This Chilean poet, and diplomat, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
in
1971. His original name was Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, but he used
the pen
name Pablo Neruda for over 20 years before adopting it legally in 1946.
Neruda is
the most widely read of the Spanish American poets. From the 1940s on,
his
works reflected the political struggle of the left and the socio-historical
developments in South America. He also wrote love poems. Neruda's Twenty
Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924) have sold over a million copies
since
it first appeared.
"Sucede que me canso de ser hombre.
Sucede que entro es las sasterías y en los cines
marchito, impenetrable, como un cisne de fieltro
navegando en un agua de origen y ceniza."
(from 'Walking Around')
(I happen to be tired of being a man
I happen to enter tailor shops and movie houses
withered, impenetrable, like a felt swan
navigating in a water of sources and ashes.)
Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto was born in Parral, a small town
in central Chile.
His father, don José del Carmen Reyes Morales, was a poor railway
worker and
his mother, Rosa Basoalto de Reyes, was a schoolteacher, who died of
tuberculosis when Neruda was an infant. Don José Carmen moved with
his sons
in 1906 to Temuco, and married Trinidad Candia Marvedre. Neruda started
to
write poetry when he was ten years old. At the age of 12 he met the Chilean
poet
Gabriela Mistral, who encouraged his literary efforts. Neruda's first literary
work,
an article, appeared in 1917 in the magazine La Manana. It was followed
by the
poem, 'Mis ojos', which appeared in 1918 in Corre-Vuela. In 1920 he published
poems in the magazine Selva Austral, using the pen name Pablo Neruda to
avoid
conflict with his family, who disapproved his literary ambitions. From
1921 he
studied French at the Instituto Pedagógico in Santiago. In 1924
Neruda gained
international fame as an writer with VEINTE POEMAS DE AMOR Y UNA
CANCÍON, which is his most widely read work.
At the age of only 23 Neruda was appointed by the Chilean government as
consul
to Burma (now Myanmar). He held diplomatic posts in various East Asian
and
European Countries, befriending among others the Spanish poet Federico
García
Lorca. Neruda continued to write for several literary and other magazines,
among
them La Nación, El Sol, and Revista de Occidente. He also started
to edit in
1935 a literary magazine, Caballo Verde para la Poesía.
"We did meet forty years ago. At that time we were both influenced by
Whitman and I said, jokingly in part, 'I don't think anything can be done
in
Spanish, do you?' Neruda agreed, but we decided it was too late for us
to
write our verse in English. We'd have to make the best of a second-rate
literature." (from Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations, ed. by Richard
Burgin, 1998)
After Neruda ended his affair with the possessive and violently jealous
Josie Bliss,
he married in 1930 María Antonieta Hagenaar, a Dutch woman who couldn't
speak Spanish; they separated in 1936. At that time Neruda lived in Paris,
where
he published with Nancy Cunard the journal Los Poetas del Mundo Defiende
al
Pueblo Español. Nancy Cunard was the sole inheritor of the famous
Cunard
shipping company, who later followed Neruda to Chile with a bullfighter.
Her
mother disinherited her when she escaped from high society with a black
musician.
In the 1930s and 1940s Neruda lived with the Argentine painter Delia del
Carril,
who encouraged Neruda to participate in politics. Neruda and Delia del
Carril
married in 1943, but the marriage was not recognized in Chile; they separated
in
1955. Neruda married in 1966 the Chilean singer Matilde Urrutia. She was
the
inspiration of much of Neruda's later poetry, among others One Hundred
Love
Sonnets (1960).
Neruda's Residence on Earth (1933), was a visionary work, emerging from
the
birth of fascism. In 1935-36 he was in Spain but he resigned from his post
because
he sided with the Spanish Republicans. After the leftist candidate don
Pedro
Aguirre Cerda won the presidental election, Neruda again was appointed
consul,
this time to Paris, where he helped Spanish refugees by re-settling them
in Chile.
In 1942 Neruda visited Cuba and read for the first time his poem, 'Canto
de amor
para Stalingrado', which praised the Red Army fighting in Stalingrad. His
daughter,
Malva Marina, died in the same year in Europe. Neruda joined the Communist
Party, and in 1945 he was elected to the Chilean Senate. He attacked President
González Videla in print and when the government was taken by right-wing
extremists, he fled to Mexico. He travelled to the Soviet Union, where
he was
warmly received, and in other Eastern European countries. Neruda was especially
impressed by the vastness of Russia, its birch forests, and rivers. He
met Ilya
Ehrenburg, whose home was full of works by Picasso, and the Turkish poet
Nazim
Hikmet, who lived in exile in Moscow. The Soviet Union was for Neruda a
country, where libraries, universities, and theatres were open for all.
He referred
to dogmatic views in the Soviet art, but optimistically believed that the
views had
been condemned. Neruda's colleagues also read him Boris Pasternak's poems
but
they did not forget to mention that Pasternak was considered as a political
reactionary.
In exile Neruda produced CANTO GENERAL (1950), a monumental work of 340
poems. "Come up with me, American love. / Kiss these secret stones with
me. / The
torrential silver of the Urubamba / makes the pollen fly to its golden
cup. The hollow of
the bindweed's maze, the petrified plant, the inflexible garland, soar
above the silence of
these mountain coffers." (From 'The Heights of Macchu Picchu'.) In this
work Neruda
examined Latin American history from a Marxist point of view, and showed
his
deep knowledge about the history, geography and politics of the continent.
The
central theme is the struggle for social justice. Canto general includes
Neruda's
famous poem 'Alturas de Macchu Picchu', which was born after he visited
the
Incan ruins of Macchu Picchu in 1943. In it Neruda aspires to become the
voice of
the dead people who once lived in the city.
"I want to know, salt of the roads,
show me the spoon - architecture, let me
scratch at the stamens of stone with a little stick,
ascend the rungs of the air up to the void,
scrape the innards until I touch mankind."
(from 'The Heights of Macchu Picchu')
While in exile, Neruda travelled in Italy, where he lived for a while.
After the
victory of the anti-Videla forces and the order to arrest leftist was rescinded,
Neruda returned to Chile. In 1953 Neruda was awarded the Stalin Prize.
He
remained faithful to "el partido" when other intellectual had rejected
Moscow's
leash. However, Neruda's faith was deeply shaken in 1956 by Khrushchev's
revelation at the Twentieth Party Congress of the crimes committed during
the
Stalin regime.His collection EXTRAVAGARIO (1958) reflects this change in
his
works. In it Neruda turned to his youth. He presents the reader with his
daily life
and examines critically his Marxist beliefs. During a visit to Buenos Aires
in 1957
Neruda was arrested and he spent a restless night in jail. Just before
he was
released, a policeman gave him a poem, devoted to the famous author.
"Poetry is a deep inner calling in man; from it came liturgy, the psalms,
and also the content of religions." (from Memoirs, 1974)
Establishing a permanent home on the Isla Negra, Neruda continued to travel
extensively, visiting Cuba in 1960 and the United States in 1966. When
Salvador
Allende was elected president, he appointed Neruda as Chile's ambassador
to
France (1970-72). Neruda died of leukemia in Santiago on 23 September in
1973.
His death was probably accelerated by the murder of Allende and tragedies
caused by Pinochet coup. After Neruda's death his home in Valparaiso and
Santioago were robbed. During his long literary career, Neruda produced
more
than forty volumes of poetry, translations, and verse drama.
"He was once referred as the Picasso of poetry, alluding to his protean
ability to be always in the vanguard of change. And he himself has often
alluded to his personal struggle with his own tradition, to his constant
need
to search for a new system in each book." (Rene de Costa in The Poetry
of
Pablo Neruda, 1979)
For further reading: Pablo Neruda by Raúl Silva Castro (1964); El
viajero
immóvil by Emir Rodríguez Monegal (1966); The Word and the
Stone by
Frank Reiss (1972); Pablo Neruda by Salvatore Bizzaro (1979); The Poetry
of Pablo Neruda by René de Costa (1979); Pablo Neruda by Marjorie
Agosín (1986); The Late Poetry of Neruda by Christopher Perriam
(1989);
Pablo Neruda by Luis Poirot (1990); Neruda: an Intimate Biography by
Volodia Teitelboim (1991) - Suom.: Runovalikoimat Runoja, Andien
mainingit, Meren ja yön portit, Valitut runot. Loki julkaisi 1999
Nerudan
Kysymysten kirjan, pelkistä kysymyksistä koostuvan runoteoksen.
"Miksi
sateenvarjojen kongressit aina pidetän Lontoossa?"
Selected works:
CREPUSCULARIO, 1923
VEINTE POEMAS DE AMOR Y UNA CANCÍON DESESPERADA,
1924 - Twenty Love Songs and a Song of Despair
ed.: PÁGINAS ESCOGIDAS DE ANATOLE FRANCE, 1924
RESIDENCIA EN LA TIERRA (1925-31) - Residence on Earth
TENTIVA DEL HOMBRE INFINITO, 1926 - Attempt of the Infinite Man
ANILLOS, 1926 - Rings
EL HABITANTE Y SU ESPERANZA, 1926
EL HONDERO ENTUSIASTA, 1933 - Enthusiastic Slingshooter
RECIDENCIA EN LA TIERRE, 1933-35 - Residence on Earth
ESPAÑA EN EL CORAZÓN, 1937 (Espagne au coeur, foreword by
Luis Aragon)
LAS FURIAS Y LAS PENAS, 1939
NERUDA ENTRE NOSOTROS, 1939
'Un canto para Bolívar', 1941
'Canto de amor para Stalingrado', 1942
'Nuevo canto de amor a Stalingrado', 1943
CANTOS DE PABLO NERUDA, 1943
SUS MEJORES VERSOS, 1943
SELECCIÓN, 1943 (ed. by Arturo Aldunante Phillips)
Selected Poems, 1944
SALUDO AL NORTE Y A STALINGRADO, 1945
CUATRO DISCURSOS, 1945 (with others)
TERCERA RESIDENCIA, 1947
RESIDENCIA EN LA TIERRA, 1947
DULCE PATRIA, 1949
CANTO GENERAL, 1950 - Canto General / General Song
LOS VERSOS DEL CAPITÁN, 1952 - The Captain's Verses
TODO EL AMOR, 1953
POESÍA POLÍTICA, 1953 (2 vols.)
Le chant général, 1954 (ill. by Fernand Léger)
Pablo Neruda, choix de poèmes, 1954 (ed. and trans. by Jean Marcenac)
Tout l'amour, 1954 (ed. by Pierre Segners)
LAS UVAS Y EL VIENTO, 1954
ODAS ELEMENTALES I-III, 1954-57 - Elementary Odes
NUEVAS ODAS ELEMENTALES, 1956
TERCER LIBRO DE LAS ÓDAS, 1957
OBRAS COMPLETAS, 1957
ESTRAVAGARIO, 1958 - Extravagaria
NAVEGACIONES Y REGRESOS, 1959
CIEN SONETOS DEL AMOR, 1960 - One Hundred Love Sonnets
CANSIÓN DE GESTA, 1960 - Song of Protest
LAS PIEDRAS DE CHILE, 1960 - Stones of Chile
CANTOS CEREMONIALES, 1960
Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda, 1961
PLENOS PODERES, 1962 - Fully Empowered
SUMARIO, 1963
MEMORIAL DE LA ISLA NEGRA, 1964 (5 vols.) - Isla Negra, A
Notebook
ARTE DE PÁJAROS, 1966 - Art of Birds
LA CASA DE ARENA, 1966 - The House in the Sand
FALGOR Y MUERTE DE JOAQUÍN MURIETA, 1967 - The Splendour
and Death of Joaquín Murieta
LAS MANOS DEL DÍA, 1968
COMIENDO EN HUNGARÍA, 1969 - Sentimental Journey around the
Hungarian Cuisine
FIN DEL MUNDO, 1969
AÚN, 1969
Early Poems, 1969
A New Decade, 1969
AÚN, 1969 - Still Another Day
LA ESPADA ENCENDIDA, 1970
LAS PIEDRAS DEL CIELO, 1970 - Stones of the Skies
GEOGRAFÍA INFRUCTUOSA, 1972
OBRAS COMPLETAS, 1973 ( 3 vols.)
CONFIESO HABER VIVIDO, 1973 - Tunnustan eläneeni
INCITACIÓN AL NIXONCIDIO Y ALABANZA DE LA
REVOLUCÍON CHILENA, 1973 - A Call for the Destruction of Nixon
and Praise for the Chilean Revolution
2000, 1974 - translated as 2000
EL MAR Y LAS CAMPANAS, 1974 - The Sea and the Bells
ELEGÍA, 1974
Five Decades, 1974
EL CORAZÓN AMARILLO, 1974
EL LIBRO DE PREGUNTAS, 1974
JARDÍN DE INVIERNO, 1974 Winter Garden
LA ROSA SEPARADA, 1974 - The Separate Rose
DEFECTOS ESCOGIDOS, 1974
PARA NACER HE NACIDO, 1977 - Passions and Impressions
EL FIN DE VIAJE, 1982
Late and Posthumous Poems 1968-1975, 1988