Neruda
This is a fascinating collection of poems and they carry many themes that could be discussed, but I want to continue with the representation of the woman who is being addressed. Poetry about the female body is commonplace, but to see the body being addressed directly caught me by surprise, with fragments of flesh selected for praise, a single white thigh hanging in fetishized isolation, a single pair of soft hands connected to nothing. It was a little unsettling. Throughout the twenty poems bits and pieces of this woman show up, consisting of erotic anatomy (thighs, curves, lips, pubis) and points of communication (lips, eyes, hands).
The speaker asks in poem 18, “Quién eres tú, quién eres?” I also would like to know, but I can’t because she is always distant from the speaker, both when they are separated and together. Though physical separation is a source of anguish for him, he prefers that she is silent in his presence, such as in poem 16 when he says “Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente.” There appears to be something fragile between these two that an excess of words, especially her words, could break. But she will allow herself to be silenced with a touch of his lips – she is like a figure of clay whose mouth the artist can seal. We’re back to the idea raised in class that he forges her. (A word with so many definitions…)
There is a tension that runs throughout the poems between forms of distance and types of intimacy. There is a contrast between an intense desire, carnal knowledge, and possessive need and a love that is sporadic and vacillating, as is apparent on behalf of both parties in poem 20. There are also issues of distance. The speaker gives us an intimate and magnified view of her body, from “las rosas del pubis” to the “blancas colinas" of her physical landscape, but he never draws us back to give us a complete portrait. In poem 5 he begs her “No me abandones” but when she is with him in poem 16 he prefers to have space between them in the form of silence.
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The speaker asks in poem 18, “Quién eres tú, quién eres?” I also would like to know, but I can’t because she is always distant from the speaker, both when they are separated and together. Though physical separation is a source of anguish for him, he prefers that she is silent in his presence, such as in poem 16 when he says “Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente.” There appears to be something fragile between these two that an excess of words, especially her words, could break. But she will allow herself to be silenced with a touch of his lips – she is like a figure of clay whose mouth the artist can seal. We’re back to the idea raised in class that he forges her. (A word with so many definitions…)
There is a tension that runs throughout the poems between forms of distance and types of intimacy. There is a contrast between an intense desire, carnal knowledge, and possessive need and a love that is sporadic and vacillating, as is apparent on behalf of both parties in poem 20. There are also issues of distance. The speaker gives us an intimate and magnified view of her body, from “las rosas del pubis” to the “blancas colinas" of her physical landscape, but he never draws us back to give us a complete portrait. In poem 5 he begs her “No me abandones” but when she is with him in poem 16 he prefers to have space between them in the form of silence.
span365
posted by Serena at 4:46 PM
1 Comments:
Serena, I like this entry a lot. And I think you're right that often Neruda's addressing (or "forging") a series of fragments, rather than a whole woman. Or a woman who's lacking in some way, whom he needs to be lacking: both lacking a tongue, but also as though only this lack can inspire his desire ("amo lo que no tengo" [102]).
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