Pablo Neruda: An adulator of aesthetics

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was the pseudonym of the Chilean poet and diplomat Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Pablo Neruda picked up his penname while he was a teenager, partially because it was a trend during that time, while another reason was to conceal his poetry from his father, a conservative man who always wanted his son to get into a practical profession. Pablo Neruda admitted in his autobiography that he derived his last name 'Neruda' from Czech writer and poet Jan Neruda while 'Pablo' is generally presumed to be taken from Paul Verlaine, a major French poet of 19th century. Pablo Neruda is viewed as one of the most magnificent poets of 20th century. His poems have been so far translated into more than 50 languages worldwide and his poetry is taught in a good number of academic institutions in different countries.

Pablo Neruda implemented a diversity of styles ranging from erotically vibrant love poems like his collections 'Twenty Poems of Love' and 'A Song of Despair', surrealist poems to historical verses and very sharp political discourses. In 1971 Pablo Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the best-known Colombian novelist once applauded Pablo Neruda as "the greatest poet of the 20thcentury in any language."

During his lifetime, Neruda represented the Chilean government as a diplomat in different countries such as France, Mexico, Spain, Russia, Burma, Singapore, Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka) and so on. Later on he was elected a senator for the Chilean Communist Party as well. When Conservative Chilean President González Videla imposed an embargo on communism in Chile, the law-enforcing agencies were looking for Pablo Neruda to arrest him. Neruda managed to duck out of the vigilance of the hostile Chilean government authorities and moved away to Argentina where he lived for a few years in exile. A couple of years later Pablo Neruda returned to Chile and became a very intimate ally to the socialist Chilean President Salvador Allende. Salvador Allende was allegedly killed by the Chilean Army in a blood-spilling military coup in 1973, which was a very big tragedy in Pablo Neruda's life.

During his diplomatic career, Pablo Neruda came across iconic political figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and Joseph Stalin. Moreover, he met famous poets, authors and painters like Federico Garcia Lorca, Miguel Hernandez, Nazim Hikmet, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pablo Picasso.

Pablo Neruda was profoundly influenced by the beautiful natural environment of Chile in the middle of which he grew up. He wrote in his autobiography, " Under the volcanoes, beside the snow-capped mountains, among the huge lakes, the fragrant, the silent, the tangled Chilean forest........the wild scent of the laurel, the dark scent of the boldo herb enter my nostrils and flood my whole being........the barely audible cry of some bewildered animal far off..........the piercing interruption of a hidden bird. Anyone who hasn't been in the Chilean forest doesn't know this planet. I have come out of that landscape, that mud, that silence, to roam, to go singing through the world." The above lines expose what a deep attachment Pablo Neruda developed with the jungles, animals and birds of Chile while he was a young man. He reflected his love for his country and its natural grandeur in a good number of his poems.

One of the poets of 20th century that Pablo Neruda respected most was Turkey's Nazim Hikmet. Nazim Hikmet was met by Neruda in Russia. Nazim Hikmet was a revolutionary who had been imprisoned for many years for rebelling against the autocratic Turkish government of that time. Pablo Neruda was impressed by the optimism he found in Nazim Hikmet's words which are as follows, "I believe in the future of poetry. I believe, because I am living in the country where the soul craves poetry more than anything else." The idea of seeking hope through verses seemed very striking to Pablo Neruda. Another great poet that he met in Spain was Federico Garcia Lorca. Federico Garcia Lorca touched the hearts of common Spaniards during the Spanish Civil War with his glaring poems written for his comrades who were fighting at that time to constitute democracy and equity in Spain.  Pablo Neruda dedicated his life to poetry. He sought to look for the meaning of life through his verses. He lived for his poems and his poems had all along emboldened his spirit to move forward. In his poetry, he endeavored to penetrate the silence and sounds of nature through which forests, rivers, birds and clouds communicate with mankind in an ethereal way and these things enhanced the aesthetic value of his poems.

 Pablo Neruda was placed in a hospital with cancer during the Chilean military coup spearheaded by General Augusto Pinochet. Three days after being hospitalized, Neruda died of a cardiac arrest. His death shocked innumerable readers and admirers across the world. Pinochet had denied permission to transform Neruda's funeral into a public event. However, thousands of aggrieved Chileans ignored the curfew and thronged the streets. Pablo Neruda's funeral turned out to be the first mass protest against the Chilean military dictatorship during that time.

 Pablo Neruda traveled around the world like a mesmeric minstrel, enticing everyone that came closer to him with his magical verses. On top of writing poems about love and nature, he focused on humanism as well with his superbly adorned words. He made valiant efforts to liberate repressed humanity from the chains of tyranny and deprivation and this is how he became a poet for the people. Pablo Neruda passed away long back, but the unalloyed love and devotion of his readers across the world have made him immortal.

The author is a columnist for The Asian Age. He can be reached at [email protected]