Background details:
Two phases of Neruda's poetic career-
1. Phase of Pure Poetry (poems of 1917-1930): pure aesthetics; poetry as means and end in
itself; deals with naked emotions of love, loss, loneliness; deeply personal in tone, style and
subject-matter; obscurity of diction as suggestion of obscurity of emotions.
2. Phase of Impure Poetry (poems of 1940-1960)- "Let that be the poetry we search for:
worn with the hand’s obligations, as by acids, steeped in sweat and in smoke, smelling of the
lilies and urine, spattered diversely by the trades that we live by, inside the law or beyond it"
(from Towards and Impure Poetry"). The poetry of this phase is deeply political in its content
and voice. Simple diction, imagery and expression. Why this departure from obscure diction
to simple diction and use of common-place/ordinary images/tropes--- like tomatoes, onion,
stained clothes, toothache, peasants, streets, kitchen etc? Reflect on Neruda's mission to be a
political communicator through his poems? Simplicity of form and political clarity of
content.
Spanish Civil War invited creative and artistic response from all over the world as it was a
war about defending a culture, a way of life than a war about the ownership of territories.
Several poets took this bloody event as a vibrant subject for their poems because it was a war
about their own existence as artists/poets/writers as well, for living in the fascist regime was
almost like living in an artistic and spiritual wasteland. Such poets included Federico Garcia
Lorca, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Cesar Vallejo, W.H. Auden etc. The war was fought
between the fascist forces of Fransisco Franco (Spanish General and dictator) and the
democratic-liberal forces of the Republicans between 1936 to 1939 in Spain. Fascism was
seen as a threat to the ideals of freedom, democracy and socialism not only in Spain, but in
the whole of Europe.
1935- the year Neruda was appointed as consul in Barcelona and Madrid. There he became
friends with Spanish intellectuals and poets (Garcia Lorca, Rafael Alberti and Miguel
Hernández) who were committed to the Republican cause which shaped his ideological stand
as a Communist poet. What triggered his identity as a political poet was the assassination of
his close friend Garcia Lorca (a Spanish poet and playwright) in the very first year of the
civil war in 1936. Thereafter, he did not sit back as a passive observer of the bloodshed and
war, he abandoned his diplomatic neutrality and actively sided with the Republicans. Not
only this, in 1939, when the Republican forces were crumbling, Chilean government sent
Neruda to France to serve the Republican refugees by ensuring their safe passage to different
parts of Europe. It was during this turbulent time that he wrote a collection of poems titled
Spain in my Heart (1936) of which multiple copies were printed and circulated in Spain.
(Reflect on the overlapping trajectories of Imperialism, Capitalism and Fascism).
Neruda's relation with Spain is a bit conflictual (compare with Walcott)in the sense Chile
was Spain's colony, but still Neruda's poetry is inextricably linked with the Spanish cause and
its politics. Two ways to reflect on this issue---did Neruda see a similar kind of political
struggle in his native land between the nationalist military forces and communist party as he
saw in Spain? Did Chilean politics connect him to Spanish politics? Second, was he
welcoming of the intermixing of cultures, languages, races as an outcome of Chilean colonial
past? Was it through Chile that he began to love and respect his foster-country Spain. (Read
the poem, "I Will Explain a Few Things" from the collection "Spain in my Heart" to
understand Neruda's political and poetic self during the Spanish Civil War:
"You will ask: why does your poetry not speak
to us of sleep, of the leaves, of the great
volcanoes of your native land?
Come and see the blood in the streets,
come and see the blood in the streets,
come and see the blood in the streets"
(from "I Will Explain a Few Things")
The Way Spain Was
- From the collection Third Residence (1947). In 1943, Neruda returned to Chile and joined
the communist party in 1945. He campaigned for the leftist candidate Gabriel González
Videla in the elections of 1946 only to see him side with the right-wing party in 1948. After
winning the election, Videla banned communist party in Spain and ordered Neruda's arrest.
Neruda had to live in exile in his own country to escape the political conspiracy of Videla.
- The poem displays constant juxtaposition of contrary images- Comparing Spain's rich
past with Spain's barren present, peace-violence, stones of sun-stones of silence, harsh wine-
sweet wine, petals-bullets, violent-delicate vineyards
- The poem takes a detour into Spain's rich and glorious past and invokes a tragic and sad
image of war-torn Spain. He is grieving over the loss of everything (culture, art, music,
natural beauty, vineyards, victorious history, freedom) which imparted a unique identity to
Spain and its people.
1st Stanza: Evokes a sombre, despondent, image of Spain. Words like "taut", "dry" denote a
strained, exhausted land where life passes like a "day's drum of dull sound" (a state of utter
hopelessness and defeat, the 'dull sound' of the drum is indicative of the fact that it was not a
celebratory sound of victory as the Republicans were brutally killed and massacred during the
war and the final victory lied in the hands of the despotic forces). The land under the new
governing party looks like "an eagle's eyrie" (eagle, (a bird of prey) and symbolizes the
Nationalist rulers, so the whole territory seemed clutched under the oppressive claws of the
rulers). Or it may also refer to the Spanish people who conquered so many lands, but
crumbled on its own land. An ominous silence pervaded the land and its people under the
"lashing weather" (refers to the time of war, bloodshed, conflict).
2nd Stanza: mourns the condition of the poor people/proletariats/labourers who fought with
utmost courage and nourished the land with their blood and sweat. Here, indirectly, Neruda
seemed to display his sympathy and solidarity for the proletariat class. Even if the war was a
failure, he revered the self-less effort and free-spirit of its "stricken-people"
(vulnerable/troubled/wounded) who survived on "barren soil" and "rough bread". He further
produces a contrasting image of Spain and its enriched past---vast, splendid, magnificent---
devoured by an "imbecile god" (irrational, thoughtless, driven by the hunger for power at the
cost of peace and liberty"). Despite, the tragedy that befell on Spain, the splendour of its past-
-- "lost flowers of your villages", "tracts of minerals", stayed alive in his memory. The
bitter/harsh reality of the present failed to overshadow the ripe memory of the glorious past.
3rd stanza: Neruda further juxtaposes two contradictory images of Spain "bestial solitude
joined with your sovereign intelligence". He recalls the sovereign power of Spain, its
unconquerable past, its imperial expansion. But now the country has been forcefully put to a
death like sleep; it is haunted by its own solitude; its people have turned into "stones of
silence" under the fascist power. Their voices have been brutally muffled, their leaders killed
and the ideals of socialism trampled under the feet of the dictator. The expressions "sweet
wine" 'harsh wine", "violent and delicate vineyards" refer to two different ideas of Spain—
firstly, its high culture of art, beauty, aesthetics, language, music, and then, its poverty,
hunger, harsh life of the poor (working-class people, coal-miners). The duality of violent and
delicate vineyard is indicative of the class struggle/ideological battle that engulfed the
country in a brutal war.
4th stanza: Though the beginning of the poem portrays a very hopeless and mournful image
of war-stricken Spain, the closing stanza ends on a new note of hope and blooming future.
The "stones of silence" in the previous stanza has been now changed to "stone of the sun" (a
ray of new beginning, new life, strength, vigour). The blemishes of Spain "veined with
bloods and metals" is depicted in a glorious manner so as to instil a new consciousness and
pride in the "proletariat of petals and bullets" (the remnants of violence) though alone
(broken, wounded, put to inaction, yet their voices continue to resonate in the territory.
Through these images, he is trying to chart out a possibility of change and betterment for the
land and its people.
Further suggestions:
Casablanca (1942)-movie
I Explain a Few Things- poem
Neruda (2016)- movie
IL Postino (The Postman, 1994)- movie
Towards an Impure Poetry by Neruda- essay
