting is long.
Because through nights like this
one I held her in my arms
My soul is not satisfied that it
has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that
she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that
I write for her.
Here the language is not difficult, it is direct; he is operating in
a commonly shared lexical space.
To be continued
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