Neruda's Explosive Passion

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Pablo Neruda’s “One Hundred Love Sonnets (V)” is an elegantly constructed poem for his devoted lover, Matilde Urrutia. His vivid imagery evokes a tranquil and at times explosive scene to illustrate his love for his third wife. Pablo Neruda, born Neftalî Ricardo Reyes Basoalto was a writer, politician, activist, and Nobel Prize winner. Once called “the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language” by novelist Gabriel Garcîa Mârquez, Neruda is known for his imagery and beautiful language.

In Sonnet Five of One Hundred Love Sonnets, translator Stephen Tapscott carefully reconstructed Neruda’s poem which was originally written in Spanish. Even with an unconventional rhyme scheme, Neruda creates a rhythm and unique style. Although initially the meter of the poem may seem awkward, after reading the poem a few times, Neruda’s rhythm is clearly deliberate. Phrases such as “touching your hips” and “remembering your mouth” incorporate sensual and provocative undertones. “ One Hundred Love Sonnets (V)” is a fusion of simple yet sensory rousing diction and song like meter.

In the first stanza, the speaker describes a natural scene in which the subject takes on earthly characteristics. The repetition of “sweet” introduces the speaker’s loving tone toward his subject, as well as the possible distance there is between them through his admittance he “did not touch” her night, air, or dawn. The first stanza serves to introduce the admiring tone of the speaker, and his soft and delicate speaking style.

In the second stanza the speaker includes specific locations and memories. Perhaps when the speaker says the subject of the poem’s “eyes” began in Quinchimalí, she was born there, or in some way their journey together began there. The bond between the two lovers is clear when he proclaims the Frontera is where her “feet were made for [him].” This line’s meaning is not immediately clear, but the literal interpretation is not important. Rather, it is the beauty behind the thought that perhaps one human is in some way molded from a “dark familiar clay” for another. The speaker associates his lover with the earth as he calls her his “dark familiar clay.” Since Neruda was from Chile it is likely that whoever his love was, she had a darker skin tone. Yet, the more important part of this description lies in the familiar nature of this clay. As the poem continues the chronology of the two lovers’ relationship is convoluted; therefore, the familiarity of this woman is crucial to the poem. Even touching the woman, the speaker is reminded of another memory, one that takes him back to wheat fields. Were the two lovers together in another time and place? Perhaps the lovers have been apart or separated somehow and the mere feel of the woman’s hips reignites the flame that has always remained between them.

In the third stanza the speaker addresses his lover more demonstratively. In the second line he proposes that perhaps she did not know how before he loved her, “[he] forgot [her] kisses.” This line is puzzling and almost does not make sense. How could a man forget a woman’s kiss before he even loved her? The chronology appears to be backwards. Perhaps they were lovers in another life? Even before he had loved her, the memories of their past together in some other time had faded away. Yet, in the next line there is a transition in the speaker’s tone. He now remembers her mouth and kisses and persists on “like a man wounded.”

In the fourth and final stanza, the speaker comes to a conclusion and understanding of Love. The very thing he has felt and tried to describe throughout his entire speech. He finally arrives at his destination: “a land of kisses and volcanoes.” More obviously, the “volcanoes” can describe the anatomy of his lover. Yet, the juxtaposition of the words kisses and volcanoes offers a deeper definition and true feel of love. For the speaker, Love is tender as kisses, yet as emotionally explosive and passionate as a volcano. The mix of soft sensuous kisses and the heat and destruction of a volatile volcano serve to perfectly describe the speaker’s quest and arrival at Love.

NAAIP

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