Pablo Neruda

Burgos 1
Brianna Burgos
American Literature
Period 6
May, 10 2013 Pablo Neruda
Modernism was a famous era within poetry. A large array of poets participated in the era such as, Elizabeth Bishop, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway along with Pablo Neruda, although he was into surrealism, some of his work revolved around modernism as well. The Modernist Literary Movement created the idea that conventional forms of art, literature, and ideals were outdated. The poem I chose is “If You Forget Me’ by Pablo Neruda. Throughout Neruda’s poetry, evidence of his participation in modernist activity is easily located. His political ideas also encouraged the modernist design of new reform amongst the people. Neruda was born on July 12, 1904 in Parral, Chile. At the age of 13 he published his first work in the local daily newspaper. From 1918 to mid-1920 he published numerous poems such as ‘Mis Ojos” and essays in local magazines. In 1921 he moved to Santiago with intentions of becoming a teacher but ended up with poetry. Pablo was known as a communist in Chile, due to his political views and literature. Due to that he was exiled from Chile for some time. During his mourning over not being in his native country, he wrote a lot of poetry in name of Chile. One of those being, “If You Forget Me”. Throughout his lifetime Neruda married three times and divorced twice. Pablo also was awarded for his literary and political work. In 1938 Neruda was appointed special consul for Spanish immigration in Paris. In 1970 Pablo also won the Nobel Prize. Some of his Literary Works and Publications consist of “Residence on Earth”, “The House at Isla Negra”. “The YellowHeart”, and “The Stones of Chile”. (“Pablo Neruda” Poetswww.poets.org) (“Pablo Neruda” Wikipediawww.wikipedia.ord/wiki/Pablo_Neruda)
“If You Forget Me” was written in 1952 while Neruda had been exiled from his country. Although it has been rumored that this poem was written for his last love Matilde Urrutia, it really wasn’t. He wrote it in honor of his passion for Chile. The content of this poem discusses the speaker’s love and passion towards something. The theme is oriented around the consequences of not loving the speaker back and how the speaker feels for the referred person. This poem isn’t too out of the ordinary because of its neatly written in stanzas. This poem has tons of imagery, repetition, alliteration, similes, metaphors, personifications, syntax, parallelism, hyperboles, and irony. The imagery in this poem describes different objects to help support the show of his feelings. For example, “…as if everything thatexists aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.” The line, “ah, my love, ah my own” is used as figurative language in this form to evoke an emotion or image to the readers. The tone of the poem seems to be a bit demanding and saddening to me. The demeaning side shows when the speaker would tell his “lover” to not come back if the feelings between them would ever change. My first reaction of this poem led to me thinking the speaker was mostly depressed but after analyzing it. Thoroughly I spotted the demeaning side of the speaker.
According to the two literary criticisms that I found on this poem, they both spoke about the confession of his love to a significant other, the fact that the speaker would make sacrifices for his “lover”. What is not too common in knowledge of this poem is that it is written about Pablo’s native country, Chile. He was exiled to Isla Negra and it was there where his inspiration and mourning over Chile came into play. During this time Pablo’s themes were political, saturated, dreamy, and passionate. “If You Forget Me” really stood out as being extremely passionate. The following lines explains whether he lives in peace or danger, whenever he is abroad he is always thinking of his homeland of Chile. “If I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you.” (Reyes “If You Forget Me”Blogspot www.reyesjacilyn.blogspot.com). Neruda explains other feelings in these next lines of the third stanza, “Well, now, if little by little.” The words ‘little by little’ indicate that the longer he must endure such hostility the less is his affection for his country. Throughout the poem you can tell that it was written in forgiveness for having to leave. Neruda returned to Chile in 1952, which was the same year of the birth of this poem. He remained living in his homeland for the rest of his life. He ended up dying of heart failure in 1973. “Pablo Neruda was known as a great man and a brilliant poet, his work will never be forgotten.” (“Boatrannn’s Blog: If You Forget Me” Wordpresswww.boatrannn.wordpress.com).