This the fifth in the series of musings on books written by Nobel Prize winners in Literature. Pablo Neruda (Ricardo Eliecer Neftali Reyes Basoalto) won the prize in 1971. Although his inspirations show an extremely versatile gamut and his production is vast, I have decided to focus on his love poetry, especially the 100 Love Sonnets (translated and with an afterword by Gustavo Escobedo, published in 1959/2014; Exile Classics Series Number Six).
What are the means humans express the feelings that love brings? From a formal perspective, poetry, and in particular the sonnet, comes to mind readily (clearly, using other languages and other formal structures, love poetry has had an immensely long tradition: in Greek and in Latin, classical poets paved a clear path – Sappho and Catullus being the most popular; not to mention other languages and cultures). A sonnet is a poetic composition relying on rhythm, rhyme, and a set pattern of 8 + 6 lines of 14 syllables. Neruda, however, does not follow the syllable count very closely. Ever since the beginnings of the sonnet as a poetic form in the 13th century, with its presumed inventor Giacomo da Lentini, this form is inextricably associated with love poetry. Each time and place have their magnificent creators: Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), Michelangelo Buonarotti (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001k10m), Rumi, Shakespeare, and many, many other inspired poets.
Love poetry often plays with contradictions, similes and metaphors, Neoplatonism, and may use the loved one as a vehicle for reaching to heavens/God. Since I know some of Petrarca’s love sonnets, it is instructive to compare the two poets with regards to a tiny selection of tropes, a comparison which would start answering the question “What new perspectives does Neruda bring to the ideas and feelings of love?”. Of course, there is a great difference in that it is assumed that Petrarca’s love for Laura was platonic, whereas Neruda’s love sings of Matilde who was his companion. Also, Laura/laurel in Petrarca makes the metaphor for poetry evident; while Neruda’s aim seems to be love as permanent and everlasting fixture in all generations and worlds. (All translations from the Spanish are by Gustavo Escobedo)
Contradictions within the feelings of love
Petrarca’s Sonnet CXXXIV paints one of the most vivid and heart-wrenching images of the contradictions love brings with it (Pace non trovo, et non ho da far guerra /e temo, et spero; et ardo, et son un ghiaccio / et volo sopra ‘l cielo, et giaccio in terra; / et nulla stringo et tutto ‘l mondo abbraccio… / I don’t find peace yet I don’t have to wage war / and I fear and hope; and I burn and I am an ice-cube / and I fly above the sky, and I lie on the earth; and I hold nothing and embrace everything… transl. mine).
Neruda echoes these feelings expressed by Petrarca and also by Catullus (Odi et amo) in Sonnet LXVI:
…
Te quiero sólo porque a ti te quiero,
te odio sin fin, y odiándote te ruego,
y la medida di mi amor viajero
es no verte y amarte como un ciego.
(I love you only because it is you I love. / I hate you without end, and hating you I beg you, / and the measure of my wandering love / is not to see you and to love you like a blind man.)
However, Neruda’s novel and unusual juxtaposition of dissimilar things makes these contradictions more harsh (Sonnet III):
Áspero amor, violeta coronada de espinas,
matorial entre tantas pasiones enrizado
lanza de los dolores, corola de la cólera
per que’ caminos y como te dirigiste a mi alma?
…
(Harsh love, violet crowned with thorns / a thicket made sharp between so many passions, / spear of pains, corolla of rage, / through what roads and how did you find my soul? …)
Similes and metaphors
Petrarca had at his disposal an already enormous gallery of similes and metaphors which the Provencal love poetry offered to medieval poets, not to mention his knowledge of the poets of the Sicilian School. Thus, golden hair, snow-white face, pearl-like sweet words, rosy lips, fire, ice, love (personified, talks to the poet), nature that reflects and/or is aware of the travail of the poet, and many, many others.
Neruda’s love, if personified, makes “from thorn things… the buildings of sweet firmness”, and defeats the malignant and jealous claws so that “today facing the world we are as one life”; … “without you, without me, without light we will not be” (sonnet XXIII).
Bread (often associated with wheat) appears often as an image of description related to what the lover sees, or feels, for ex. Sonnet XXIII,
Fue luz el fuego y pan la luna rencorosa
(Fire was light and the rancorous moon, bread)
Or Sonnet XCIX:
El pan será tal vez como tu eres:
tendrá tu voz, tu condición de trigo,
y hablarán otras cosas tu voz:
los caballos perdidos del otoño.
(Perhaps bread will be as you are: / it will have your voice, your wheat-like state, / and other things will speak with your voice: / the lost horses of autumn. )
Or Sonnet LXXVII:
…
Pero en tu corazón el tiempo echó su harina,
mi amor construyó un horno con barro de Temuco:
tu eres el pan de cada día para mi alma.
(…but into your heart time threw its flour, / my love built an oven of clay from Temuco: / you are the daily bread for my soul.)
Some critics see in the reference to bread a connection to Christianity.
Neoplatonism and/or road to God
It could be argued that most great love poetry dissects the feelings of love and therefore reflects both the reaction of the lover and the source of this reaction in the loved one, and thereby transcends the immediate situation, bringing into the picture Love as an ideal, as a Platonic form. Both Petrarca and Neruda seem to offer this interpretation. Neruda’s Matilde, however, does not give the impression of leading him to poetry (as Petrarca’s Laura does) or leading him to God (as Dante’s Beatrice does), but she facilitates for him the transcending idea of love whose power was, is, and will be felt in other ages, generations, worlds.
…
Porque el amor, mientras la vida nos acosa,
es simplemente una ola alta sobre las olas
…
(Because love, while life pursues us, / it is simply a tall wave above the waves…Sonnet XC)
…
Pero este amor, amor, no ha terminado,
y así como no tuvo nacimiento
no tiene muerte, es como un largo río,
solo cambia de tierras y labios.
(…But love, this love has not ended, / and just as it had no birth / it has no death, it is like a long river, / it only changes lands and lips. Sonnet XCII)
Petrarca’s Laura constructs for him the edifice of poetry; Matilde’s sensual love sets Neruda’s life’s path for him, although we don’t know where that path is heading:
El amor supo entonces que se llamaba amor.
Y cuando levante’ mis ojos a tu nombre
tu corazón de pronto dispuso mi camino.
(Love knew then that it was called love./ and when I raised my eyes to your name / your heart suddenly set out my path. LXXIII)
In conclusion, a much more detailed and elaborated analysis would be needed to answer the question posed at the beginning: “What new perspectives does Neruda bring to the ideas and feelings of love?”. There is no doubt, nevertheless, that Neruda’s love sonnets are very beautiful. His unusual combinations of words (never oxymorons) always create interesting images. He does not shy from using other poet’s creations, but he elaborates them, expands on them, and makes them his own. All in all, Neruda’s poetry makes us think about the manner in which love is shedding light on our relationship, daily acts, and daily needs.
Reading rascal 