{"id":12,"date":"2023-01-29T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-29T23:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogjuliat\/?p=12"},"modified":"2023-01-29T16:15:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-29T23:15:00","slug":"week-4-twenty-love-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogjuliat\/2023\/01\/29\/week-4-twenty-love-poems\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 4 – Twenty Love Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

This collection of poetry was quite intriguing to me. Some poems were more abstract than others and had me having to re-read them to fully understand what Neruda was saying, but I enjoyed the themes of love and longing that were present throughout.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One theme I picked up on, aside from the obvious theme of love, was Neruda\u2019s use of nature and natural elements (wind, fields, the sun, etc) when describing love and his feelings of romance. I think the use of natural imagery to describe such intense feelings really helps to paint a picture in the reader\u2019s head of how these emotions make Neruda feel, to sort of echo the experiences he is describing. The intensity of Neruda\u2019s writing is increased by this use of nature, as his comparisons of his lover to different natural events are more than just words, but describe scenes that affect all the senses; Neruda describes aspects of love with sounds, visuals, and things you can almost feel in your body as you read.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of my favourite uses of nature is in \u201cThe Morning is Full,\u201d where Neruda beautifully paints a vivid picture of the morning. The clouds are \u201cwhite handkerchiefs of goodbye\u201d, that travel in the hand of the wind; a cloudy, windy morning could have been described in many mundane ways, but Neruda draws you into his poetry by taking a more interesting route.<\/span><\/p>\n

From this week\u2019s lecture, I wanted to expand on how Neruda\u2019s view of the female sometimes transforms from beautiful to objectification. While some poems had me overcome with feelings of romance, others had me unable to connect with Neruda\u2019s emotional goals because of how much his female lover began to sound like a stoic statue, an object rather than a sentient being.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I think this pairs with Neruda\u2019s frequent use of silence, most often when his female love is the silent one, in one instance \u201clying in surrender,\u201d or equating a woman to a \u201ctoy doll.\u201d These instances make it seem that Neruda views his lover as less of a person, and more of something he can use for satisfaction. Even if not this direct, Neruda frequently refers to the body parts of the woman he loves more than any intellectual or emotional facets of her. At some point I think it is worth deconstructing these poems and separating them from a label of \u2018love poetry\u2019 and look at the beliefs they reflect.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps I am reading too far into these poems, but I do think there is something to be said for poems about \u2018love\u2019 that focus a lot on superficial aspects. I enjoyed many of these poems, but at moments struggled to enjoy the entire collection knowing how Neruda viewed women and seeing how his beliefs came through in his craft.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A question: Is there a particular use of nature in these poems that stands out to you? What does it make you feel?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This collection of poetry was quite intriguing to me. Some poems were more abstract than others and had me having…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,7,9,8,6],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-emotions","tag-love","tag-nature","tag-neruda","tag-romance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogjuliat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogjuliat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogjuliat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogjuliat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogjuliat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogjuliat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogjuliat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/13"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogjuliat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogjuliat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312blogjuliat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}