| SPECIAL
REPORTS: LITERATURE - CHILE |
|
Saturday 27
September 2003
|
|
|
Neruda,
Eternal Poet
Gustavo
González
SANTIAGO, (IPS) - In the wake of the
tributes to former Chilean president
Salvador Allende marking the 30 years
since his death in the military coup
of Sep. 11, 1973, the country -- and
admirers around the world -- now pay
homage to Pablo Neruda, the eternal
poet, who also died three decades ago.
Neruda, winner of the Nobel Prize for
literature in 1971, died of cancer the
evening of Sep. 23, 1973 in the Santa
María Clinic of Santiago.
Two days later, his funeral took place
surrounded by military machine guns,
but nonetheless it turned into the
first act of rebellion and public
denunciation against Gen. Augusto
Pinochet, whose dictatorship lasted
until 1990.
Beyond the emotional and heartrending
political circumstances that
surrounded his death and funeral,
Neruda has a place in history as one
of the great -- if not the greatest --
20th century poets in the Spanish
language.
The tribute events, which began Jul.
12 on what would have been the poet's
99th birthday, culminated Sep. 23,
with a special ceremony at the
museum-house on Isla Negra, 100 km
west of Santiago, led by President
Ricardo Lagos.
It was from their residence on Isla
Negra, raided by the military, that
Matilde Urrutia took her husband Pablo
and moved him to Santiago. The poet's
health had collapsed as a result of
prostate cancer, which had worsened as
a result of the emotional impact of
the coup against Allende.
The funeral vigil for Neruda was held
at La Chascona, another of the poet's
homes, in the bohemian neighbourhood
of Bellavista in the foothills of San
Cristobal mountain. That event was
also ruined by the military, which
diverted the water from a nearby
stream to flood out the house.
Now, 30 years later, La Chascona is
the scenario of an eight-hour marathon
of poetry dedicated to Neruda, a
militant communist, exquisite chef,
and collector of figureheads, shells
and exotic pieces.
The 12 young poets who are part of the
poetry workshop in La Sebastiana,
Neruda's house on a cliff in Valparaíso,
gave a reading in honour of the
maestro on Sep. 23.
These and many other events are
organised by the Neruda Foundation and
by a special commission established by
President Lagos for next year, when
the poet would have reached his
hundredth birthday, born Jul. 12,
1904, in Parral, 340 km south of
Santiago.
In 1971, Neruda became the second
Chilean to win the Nobel Prize for
Literature, 26 years after Gabriela
Mistral, also a poet, received the
award.
His works -- poetry, prose and essays
-- continue to be re-edited,
translated and studied around the
world.
”Neruda represents one of the
highest summits of poetry in the 20th
century at the universal level,”
literary critic and university
professor Patricia Espinosa told IPS.
”Although I cannot ignore authors
like (Nicaraguan) Rubén Darío,
(Peruvian) César Vallejo, (Chileans)
Vicente Huidobro, Gabriela Mistral and
Nicanor Parra, (Spain's) Federico García
Lorca and (Mexican) Octavio Paz, I do
recognise Neruda as the greatest Ibero-American
poet of the 20th century,” she
added.
Is there an over-appreciation of
Neruda because of the circumstances
surrounding his death? Does this
contribute to his continued fame 30
years after his death?
According to Espinosa, ”Neruda's
validity is not just related to the
ideological aspects of his poetry.
Critics in general have agreed that
his openly political texts are the
weakest.”
”His oeuvre can be categorised as
the great emergence of metaphysical
thinking of the Latin American, the
identity and condition of the mestizo
(mixed race). Themes that today remain
in the discussions of what are known
as post-colonial studies,” she
added.
The 1973 coup accelerated the disease
that killed Neruda, said Espinosa,
noting that the right-wing daily La
Tercera published the notice of his
death ”in a small note in the middle
of an enormous report on book burning
in Santiago during the days following
the fall of the Allende government.”
The love poems that Neruda wrote,
beginning with ”Crepusculario”,
his first book, published in 1923, are
true classics. ”The conservative
critic Harold Bloom ranks him with
(Miguel de) Cervantes and (William)
Shakespeare,” she said.
Literary experts agree that the poet's
defining work was ”Canto General”,
an extensive work about the Americas
that he wrote while living in
clandestinity in 1948 and 1949, when
he was persecuted by the government of
Gabriel González Videla (1948-1952),
which banned the Communist Party, for
which Neruda had been elected senator.
”Neruda's fundamental work is 'Canto
General'. A text that could be an
epic, but today can be read as a map
of Latin America, with all of its
contradictions and hybridisations,”
said Espinos
Email
this page to a Friend
|
|
|
|
|
