Sunday, January 28, 2007

Neruda

Since I don't have the poem packet I had to find the poems on the internet. While searching I stumbled upon a website that not only showcased said poems but featured recordings of Neruda reading them. These recordings left me dumbfounded. He sounded so...miserable. Not just miserable but his tone was so passionless in comparison to his actual writing.

Misery and a constant loneliness seem to be themes of the majority of the poems. Prior to the class the only work of Neruda's I knew well enough was Cien Sonetos de amor which are dedicated to Matilde Urrutia. In contrast, in Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada the lover is never named. It could be simply that the lover created in these poems is more of a collective figure or more accurately an object. She is an object that seems to evoke constant loneliness he even goes as far to say that "[se] pareces a la palabra melancolia". She is a quiet figure brought to life in the works through imagery linked with the physical. This very physical imagery in turn is often linked to nature.

I have to admit comparing the work I had read before and veinte poemas I find myself liking Neruda's first work much more. Cien sonetos has a resolved and positive note (he ends the 100th sonnet with the line eternidad de un beso victorioso) but the sadist in me could not resist the morose nature of the veinte poemas. To me they're not love poems in the typical sense. Love seems to be a crippling "enfermedad del alma" caused by wanting to possess, possessing, and above all losing what he once had. In the end I wasn't sure who's fault all this pain was. Was it Neruda's for "wanting an object and not the road that leads to it" and liking the woman when she is "callada porque esta como ausente" or is it hers because "siempre [se] aleja"?

2 comments:

Jon said...

Yes, I don't know if it's the site you found, but here is one that has links not only to the text of all the poems, but also to recordings of Neruda reciting them.

Meanwhile, I think you're right that these are atypical love poems; they're certainly fairly different from what we usually expect of the genre. Also that the woman (or women) that they invoke is always strangely insubstantial--even when she's compared to the land or other very physical, very material things.

Serena said...

You're right - these aren't typical love poems - I was also struck by the misery and desperation felt by the speaker. All in all, they don't seem to be about the object of love, the woman herself, but how he tries to fill his own emptiness with her, and fails. It's about the pain of his artistic birth, in which, we find out at the end, he succeeds.

Serena