Born: Neftalf Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in Parral, Chile, 12 July 1904; Pablo Neruda became his legal name, 1946. Education: Educated at school for boys in Temuco, 1910-20; Instituto Pedagogico, Santiago (poetry prize, 1921), in the 1920s. Family: Married 1) Maria Antonieta Hagenaar in 1930, one daughter; lived with Delia del Carril; 2) Matilde Urrutia. Career: In Chilean consular and diplomatic service: consul in Rangoon, 1927, Colombo, 1928, Batavia, 1930, Singapore, 1931, Buenos Aires, 1933, Barcelona, 1933, Madrid, 1935-36; helped Spanish refugees as consul in Paris, 1939; Consul-General, Mexico City, 1940-43; elected to Chilean Senate as communist, 1945; attacked President Gonzales Videla in print, and in exile after 1947; returned to Chile after victory of anti-Videla forces, 1952; after Allende’s victory in 1970, named Ambassador to France, 1971-72 (resigned because of ill health). Editor, with Manuel Altolaguirre, Caballo Verde, Spain, 1935-36, and Aurora de Chile, 1938. Awards: National literature prize, 1945; Stalin Peace prize, 1953; Viareggio-Versilia prize, 1967; Nobel prize for literature, 1971. Honorary doctorates: University of Michoacan, Mexico, 1941; Oxford University, 1965. Honorary fellow, Modern Language Association (United States). Member: World Peace Council, from 1950; president, Union of Chilean Writers, 1957-73. Died: 23 September 1973.
Publications
Verse
Crepusculario. 1923.
Veintepoemas de amory una cancion desesperada. 1924; as The Man Who Told His Love, translated by Patrick Bowles and adapted by Christopher Logue (bilingual edition), 1958; as Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, translated by W.S. Merwin, 1969.
Tentativa del hombre infinito. 1926.
El hondero entusiasta 1923-1924. 1933.
Residencia en la tierra. 2 vols., 1933-35; as Residence on Earth, translated by Angel Flores, 1946; also translated by Donald D. Walsh (bilingual edition), 1973.
Tres cantos materiales. 1935; as Three Material Songs, translated by Angel Flores, 1948.
Espana en el corazon: Himno a las glorias del pueblo en la guerra 1936-1937. 1937; as Spain in the Heart: Hymn to the Glories of the People at War, 1936-1937, translated by Richard Schaaf, 1993.
Las furias y las penas. 1939.
Un canto para Bolivar. 1941.
Selected Poems. 1941.
Nuevo canto de amor a Stalingrado. 1943.
Selected Poems, translated by Angel Flores. 1944.
Obra poetica. 10 vols., 1947-48.
Tercera residencia 1935-1945. 1947.
Que despierte el lenador! 1948; as Let the Rail Splitter Awake!, translated in Let the Rail Splitter Awake and Other Poems, translated by Samuel Sillen, 1950, also in Peace for Twilights to Come!, 1950.
Himno y regreso. 1948.
Dulce patria. 1949.
Canto general. 1950; in part as The Heights of Macchu Picchu, translated by Nathaniel Tarn, 1966; as Poems from Canto General, translated by Ben Belitt, 1968; as Canto General, translated by Jack Schmitt, 1991.
Poesas completas. 1951.
Los versos del capitan: Poemas de amor. 1952; as The Captain’s Verses, translated by Donald D. Walsh, 1972; translated by Brian Cole, 1994.
Todo el amor (selection). 1953.
Odas elementales, Nuevas odas elementales, Tercer libro de las odas. 3 vols., 1954-57; as Elementary Odes, translated by Carlos Lozano, 1961; as Elemental Odes, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, 1990; as Odes to Common Things, translated by Ken Krabbenhoft, 1994.
Las uvas y el viento. 1954.
Oda a la tipografia. 1956; as Ode to Typography, translated by Enrique Sacerio-Gan, 1977.
Estravagario. 1958; as Extravagaria, translated by Alastair Reid, 1972.
Todo lleva tu nombre. 1959.
Odas: Al libro, a las Americas, a la luz. 1959.
Navegaciones y regresos. 1959.
Cien sonetos de amor. 1959; as One Hundred Love Sonnets, translated by Stephen Tapscott, 1986.
Algunas odas. 1959.
Toros. 1960.
Cancion de gesta. 1960; as Epic Song, translated by Richard Schaaf, 1998.
Las piedras de Chile. 1960; as Stones of Chile, translated by D. Maloney, 1990.
Los primeros versos de amor. 1961.
Selected Poems, translated by Ben Belitt. 1961.
Cantos ceremoniales. 1961; as Ceremonial Songs, translated by Maria Jacketti, 1996.
Plenos poderes. 1961; as Fully Empowered, translated by Alastair Reid, 1975.
La insepulta de Paita. 1962.
Oceana. 1962.
Memorial de Isla Negra. 5 vols., 1964; as Isla Negra: A Notebook, translated by Alastair Reid, 1981; translated by Maria Jacketti, 2001.
Bestiary/Bestiario. 1966; as Bestiary, translated by Elsa Neuberger, 1965.
Arte de pajaros. 1966; as Art of Birds, translated by Jack Schmitt, 1985.
Una casa en la arena. 1966.
We Are Many, translated by Alastair Reid. 1967.
La barcarola. 1967.
Twenty Poems, translated by James Wright and Robert Bly. 1967.
Lax manos del dia. 1968.
Aun. 1969.
Fin del mundo. 1969.
Early Poems, translated by David Ossman and Carlos B. Hagen. 1969.
A New Decade: Poems 1958-67, translated by Ben Belitt and Alastair Reid. 1969.
La espada encendida. 1970.
Maremoto. 1970; as Seaquake: Poems, translated by Maria Jacketti and Dennis Maloney, 1993.
Las piedras del cielo. 1970.
Selected Poems, edited by Nathaniel Tarn, translated by Anthony Kerrigan and others. 1970.
Neruda and Vallejo: Selected Poems, translated by Robert Bly, James Wright, and John Knoepfle. 1971.
Geografia infructuosa. 1972.
La rosa separada. 1972; as The Separate Rose, translated by William O’Daly, 1985.
Incitacion al nixonicidio y alabanza de la revolucion chilena. 1973; as Incitation to Nixoncide and Praise for the Spanish Revolution, translated by Steve Kowit, 1973; as A Call for the Destruction of Nixon and Praise for the Chilean Revolution, translated by Teresa Anderson, 1980.
El mar y las campanas. 1973; as The Sea and the Bells, translated by William O’Daly, 1988.
New Poems 1968-1970, translated by Ben Belitt. 1973.
Jardin de invierno. 1974; as Winter Garden, translated by William O’Daly, 1987. 2000. 1974; translated by Richard Schaaf, 1997.
El corazon amarillo. 1974.
Libro de las preguntas. 1974.
Elegia. 1974.
Defectos escogidos. 1974.
Five Decades: Poems 1925-1970, translated by Ben Belitt. 1974.
Selections: Poems from Canto General, translated by J.C.R. Green. 1982.
Still Another Day, translated by William O’Daly. 1984.
Late and Posthumous Poems 1968-1974, translated by Ben Belitt. 1988.
The House in the Sand: Prose Poems, translated by Dennis Maloney and Clark M. Zlotchew. 1990.
Selected Odes, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden. 1990.
Neruda’s Garden: An Anthology of Odes, translated by Maria Jacketti. 1995.
Plays
Romeo and Juliet, from the play by Shakespeare (produced 1964). 1964.
Fulgor y muerte de Joaquin Murieta (produced 1967). 1967; as Splendor and Death of Joaquin Murieta, translated by Ben Belitt, 1972.
Fiction
El habitante y su esperanza. 1926.
Other
Prosas. 1926.
Anillos, with Tomas Lagos. 1926.
Neruda entre nosotros, with Emilio Oribe and Juan Marinello. 1939.
La crisis democratica de Chile. 1947; as The Democratic Crisis of Chile, 1948.
Cartas a Mexico. 1947.
Viajes al corazon de Quevedo y pot las costas del mundo. 1947.
Pablo Neruda acusa. 1948.
Gonzales Videla, el Laval de la America Latina. 1949.
Poesiapolitica: Discursospoliticos. 2 vols., 1952.
Cuando de Chile. 1952.
Viajes. 1955.
Obras completas. 1957; 4th edition, 3 vols., 1973.
Cuba, los obispos. 1962(?).
Comiendo en Hungria, with Miguel Angel Asturias (verse and illustrations). 1969; as Sentimental Journey around the Hungarian Cuisine, translated by Barna Balogh, 1969; revised translation by Mary Arias, 1969.
Confieso que he vivido. 1974; as Memoirs, translated by Hardie St. Martin, 1977.
Cartas de amor, edited by Sergio Fernandez Larrafn. 1974.
Pablo Neruda: A Basic Anthology (in Spanish), edited by Robert Pring-Mill. 1975.
Cartas a Laura, edited by Hugo Montes. 1978.
Para nacer he nacido, edited by Matilde Neruda and Miguel Otera Sila, 1978; as Passions and Impressions, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, 1983.
Correspondancia, with Hector Eandi, edited by Margarita Aguirre. 1980.
Pablo Neruda and Nicanor Parra Face to Face: A Bilingual and Critical Edition of Their Speeches on the Occasion of Neruda’s Appointment to the Faculty of the University of Chile, translated with introduction by Marlene Gottlieb. 1997. Editor and translator, Paginas escogidas de Anatole France. 1924.
Translator, 44poetas rumanos. 1967.
Critical Studies:
Testimony of the Invisible Man: William Carlos Williams, Francis Ponge, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Pablo Neruda by Nancy Willard, 1970; The Word and the Stone: Language and Imagery in Neruda’s ”Canto General” by Frank Riess, 1972; The Poetry of Pablo Neruda by Rene de Costa, 1979; Pablo Neruda: All Poets the Poet by Salvatore Bizzaro, 1979; Translating Neruda: The Way to Macchu Picchu by John Felstiner, 1981; Earth Tones: The Poetry of Pablo Neruda by Manuel Duran and Margery Safir, 1981; Pablo Neruda: The Poetics of Prophecy by Enrico Mario Santf, 1982; Pablo Neruda by Maijorie Agosfn, 1986; On Elevating the Commonplace: A Structuralist Analysis of the "Odes" of Pablo Neruda by David G. Anderson, 1987; The Late Poetry of Neruda by Christopher Perriam, 1989; Pablo Neruda: Absence and Presence by Luis Poirot, translated by Alastair Reid, 1990; An Intimate Biography by Volodia Teitelboim, 1991; Pablo Neruda: Chilean Poet and Diplomat by Joe Roman, 1992; Poet-chief: The Native American Poetics of Walt Whitman and Pablo Neruda by James Nolan, 1994; Neruda’s Ekphrastic Experience: Mural Art and Canto General by Hugo Mendez-Ramirez, 1999.
Pablo Neruda, sometimes called the Picasso of poetry, is a writer of many styles and many voices; his vast and varied work, spanning more than half a century, is central to every major development in Spanish and Spanish American poetry between the 1920s and the 1970s. Despite his humble beginnings (born into a working-class family and raised in a rough-and-tumble frontier town in the south of Chile), by the time he turned 20 he had come to occupy a pre-eminent place in the literature of his country.
Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) was a succes de scandale when it first appeared in 1924. Judged to be shamelessly erotic and faulted for its bold departure in form and style from the genteel tradition of Hispanic lyricism the book went on to become something of a bestseller, and remains so today. Its power derives from Neruda’s new and unusual treatment of the age-old subject of love. Employing a dense and almost hermetic language combining the normally unarticulated level of digressive thought and the ordered level of logical discourse, each poem is a kind of monologue in which the poet speaks as though to himself and to an absent lover. Making use of a rhetoric which is not conventionally poetic (staggered repetitions, an irregular temporal exposition, and a prosaic syntax), Neruda managed to convey a quality that was often lacking in traditional love poetry: the quality of sincerity and conviction. The result was a highly charged confessional intimacy that challenged and charmed the sensibility of its reader, creating in the process a contemporary stil nuovo which continues to resonate in the language of love in Spanish.
Tentativa del hombre infinito [The Infinite Man's Attempt] furthered the poet’s experiments with form and placed him in the forefront of the Chilean avant-garde. In this long and difficult poem, organized in 15 cantos around the idea of a nocturnal voyage in search of the absolute, he foregoes the use of rhyme, meter, capitalization, and punctuation to attain a more concentrated literary language capable of conveying a maximum degree of subjectivity. The poem’s seemingly unmediated discourse is similar in texture to that of surrealist writing but differs in that it is not the outcome of ”psychic automatism,” but the result of a lengthy compositional process of revision and modification, pruning relator words, connectives, and punctuation so as to enhance the run-on associative power of the imagery. Neruda, in his later years, called attention to this vanguard experiment of 1926, relating it to his hermetic poetry of the Residencia cycle.
Residencia en la tierra (Residence on Earth), when published in Spain in 1935, was hailed by Garcia Lorca and others as ”one of the most authentic realities of poetry in the Spanish language today.” At the time Neruda also felt that in this work he had achieved a kind of perfection and ”had passed a literary limit” hitherto thought impossible. Residence on Earth, which assured his international fame, is a work in two volumes, the first of which was originally published in Chile in a limited edition of 100 copies and contains poems written in the Far East where Neruda had served as a consular official from 1927 to 1931. These texts cover a diverse range of topics, from monsoons to marriage, and stand as individual testimonials of moments of heightened awareness. The discourse is quite free, unbound by logic, and despite the ample use of prosaic locutions utilizes an unprosaic reasoning process based on implied and generative associations. Although the basic discursive situation is soliloquial, as in the earlier poetry, the style is decidedly anti-lyrical, often jarring the reader’s sensibility with references to the ordinary and the ”unpoetic.” In 1935 the book was reissued with a companion volume, Residencia II, containing Neruda’s more recent poetry and a significant change of form and style: where once the poet had been concentrated and introspective, he had become digressive and outward. Essentially, by the mid-1930s, Neruda was beginning to write a poetry to be spoken out loud, not to be read in silence, and for the first time his discourse is addressed not to an absent personage or to the poet’s inner self, but to his reader. The second Residencia, dealing engagingly with life’s random experiences, substantiated a new kind of poetic realism. In a manifesto of the time (”On Impure Poetry”), Neruda explains this change, speaking out against his earlier hermetic writing and against the ultra-refined aestheticism of ”pure poetry.” His goal henceforth was a poetry that was not only sincere but also uninvented, in a word ”realistic.”
Tercera residencia, a collection of post-Residencia poems, documents Neruda’s new social and political awareness. The realities of fascism and the Spanish Civil War provoked a shift in perspective, transforming his poetic realism to a more committed kind of writing. The idea was to use the persuading power of literature to make the reader share the writer’s view of the socio-political realities of a world at war. Oral diction is enhanced and rendered poetic through a revival of traditional poetic forms: rhymed stanzas and metrical verses. At this point, secure in his position as a public poet, Neruda assumed a broader role, spokesman for the continent.
Canto general, the general song of America, presenting in some 500 pages and almost 20,000 verses the theme of man’s struggle for justice in the New World, is by far his most ambitious work, and caused a sensation when it first appeared in 1950. Even today critics are split into two camps over the merits of this text: those who ridicule Neruda’s militant politics (he joined the Communist Party in 1945) and those who find them justified. Politics aside, the work is masterful for its epic sweep and for the extraordinary variety and quantity of old and new poetic forms and voices employed to maintain reader interest and render persuasive the political message.
Odas elementales (Elemental Odes) continued Neruda’s efforts to reach the common man, to bring poetry to the people. Political without appearing to be politicized, simple without being simplistic, it appealed to an extraordinarily wide range of readers through a seemingly artless, almost breezy series of compositions exalting the most basic things of daily existence, the plain and the ordinary, fruits and flowers, thread and bread. Since many of these poems were first published in the columns of a daily newspaper the style is simple and straightforward, the verses are short and direct, and the tone is intimate and conversational. Estravagario (Extravagaria) took the conversational mode of the odes one step further, desolemnizing poetry itself. In this topic, for the first time, everything is treated irreverently, even politics—and in a sardonic tone and an everyday manner typical of what has come to be called anti-poetry.
Neruda, in his later years, tried his hand at theatre—Fulgor y muerte de Joaquin Murieta (Splendor and Death of Joaquin Murieta)— and took a more direct role in politics, serving as the Communist Party’s pre-candidate to the 1970 elections which brought Salvador Allende to power. He continued to cultivate a poetry concerned with the here and now: the Cuban Revolution in Cancion de gesta (Epic Song); Vietnam and the generally deplorable state of the world in Fin del mundo [End of the World]; and Nixon in Incitacion al nixonicidio (Incitation to Nixoncide). Two volumes of memoirs and several volumes of posthumously published poetry cap this extraordinary career in the literature of our time.
