CHANGE AND CONSTANCY IN PABLO NERUDA'S "POETIC PRACTICE"

Author(s): Keith Ellis

Source: Romanische Forschungen, 84. Bd., H. 1/2 (1972), pp. 1-17
Published by: Vittorio Klostermann GmbH
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27937830
Accessed: 14-11-2017 10:13 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

Vittorio Klostermann GmbH is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Romanische Forschungen

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Keith Ellis (Toronto)
CHANGE AND CONSTANCY IN PABLO NERUDA'S
POETIC PRACTICE

Pablo Neruda's poetry, in its development, has in some ways shown

a striking propensity for change and evolution. At the same time,
throughout his career, the poet has maintained certain attitudes and
practices. My aim in this study is to point out some of these persistent
practices, after having first established the frame of changes within
which the constant aspects occur. In this way, I will attempt to eluci
date some of the central characteristics of Neruda's poetry.
Serious in his mission as poet, and conscious of the intense interest
in poetic theory maintained throughout the nineteen twenties, Neruda,
in the first part of Residencia en la tierra (1925?1935), published
several poems dealing with his poetics, in addition to the one specifi
cally entitled ?Arte po?tica". ?Galope muerto", for instance, the first
poem in the book, signals the poet's break with the Romantic
Modernist expression of his early books, Crepusculario, Veinte poemas
de amor y una canci?n desesperada and El hondero entusiasta. So diffe
rent is the poem in both theme and imagery from those of the earlier
books that it could prove baffling at first glance to the reader who
approaches Neruda's work chronologically. The opening stanza, with
its series of suspended similes in which the vehicles move in rapid
progression from one image to the next while the tenors remain un
mentioned, suggests at once that new importance is being given in
this work to the images themselves:

Como cenizas, como mares pobl?ndose,

en la sumergida lentitud, en lo uniforme,
o como se oyen desde el alto de los caminos
cruzar las campanadas en cruz1.

1 Pablo Neruda, Obras completas, ed. Jorge Sanhueza (Buenos Aires: Losada,
1962), p. 161. All quotations of Neruda's poetry in this study are taken from this
edition which will be referred to henceforth by page numbers following quotes.

1 Romanische Forschungen, Heft 1/2

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
2 Keith Ellis

The reader has to grasp the aspect of them that coheres with the
other images to yield a dominant meaning, which in this case is disinte
gration and lack of fulfilment. In the second stanza the more precise
but still vague ?Aquello todo" replaces the unmentioned reality of the
first stanza. The images here, as disparate as in the first stanza, have
their unity in their indication of activity without purpose or achieve
ment:

Aquello todo tan r?pido, tan viviente,

inm?vil sin embargo, como la polea loca en s? misma,
esas ruedas de los motores, en fin. (p. 161)

Not until the third stanza do we find the explicit presence of the
narrative ?yo". We thus have a progression in the poem from focus on
an undefined and disagreeable reality to someone ?deteni?ndose", to
the identification of that someone as the narrative voice of the poem
reacting to the bewildering state of his world as it is represented by
the accumulation of images:

Por eso, en lo inm?vil, deteni?ndose, percibir,

Ay, lo que mi coraz?n p?lido no puede abarcar, (p. 161)

At the end of the third stanza he suggests that advantage can be

taken of such a world, that he can impose his personality as poet, his
talent, on it. In the final part of the poem, the closely linked three
short stanzas, the voice of the poem is identifiable as that of a poet
concerned with defining poetry in such a way that it is an art consonant
with his peculiar world view. The allegory of the pumpkins given in
the last stanza would seem to indicate a similarity between their thriv
ing from the heavy drops sucked from the earth and the poet turning
displeasing material into poetry. Thus, ?Galope muerto", as the initial
poem of the book, serves to explain the poetic perspective that is to be
found predominantly in Residencia en la tierra and to introduce the
techniques that will contribute to the creation of a negative, highly
affective, private world view.

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Change and Constancy in Pablo Neruda's Poetic Practice 3

In an introduction to the poem ?Las furias y las penas" (1939),

Neruda sums up the transformation which his poetry had undergone
by that time:
El mundo ha cambiado y mi poes?a ha cambiado (p. 244).
And it is true that by this time he had acquired the broadened, social
perspective that allowed him to reflect the views of one set of comba
tants in the agonizing and horrendous Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939.
The poem ?Explico algunas cosas" that serves as the new ?arte po?tica"
explaining the change in Neruda's poetics appears in Tercera residencia
of 1947, but it was first published in 1937 in the collection entitled
Espa?a en el coraz?n. The poem is addressed to readers who, the poet
assumes, will be concerned about the absence from his new poetry of
some of the themes and attitudes common in Residencia en la tierra.
The readers will wonder what has happened, for example, to the
private dreaminess, the self-indulgent melancholy. His method of
explaining what has happened is significant for the way in which he
manages to link his private world, landscape, his social environment
and all Spain in a common condemnation of the forces of destruction.
The speaker is presented first in a satisfying domestic situation. From
his suburb of Madrid he could see the Castilian landscape. His house,
called ?la casa de las flores", was enjoyed by noted practitioners of his
craft, such as Rafael Alberti and Federico Garc?a Lorca:

Te acuerdas, Rafael?
Federico, te acuerdas?

te acuerdas de mi casa con balcones en donde

la luz de junio ahogaba flores en tu boca? (p. 255)

The pleasurable setting is then extended to include community life in

his suburb. This picture of pleasant social surroundings represents a
clear contrast with the attitude conveyed in Residencia en la tierra
toward the external world. It serves here, however, as an antithetical
prelude to the wanton devastation and death that are to follow. War
comes to Spain, brought by villains with unworthy cause:
1*

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 4 Keith Ellis

y por las calles la sangre de los ni?os

corr?a simplemente, como sangre de ni?os, (p. 256)

From the poet's viewpoint, then, an intolerable political element has

resorted to war to destroy his personal and domestic happiness, to put
community life into violent disarray, to ruin Spain. His private world
thus becomes linked, through resistance to hostile politics, to society
at large.
The focus here on a socio-political problem that is not only the
result of the poet's peculiar view, but one that is widely identifiable,
is underlined by the concreteness of the language. Compared with the
usage in ?Galope muerto", there is in ?Explico algunas cosas" a mini
mal distance between referent and the evoked reality. Indeed, and
fittingly, imagery that may be regarded as abstruse appears only in the
first stanza where his old poetry is characterized. Otherwise there is
symbolic yet clear communicativeness, sometimes with metaphors and
similes which, with little probing, yield their meaning. The landscape,
for instance, is represented in the images,
el rostro seco de Castilla
como un oc?ano de cuero;
his house,
Mi casa era llamada
la casa de las flores
porque por todas partes
estallaban geranios;

pre-war conviviality,
Todo
eran grandes voces, sal de mercader?as,
aglomeraciones de pan palpitante;
and the atrocious enemy,
bandidos con aviones y con moros,

ven?an por el cielo a matar ni?os, (p. 256)

The poetics projected in this poem of 1937 provides the basic

framework for Neruda's production for at least the next fifteen years.
His work during this period gives expression to the concept that indi
vidual well-being and happiness are inextricably bound up with

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Change and Constancy in Pablo Neruda's Poetic Practice 5

appropriate social and political conditions. Sobered by the Spanish

experience and interpreting culture in its most comprehensive sense,
he founded in 1937 the ? Alianza de Intelectuales de Chile para la
Defensa de la Cultura". In keeping with this was his plan to write the
Canto general de Chile which, later, with Neruda's growing belief dur
ing the 1940's in the common history and destiny of the Latin American
countries, was broadened to become the Canto general of 1950. Ameri
ca, its landscape, its vegetation, its autochthonous values, its victimized
economic situation, its martyrs, heroes, traitors and enemies from pre
Columbian times to the contemporary period, the period of struggle
against fascism and of hopes for peace after the Second World War ?
in short the historic reality of America from Neruda's viewpoint ?
is presented in this monumental work. And indeed, even in a collection
of love poems of this period, his Versos del capitan (1952), the socio
political aspect of Latin American culture is given emphasis in poems
like ?La pobreza", ?La bandera", ?Peque?a Am?rica", etc. Thus the
poetic theory put forward in ?Explico algunas cosas" and the practice
exemplified by the poem are predominant in Neruda's poetry through
out this part of his career.
The poetics suggested in ?El hombre invisible", the poem that
introduces the book Odas elementales of 1954, retains many of the
attitudes of the preceding period, and the significant changes presented
here appear to come more from a natural evolution of his concepts
governing the immediately preceding period than from the repudia
tion of any of those concepts. In 1949, a year before the publication
of the Canto general, Neruda addressed the Congreso Latinoamericano
de la Paz in Mexico City and spoke disparagingly of the work he had
produced before Espa?a en el coraz?n. His main self-criticism was
that his previous work had lacked serious commitment, that it did not
take sufficiently into account the major problems of people nor their
everyday needs2. The Canto general and Las uvas y el viento seem

2 Neruda has made derogatory comments about his early poetry on several
occasions. In an address entitled ?Our Duty Toward Life" delivered at the above
mentioned Congress, he attributed much to the socio-political conditions in which
the poems were written when he declared: ?I renounced them. I did not want the

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 6 Keith Ellis

intended to make up for the first lack, while the second, the need for
attention to the diverse matters that affect people in their daily lives,
appears to be filled by the Odas elementales.
An examination of the already mentioned introductory poem ?El
hombre invisible" will reveal the poetic premises offered. The poem
begins with an expression of amusement at the attitudes of the ? viejos
poetas" who found much use for the word ?yo" in their poetry, who
were so excessively concerned about their own private interests and
feelings that they could not accomodate and represent in their poetry
the preoccupations of those around them:

siempre dicen ?yo",

a cada paso
les sucede algo, es siempre ?yoa, por las calles
s?lo ellos andan
o la dulce que aman,
nadie m?s,
no pasan pescadores,
ni libreros,

reflections of a system which had driven me almost to despair to deposit on the

rising towers of hope the terrible slime with which our common enemies had muddied
my own youth... I do not wish to see those poems reprinted." (English translation
by Joseph Bernstein in Let the Rail Splitter Awake and Other Poems, New York:
Masses and Mainstream, 1950, pp. 12?13). Thirteen years later, in his Memorias
of 1962, Neruda gave a similar picture of how he saw his poetry in 1937. He writes:
?Las horas amargas de mi poes?a deb?an terminar. El subjetivismo melanc?lico de
mis Veinte poemas de amor o el patetismo doloroso de Residencia en la tierra toca
ban a su fin ... Ya hab?a caminado bastante por el terreno de lo irracional y de lo
negativo. Deb?a detenerme y buscar el camino del humanismo, desterrado de la lite
ratura contempor?nea, pero enraizado profundamente a las aspiraciones del ser
humano." (O Cruzeiro Internacional, 16 April, 1962, p. 35). There is recent evidence,
however, of Neruda's regard for his pre-1937 poetry. In an introduction to a com
memorative edition of Veinte poemas de amor, (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada,
1961, p. 10) he asserted that he had never rejected this book ? one that had brought
pleasure to more than a million readers. Also, particularly in the second and fifth
volumes of his recapitulatory collection of poems entitled Memorial de la Isla Negra,
Buenos Aires: Losada, 1964, there are poems ? ?Primavera urbana", for instance,
? which are strikingly reminiscent in mood of poems of Residencia en la tierra.

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Change and Constancy in Pablo Neruda's Poetic Practice 7

no pasan alba?iles,
nadie se cae
de un andamio,
nadie sufre,
nadie ama,
s?lo mi pobre hermano,
el poeta, (p. 935)

He goes on to censure the old poets' tendency to escapism and

exoticism:

ama los puertos

remotos, por sus nombres,
y escribe sobre oc?anos
que no conoce,
pronto a la vida, repleta
como el ma?z de granos
?l pasa sin saber
desgranarla, (p. 936)

The comment particularly brings to mind the Romantic and Modernist

traditions in Spanish America and the work of such poets as Julian del
Casal whose ?Nostalgias" contains verses like

Ah! Si yo un d?a pudiera

con qu? j?bilo partiera
para Argel
and
De la luna al claro brillo
ir?a al R?o Amarillo.

The chief of the Modernists, Rub?n Dar?o, must also be recalled for
his tendency, at least up to 1901, to exclude from his poetic world the
contemporary American reality. We remember his pronouncements
made in the ?Palabras liminares" to Prosas profanas:

he aqu? que ver?is en mis versos princesas, reyes, cosas imperiales,

visiones de pa?ses lejanos o imposibles: ?qu? quer?is!, yo detesto la
vida y el tiempo en que me toc? nacer... (Si hay poes?a en nuestra
Am?rica, ella est? en las cosas viejas: en Palenke y Utatl?n, en el
indio legendario y el inca sensual y fino, y en el gran Moctezuma de
la silla de oro. Lo dem?s es tuyo dem?crata Walt Whitman.)

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 8 Keith Ellis

But the disparaging comments of ?El hombre invisible" must be taken

as applying also to Neruda's own poetry; because, insofar as they
refer to preoccupations with private affairs and to a peculiar, even
idiosyncratic world view, they aim at such pre-1937 works of Neruda
as the collections, Crepusculario, Veinte poemas de amor y una can
ci?n desesperada, El hondero entusiasta and the two parts of Residen
cia en la tierra.
The poet then proceeds to offer the aspects that distinguish him from
the old poets ? and, of course, his present poetry from his early work:

... voy por las calles

y s?lo yo no existo,
la vida corre
corno todos los r?os,
yo soy el unico
invisible,
no hay misteriosas sombras,
no hay tinieblas,
todo el mundo me habla,
me quieren contar cosas,
me hablan de sus parientes,
de sus miserias
y de sus alegr?as, (p. 937)

All this is evidence of the poet's determination to associate his world

view with that of the people in general and with individuals among
them. The predominant focus in Canto general is national and continen
tal and the people are presented as defended by certain interests and
leaders, or as betrayed and oppressed by others. In the Odas elemen
tales of 1954, the Nuevas odas elementales of 1956, the Tercer libro
de las odas of 1957, in Navegaciones y regresos of 1959, as well as in
Plenos poderes of 1962, indeed throughout Neruda's work since 1954,
the emphatic concern seems to be with the intimate interests of people
and with the celebration of the basic and simple things of the earth ?
the things that are, or that ought to be, available to all people. And so
in a poem which he calls the epilogue to the collection Navegaciones y
regresos, after writing more than two hundred and forty of these
elemental odes, he writes:

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Change and Constancy in Pablo Neruda's Poetic Practice 9

Odas sin fin, ma?ana

y ayer (hoy es temprano)
nacen, nacieron, nacer?n, sirviendo
la sed del caminante y del camino

A todo sol, a toda luna vengo,

a todo perro, p?jaro, navio,
a todo mueble, a todo ser humano, (p. 1644)

The progressive broadening of perspective during the course of

Neruda's career is accompanied by a constant simplifying of his poetic
language. I have already referred to the change in language usage that
took place from the difficult, almost hermetic concepts contained in
the imagery of Residencia en la tierra to the plainer language of
Espa?a en el coraz?n. However, an obscurity similar to that of the
opening verses of ?Explico algunas cosas" itself is to be found again
in several poems of the Canto general*. Language used in this way
undoubtedly limits the public to whom the poetry can be accessible
and critics are needed to explicate it to readers. In keeping with the
aims put forward in ?El hombre invisible" Neruda removes the barrier
of difficult expression from the Odas elementales. In fact, in one of
the poems of this book, ?A la cr?tica", he even suggests that the critics
can be an obstacle to his purpose of communicating with his readers:
Yo escrib? cinco versos :

Y bien, los hombres,

las mujeres,
vinieron y tomaron
la sencilla materia,
brizna, viento, fulgor, barro, madera

3 John Polt in his article ?Elementos gongorinos en Neruda", Revista Hisp?nica

Moderna, Vol. XXVII, No. 1, pp. 23?31, has found that the complex syntax and
obscure imagery in Residencia en la tierra, noticed by Amado Alonso (Poes?a y
estilo de Pablo Neruda, Buenos Aires, 1951) and by Alfredo Lozada (?Estilo y poes?a
de Pablo Neruda", PMLA LXXIX, No. 5, pp 648?663) is often present too in the
Canto general. Although some of Polt's examples are of metaphorical usage that
is almost inevitable in poetry, there is no doubt that the language of poems such
as ?Alturas de Macchu Picchu" sustain his argument.

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Keith Ellis

y con tan poca cosa

construyeron
paredes, pisos, sue?os.
En una l?nea de mi poes?a
secaron ropa al viento

Entonces,
lleg? un cr?tico mudo
y otro lleno de lenguas,
y otros, otros llegaron
ciegos o llenos de ojos

con diccionarios y otras armas negras

se lanzaron
a disputar mi pobre poes?a
a las sencillas gentes
que la amaban; y la hicieron embudos,
la enrollaron

la protegieron y la condenaron,
le arrimaron petr?leo,
le dedicaron h?medos tratados,
la cocieron con leche,

la arrugaron e hicieron
un peque?o paquete
que destinaron cuidadosamente
a sus desvanes, a sus cementerios,
luego
se retiraron uno a uno

y entonces,
otra vez,
junto a mi poes?a
volvieron a vivir
mujeres y hombres,
de nuevo hicieron fuego,
construyeron casas,
comieron pan,
se repartieron la luz
y en el amor unieron
rel?mpago y anillo, (pp. 973?975)

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Change and Constancy in Pablo Neruda's Poetic Practice 11

Usage of this kind, usage that is clear but that is undoubtedly poetic,
containing an unobtrusive richness of metaphor, is to be found con
sistently in Neruda's poetry since 1954.
With regard to themes, to the perspective from which he views the
world and to language, Neruda, then, has shown a marked capacity
for change. He has also shown awareness of the changes and explained
their purpose in certain poems that introduce the poetics of the differ
ent periods. The periods which have been established here are (1) his
poetry written before 1925: the early poetry, Veinte poemas and El
hondero entusiasta; (2) from Residencia en la tierra up to and including
part 2 of Tercera residencia; (3) from Espa?a en el coraz?n up to and
including Las uvas y el viento of 1954; and (4) from the Odas elemen
tales onward.
We must now enquire whether within this frame of changes some
recurring practices of Neruda can be idendified, some aspects of his
work which, along with his growing tendency to relate his poetry to or
dinary people, can be regarded as characteristic of his poetry. The first
observation that might be made concerns a thematic element in his
poetry; and, to begin with, it might be stated negatively. Neruda never
searches beyond the social, human or material aspect of a phenomenon
for its cause or reason. His muse does not present an unreasoned,
unaccountably inspired metaphysical message, an intuition of the
primordial collective unconscious. Rather, it represents specific envi
ronments and is a reaction to recognizable forces at work in the en
vironment. This is true even of situations that may be classed generally
as spiritual. The collection Veinte poemas, for example, dealing with
love, with absence, with sadness, is remarkable for its lack of emphasis
on abstract states. Instead, the poems present concrete situations with
much unambiguous, sensual love. Where absence and sadness are the
main motif they are presented through environmental images that are
made, in the course of the poem, to be clearly associated with the
emotion ? the night, the stars, the wind, for example, in ?Po?ma XXa.
Also, the flow of feeling is presented in such poems within a specific
well defined emotional frame. The most complex argument of any of
the Veinte poemas runs like this: she is absent from this precise setting

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 12 Keith Ellis

in which we were once happy because love is changeful and we stopped

loving; my present sadness, brought on by her absence, would indicate
that I now love her. There is scarcely any probing into the mysteries
of love in Neruda's poetry, nor is love seen as a significant transcen
dental force: it is embodied in no Beatrice. It is related firmly to the
earth, to the sensual, environmental state of man. These attitudes are
continued in Neruda's later love poetry ? in the poems ?Fantasma"
and ?Oda con un lamento" of Residencia en la tierra and in the books
Versos del capit?n of 1952 and Cien sonetos de amor of 1958.
This tendency to respond directly to environmental factors is
perhaps clearer in the poetry that deals specifically with states of
society. Throughout Residencia en la tierra the poems arise from the
reaction of the speaker to a certain perception of his surroundings.
This has perhaps already been made clear in my discussion of the poem
?Galope muerto" and it is quite apparent in those poems which are
presented as direct images of the social environment such as
?Caballero solo", ?Walking Around", ?Agua sexual", ?Sonata y des
trucciones", ?Tango del viudo" and so on. The poems that represent
what Neruda in the poem, ?Explico algunas cosas", called ?la meta
f?sica cubierta de amapolas" (that is, the poetry of dreaminess) are
apparently more challenging to a theory of Neruda's constant environ
mental involvement, since their worlds seem, at first sight, to be out
side social reality. On closer examination, however, the dreams of the
narrative voice of the poems are found to be related to society in two
clear ways. First, they are similar in their atmosphere to the over
whelming unpleasantness of the external reality described in the book
and would seem to suggest someone demoralized by this reality. Thus
in the ?Oda con un lamento" when the speaker is faced with the
sensuous beauty of his loved one, his response is to refer to disagree
able reality and to his equally disagreeable dreams:
Por desgracia no tengo para darte sino u?as
o pesta?as, o pianos derretidos,
o sue?os que salen de mi coraz?n a borbotones,
polvorientos sue?os que corren como jinetes negros,
sue?os llenos de velocidades y desgracias.
S?lo puedo quererte con besos y amapolas, (p. 213)

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Change and Constancy in Pablo Neruda's Poetic Practice 13

Secondly, when the dreams are themselves described, as in these lines

from the poem ?Colecci?n nocturna", the images are the equivalents
of those poems depicting social environment such as ?Caballero solo",

... sobre envejecidos tah?res, sobre lenocinios de escaleras gastadas,

sobre lechos de ni?as desnudas, entre jugadores de football, del viento
ce?idos pasamos, (p. 170)

The sue?os of Residencia en la tierra, then, are intimately related to

the projected environmental reality and are thus further evidence of
Neruda's tendency to present poetry as reaction to perception of a
specific environmental factor. This tendency makes it seem erroneous
to classify Neruda's poetry, at any stage of his career, as surrealist, as
has been done so often by his critics. That the tendency continues
throughout Neruda's later poetry I believe remains clear from what
has been said earlier about Espa?a en el coraz?n, the Canto general,
Las uvas y el viento, and poetry from the Odas elementales onward.
Related to the foregoing constant is one which is based on a tension
of opposites. In Neruda's poetry there is usually some element oppos
ing, impeding or serving as a threat to, a desired state. In Veinte
poemas, changefulness, absence or the fear of absence tends to frustrate
the fulfilment of love. In Residencia en la tierra, as has been mention
ed, the perceived reality is overwhelmingly disadvantageous to the
wellbeing of the poet. In Espa?a en el coraz?n, war waged by ?trai
dores", ?generales", ?bandidos", destroys all levels of happiness
known to the poet in Spain. The Canto general presents heroes and
martyrs on the one hand and traitors and exploiters on the other.
From Los versos del capit?n we understand that love cannot be en
joyed with abandon while unsatisfactory social conditions prevail.
Las uvas y el viento juxtaposes peaceful, socialist Europe against the
old warlike one and the new China against the pre-revolutionary one.
In the Odas elementales there are oppositions of different kinds. The
atom, for instance, has opposing qualities. Small and wonderfully com
plex, it can be used to help man in his search for greater abundance;
but it can also destroy Hiroshima. The sea, on the other hand, is an
enemy in so far as it withholds its wealth from man. It must therefore

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 14 Keith Ellis

be opposed by him for the benefit of all people. And, of course, in the
book dedicated to the Cuban revolution and to the Caribbean coun
tries, Canci?n de gesta of 1960, a vigorous opposition is established
between those countries and certain aspects of the politics of the United
States.
Another method by which Neruda has throughout his career created
tension in his poetry is by positing an element of surprise at or near
the beginning of some of his poems. I have discussed elsewhere 4 the
first verses of ?Poema veinte" :

Puedo escribir los versos m?s tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: ?La noche est? estrellada,
Y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos*, (p. 91)

Since the ejemplo in these verses does not immediately demonstrate

what it is intended to demonstrate, it brings to the poem a useful
tension. The fact that they remain ambiguous or even paradoxical
when they are first read and are given their final meaning only when
the whole poem is understood, makes the verses participate at several
levels in the meaning of a poem which illustrates the concept of the
changefulness of love. ?Poema quince" of the same collection had
shown a similar surprising beginning with its first verse:
Me gustas cuando callas porque est?s como ausente, (p. 87).
Tins technique of establishing tension through initial surprises appears
again in Residencia en la tierra. The verse,
Largamente he permanecido mirando mis largas piernas (p. 185),
opens the way in the poem ?Ritual de mis piernas" to a stream of
surprising statements in praise of the poet's legs. The poem ?No
hay olvido (Sonata)", in the second part of Residencia en la tierra,
begins:
Si me pregunt?is en d?nde he estado
debo decir ?Sucede*. (p. 238)

4 In my article, ?Po?ma XX: A Structural Approach", Romance Notes Vol. XI,

No. 3, pp. 507?517.

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Change and Constancy in Pablo Neruda's Poetic Practice 15

The unexpected answer prompts the reader to find out what accounts
for it and one discovers that the poet is overcome by disparate and
purposeless things and happenings. After randomly enumerating these
matters he speaks in the last verse of the poem of ? tantas cosas que
quiero olvidar". When the rest of the poem is read, then, it is found
that the poet, through his answer ?Sucede", indicates that he can only
answer in terms of what so overwhelms him. The technique is re
presented, too, in the Canto general in a poem such as the famous ?La
United Fruit Co. Inc." which begins:

Cuando son? la trompeta, estuvo

todo preparado en la tierra
y Jehov? reparti? el mundo
a Coca-Cola, Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors, y otras entidades, (p. 458)

The expectant, hyperbolic beginning subtly prepares the tone that

is pitched between the mock epic and the mortally serious.
The poem ?A unas flores amarillas" is a useful example of the
use of the technique of initial surprise in the Tercer libro de las odas,
(1957). The beginning of the ode leaves the yellow flowers in an inferior
position compared to the sea:

Contra el azul moviendo sus azules,

el mar, y contra el cielo,
unas flores amarillas, (p. 1369)

This beginning forces the poet to exquisite and varied devices in

order to have the yellow flowers surpass the sea in beauty and impor
tance. His final device is to introduce the idea of man's ultimate fate
and to relate it to the yellow flowers:

Polvo somos, seremos.

Ni aire, ni fuego, ni agua
sino
tierra,
s?lo tierra
seremos
y tal vez
unas flores amarillas, (p. 1370)

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 16 Keith Ellis

Indeed, this technique is particularly apt when applied to the ele

mental odes. An initial surprise makes all the more wondrous the dis
covery of significant and valuable aspects of things which are usually
regarded as ordinary. I might add, too, that the discovery of the
function of this technique leads us to realize that such poems of Resi
dencia en la tierra as ?Ritual de mis piernas" and ?Colecci?n noc
turna" are in fact elemental odes, only of more difficult expression.
This in turn points to the fact that the tendency to write elemental odes
is a long standing one with Neruda.
Another technique employed by Neruda in many different periods
of his poetry is the adoption and adaptation of biblical archetypes to
enhance the force of expression and to emphasize the terrestrial and
simple things that have a direct material relationship to man. This
can be observed beginning in works of the early 1940's, such as ?Un
canto para Bolivar" and continuing in ?Las alturas de Macchu Piccku
(1945), ?La United Fruit Co." (1950), JJnas flores amarillas" (1953)
and throughout Las piedras del cielo (1970).
The recurring practices in Neruda's poetry pointed out so far, the
tendency to represent the social environment and the basic nature of
things, to present tension based on opposites, and to create initial sur
prise, all have their counterpart at the level of diction. And so words
that refer to everyday objects: streets, bread, fish, copper, shoes; words
that associate man with the basic elements: air, wind, water, clay, dust,
earth, fire; words that can suggest the sensual: salt, grapes, bunches ? all
these words appear again and again, arranged so that they are as
sociated with all the senses, sometimes directly, at other times through
synesthesia. He makes frequent use of paradox to underline the tension
of opposites as in these verses from ?Fantasma" :

encandilada, p?lida estudiante

and
los meses dilatados y fijos, (p. 167).

Paradox also serves him reliably in the creation of initial surprise,

as in ?Po?ma XX", for example.

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Change and Constancy in Pablo Neruda's Poetic Practice 17

Twentieth-century Spanish American poetry has many outstanding

practitioners: Vicente Huidobro with his steady preoccupation with
the question of poetic expression in a frantic world; Valle jo with his
anguished representation of the ordinary man naked before life's
hard blows; Borges with his philosophical musings on time and on the
questionable reality of existence; and Paz with his mythical focus
as he undertakes contemporary man's search for identity. Within the
rich variety of Neruda's contribution, certain constantly recurring
practices point to the unique quality of his preoccupation: the deter
mination to give an awareness of the joyful possibilities of the earth
and the conviction that these possibilities should be shared by all hu
manity. The fact that he skilfully employs techniques which create
tension and surprise, which convey a sense of immediate reaction,
endows his presentation with vibrancy, with excitement.

2 Romanische Forschungen, Heft 1/2

This content downloaded from 14.139.242.59 on Tue, 14 Nov 2017 10:13:42 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms