Matilde Urrutia Figurative Language
Abby Tough
Ms. Hyten
English 2333 G7
28 April 2017
The Definition of Love Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s “One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII,” published in 1959 and dedicated to his wife Matilde Urrutia, perhaps perfectly defines the undefinable: Love. Neruda almost makes it seem as if loving someone is an effortless task by the way his writing melts together so elegantly. In “One Hundred Love Sonnets; XVII,” the speaker confesses his desperate love for his wife, through breathtaking detail and figurative language that truly seems to capture the intricacy of what love is, and what it should feel like. Neruda establishes the theme of the poem in the first stanza: the complex nature of real love. Neruda seems to have constructed this stanza with …show more content…
He “loves [her] without knowing how, or when, or from where, [he] loves [her] directly without problems or pride: [he] love[s] [her] like this because [he does not] know any other way to love, except in this form in which [he is] not nor [is she].” The speaker’s shameless proclamation of love evokes an image of this total love and devotion that is entirely foreign unless experienced, a love that is as natural as breathing, living. It is almost as if this love appeared out of oblivion. The speaker seems to be completely unaware of how he even fell in love, but this does not matter because he is confident that what he is experiencing in his heart is ultimately how it feels to be in love with someone. He feels “so close [to her] that [her] hand upon [his] chest is [his], so close that [her] eyes close with [his] dreams.” In Neruda’s second display of parallelism, he has the ability to cast the most delicate and lovely portrait in the reader’s heads: these two separate individuals are the complete opposite of separate and individual. They feel so close to each other that they become each other; they are each other’s counterparts, two halves to one whole- infallible soul
Ms. Hyten
English 2333 G7
28 April 2017
The Definition of Love Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s “One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII,” published in 1959 and dedicated to his wife Matilde Urrutia, perhaps perfectly defines the undefinable: Love. Neruda almost makes it seem as if loving someone is an effortless task by the way his writing melts together so elegantly. In “One Hundred Love Sonnets; XVII,” the speaker confesses his desperate love for his wife, through breathtaking detail and figurative language that truly seems to capture the intricacy of what love is, and what it should feel like. Neruda establishes the theme of the poem in the first stanza: the complex nature of real love. Neruda seems to have constructed this stanza with …show more content…
He “loves [her] without knowing how, or when, or from where, [he] loves [her] directly without problems or pride: [he] love[s] [her] like this because [he does not] know any other way to love, except in this form in which [he is] not nor [is she].” The speaker’s shameless proclamation of love evokes an image of this total love and devotion that is entirely foreign unless experienced, a love that is as natural as breathing, living. It is almost as if this love appeared out of oblivion. The speaker seems to be completely unaware of how he even fell in love, but this does not matter because he is confident that what he is experiencing in his heart is ultimately how it feels to be in love with someone. He feels “so close [to her] that [her] hand upon [his] chest is [his], so close that [her] eyes close with [his] dreams.” In Neruda’s second display of parallelism, he has the ability to cast the most delicate and lovely portrait in the reader’s heads: these two separate individuals are the complete opposite of separate and individual. They feel so close to each other that they become each other; they are each other’s counterparts, two halves to one whole- infallible soul