BEG DSE 02 Block 04

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This material has been designed and developed by the Department of

English of Odisha State Open University. Part of the material used in
this block is taken from Open Educational Resources (OER), the
reference of which has been acknowledged in the “Important References
and Links section” at the end of the block.
DISCIPLINE SPECIFIC ELECTIVE
COURSE-II
DSE-II
World Literature
Block-4
Poems By Pablo Neruda And Octavio Paz
Unit-1 Latin American Poet; Pablo Neruda
Unit-2 Tonight I Can Write: Poem
Unit-3 Every Day You Play…
Unit-4 Octavio Paz
Unit-5 Between Going and Staying The Days, Wavers
Unit-6 Motion
UNIT-1 LATIN AMERICAN POET; PABLO NERUDA
Structure
1.0 Objective
1.1 Introduction
1.2 About the writer; Pablo Neruda
1.2.1 Childhood and Education
1.3 Early work, Santiago, and Consulship (1923-1935)
1.4 War, The Senate, and Arrest warrant (1936-1950)
1.5 International acclaim and The Nobel Prize (1951-1971)
1.5.1 Literary Style and Themes
1.5.2 Death
1.6 Let us sum up
1.7 Check your progress
1.0 OBJECTIVE
After going through this unit, the learner will be able to:
 Have an extensive knowledge about Neruda, his life and his works.
 Know about Pablo Neruda’s literary style.
 Have a broader outlook about his Consulship
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda had one of those existences that do justice to life. He got a
taste of happiness and love, of justice and heroism, as well as bitterness, sadness and
exile. His pseudonym, borrowed from Czech poet Jan Neruda and French poet Paul
Verlaine went down in history as that of the greatest of all contemporary South
American poets, the rightful heir of Ruben Darío. Born in the city of Parral, and
baptised Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (Neftalí after his mother who died
two months after his birth) Neruda was born in 1904. Brought up in Temuco, the boy
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who would become el poeta-del-pueblo (the people’s poet) felt the pull of writing from
a young age and it proved that his ambition was matched by a prodigious talent when
his poem Enthusiasm and Perseverance was published in 1917.
1.2 ABOUT THE WRITER; PABLO NERUDA
Pablo Neruda was born in the tiny village of Parral, Chile, on July 12, 1904, under the
name Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto. His father, José Reyes Morales, was a
railway worker, and his mother, Rosa Basoalto, was a teacher. Rosa died of
tuberculosis on September 14, 1904, when Neruda was just a couple of months old.
In 1906, Neruda’s father remarried Trinidad Candia Malverde and settled down in a
small house in Temuco, Chile, with Neruda and his illegitimate older half-brother
Rodolfo. José had another affair that resulted in the birth of Neruda’s beloved half-
sister, Laurita, whom José and Trinidad raised. Neruda also loved his stepmother
dearly.
Neruda entered the Boys’ Lyceum in Temuco in 1910. As a young boy, he was very
skinny and terrible at sports, so he often went for walks and read Jules Verne. In the
summers, the family would head to Puerto Saavedra on the cooler coast, where he
developed a love for the ocean. The library in Puerto Saavedra was run by the liberal
poet Augusto Winter, who introduced Neruda to Ibsen, Cervantes, and Baudelaire
before he turned ten.
Neruda wrote his first poem before his 11th birthday, on June 30, 1915, which he
dedicated to his stepmother. His first publication was in July 1917, a newspaper article
on persevering in the pursuit of dreams, published in the daily La Mañana. In 1918,
he published several poems in the Santiago-based magazine Corre-Vuela; later he
called these early works “execrable.” In 1919, the future Nobel laureate Gabriela
Mistral arrived in Temuco to lead the girls’ school. She gave Neruda Russian novels
to read and became a major influence on his work. Neruda began winning local poetry
competitions, but his father didn’t support such a fanciful path for his son and threw
his notebooks out the window. In response to this, in 1920 the boy began writing under
the pen name that would make him famous, Pablo Neruda.
In 1921, Neruda began studying to become a French teacher at the Pedagogical

Institute in Santiago. However, his grades were poor, as he spent most of his time
listening to radical speakers at the Students’ Federation. He wrote for the Claridad
student newspaper and developed friendships with other literary-minded students,
including the young poet Pablo de Rokha, who would become a bitter rival of
Neruda’s.
1.2.1 Childhood and Education
At the age of twenty, in between his studies of French and Pedagogy at the University
of Chile in Santiago, Neruda would write his most celebrated work: Twenty Love
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Poems and a Song of Despair. There was a tradition in South America of honouring
poets and writers with diplomatic charges, a tradition that would follow on to Neruda.
He travelled to Asia and Europe before returning to South America in 1933 to Buenos
Aires, where he met the extraordinary Spanish poet Garcia Lorca.
Neruda’s literary breakthrough is considered to have taken place the same year with
Residence on Earth which he wrote in green ink, the colour of hope in Hispanic
culture. And hope he would need in Spain, where he was left raging by the death of
friend Lorca and inspired by the sentiment awoken in him by the struggles of the
Republican side during the Civil War. His response was to write an ode to resistance
and valour, Spain In My Heart, which was distributed on the battle front for the
soldiers. Neruda remains one of Spain’s most beloved authors and his literary legacy
today stands alongside the country’s native greats.
After helping resettle Spanish Republican refugees in North and South America, and
a first broken marriage, in 1938 the poet returned to his homeland where he would be
made consul for Spanish emigration in Paris and later, Consul General in Mexico.
Neruda grew both literarily and politically during this time and married his second
wife Delia de Carril in 1943, before being chosen as a senator for the Communist party
in Chile in 1945.
By this time Neruda had been awarded the National Prize of Literature and held a
position as a cultural and political authority in Chile. However, in 1947, the
government forced the exile of many leftists and Neruda found himself unwelcome in
the country that had previously bestowed honours on him. He fled with his verb and
his verses, hiding for two years from basement to basement, from darkness to
darkness. He was a man who thought like very few, used his words for the pleasure of
very many, and put them down in his unique voice:
Someday, somewhere – anywhere, unfailingly, you’ll find yourself, and that, and only
that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.
From ship to plane, and car to train, Neruda’s life went by in between encounters and
places which he gathered and immortalized in his poems. Fascinated not just by Chile
but by South America as a whole, he would write General Song, published in Mexico
in 1950, it being the culmination of twelve years of work; two hundred and thirty-one
poems honouring the South American continent in the form of epic poetry, whose
topic and treatment could evoke Walt Whitman, the poet from whom he admitted
having taken more from than any other. He also tried to examine South America’s
position form a Marxist point of view, where the class struggle would torment him.
This not only remains internationally recognised as an extremely ambitious piece in
its field, but also brought the International Peace Prize.
The wings of freedom took Neruda back to Chile again in 1952 with the withdrawal
of the official order to arrest leftists. He went on to follow a literary career that brought
him more success and recognition. With a host of prizes on his shelf, he would write
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his outstanding works Estravagario in 1958 and One Hundred Love Sonnets in 1959,
especially dedicated to his third wife, Matilde Urrutia.
In over three thousand pages of anthology, Neruda talked about love and eroticism,
about nature and its creatures, about the people and places of his life, about social
justice, and about the sea. He did not like planes, he loved the ground, the land, the
origin in which he felt comfortable and safe, and the boats going in and out of port,
bringing stories from a far-away land or sailing to exotic destinations.
In 1964, a sixty-year-old señor Neruda would publish ‘Memorial of Isla Negra’, his
poetic autobiography, anticipating his last years of life, and was made Doctor Honoris
Causa by the University of Oxford. However, the greatest recognition to his genius
was yet to come: the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971 was awarded to the author of
whom critic Harold Bloom said that “no western poet could be compared to him”.
At the time, a man who had seen the immense struggle for a decent life in South
America and social justice in Chile continued to fight for his beliefs as he always had
done. The last major event Neruda witnessed was Chile’s Coup d’État and the murder
of president Allende in the presidential palace La Moneda, which would aggravate
Neruda’s severe cancer. On the 23rd of September 1973, Pablo Neruda breathed for
the last time, as poetic in death as he was in life: his memoirs, I confess that I have
lived, were published in 1974.
In a heartbroken Chile, where the newly imposed dictatorial government banned once
again the poet from being honoured by his people, a Santiago full of tears defied the
curfew and went on parade to give Pablo their last goodbye.
“Love is so short and forgetting so long” so, on the thirty seventh anniversary of his
death we remember him as a South American legend.
1.3 EARLY WORK, SANTIAGO, AND CONSULSHIP (1923-1935)
Neruda compiled some of his adolescent poems and some of his more mature work
into Crepusculario (Twilight) in 1923. The collection was sexually explicit, romantic,
and modern all at once. Critics had favourable reviews, but Neruda wasn’t satisfied,
saying, “Looking for more unpretentious qualities, for the harmony of my own world,
I began to write another book.”
Neruda published Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair in 1924, when he was
20 years old. The collection was considered scandalous for its explicit sexuality, but
remains one of Neruda’s most popular and translated collections. Overnight, he
became a literary darling and the public was fascinated. For years after publication of
his collection of poems, readers wanted to know who the poems were about. Neruda
would not say, claiming that many of the poems were about southern Chile itself, but
posthumous letters revealed that many of the poems were about Neruda’s young loves,
Teresa Vázquez and Albertina Azócar.
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Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair gained a lot of traction for Neruda, but
also many enemies. Vicente Huidobro claimed that Neruda’s Poem 16 was plagiarized
from Rabindranath Tagore’s The Gardener; the poems both began quite similarly, but
Neruda denied the charges. Huidobro repeated this claim for the rest of his life, even
after the International Association of Writers in Defence of Culture asked the pair to
settle their feud in 1937.
While critics and international readers alike fawned over Neruda, his father remained
dismissive of Neruda’s career choice and refused to finance him. Despite numerous
fights and a avour diet, Neruda published Tentativa del hombre infinito (Endeavor of
the Infinite Man) in 1926. While critics were unimpressed, Neruda maintained that
they did not understand the collection. Later that year, Neruda published his first foray
into prose, a dark and dreamy novella called El habitante y su esperanza (The
Inhabitant and His Hope). These collections did not bring prosperity, and Neruda
remained poor, but he read and wrote all the time instead of looking for more
traditional work. He wrote another collection, Anillos (Rings), in 1926 with his friend
Tomás Lago. Rings took on a new prose poetry style and moved between
expressionism and impressionism.
Discouraged by unsustainable poverty, Neruda sought a consular posting at the

Foreign Ministry. On the strength of his poetic reputation, he received a posting in
Rangoon, Myanmar, in 1927. He found Rangoon generally isolating, but that’s where
he met Marie Antoinette Hagenaar Vogelzang, whom he married in 1930. Neruda
transferred to Buenos Aires in 1933 and then the couple moved onto Madrid that same
year. Also in 1933, Neruda published Residencia en la tierra (Residence on Earth),
though he had been working on the collection since 1925. Residence is widely
considered one of the greatest Spanish language collections ever written; its surrealist
simplicity moved away from only the sexual into a growing fascination with the
mortal.
In 1934, Maria gave birth to Neruda’s only daughter, Malva Marina Reyes Hagenaar,
who was born with hydrocephalus. Neruda began his acquaintance with the painter
Delia Del Carril around this time and moved in with her in 1936.
In Spain in 1935, Neruda started a literary review with his friend Manuel Altolaguirre
and began writing one of his most ambitious and masterful collections, Canto general
(General Song). But the Spanish Civil War interrupted his work.
1.4 WAR, THE SENATE, AND ARREST WARRANT (1936-1950)
The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 turned Neruda more concretely towards
politics. He became more vocal about his communist views and wrote of the
devastation on the front, including the execution of his friend, Spanish poet Federico
García Lorca, in his collection España en el corazón (Spain in our hearts). His explicit
stance made him unfit for his diplomatic post, so he was recalled in 1937. Neruda
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travelled to Paris, despite his trepidation for the literary city, before returning to Chile
in 1938.
While in Chile, Neruda started the Alliance of Intellectuals of Chile for the Defence
of Culture, an anti-fascist group. He became consul to Mexico in 1939, where he wrote
until returning to Chile in 1944. Neruda married Delia in 1943. That same year, his
daughter Malva passed away. While he was not a present father, he felt a lot of grief
at her death, writing “Oda con un avour” (“Ode with a lament”) for her, which opens:
“Oh child among the roses, oh press of doves, / oh presidio of fish and rose bushes, /
your soul is a bottle of dried salts / and a bell filled with grapes, your skin. /
Unfortunately, I’ve nothing to give you but fingernails / or eyelashes, or melted
pianos.”
In 1944, Neruda won a Senate seat as part of the Chilean Communist Party. One of
his key political missions was to decrease the influence of the United States in Chile
and all Latin America. In 1947, he was granted a leave of absence from the Senate to
focus more fully on writing General Song. Yet Neruda remained politically active,
writing letters critical of Chilean President Gabriel González Videla, and a warrant
was issued for his arrest in 1948. Neruda moved underground before fleeing to Europe
in 1949, where he could write more publicly. While on the run with his family, he
began his affair with Matilde Urrutia, who inspired many of his most tender verses.
Neruda finished the 15-part General Song while in hiding, and the collection was
published in Mexico in 1950. The epic 250-poem cycle examines the arc of man’s
struggle in Latin America through time, from natives to conquistadors to miners,
exploring the ways people are united across centuries. One of the most anti-imperialist,
anti-capitalist poems in the collection, “The United Fruit Co.,” says, “When the
trumpet sounded, everything / on earth was prepared / and Jehovah distributed the
world / to Coca Cola Inc., Anaconda, / Ford Motors, and other entities.”
Neruda had long been a vocal communist and supporter of the Soviet Union and
Joseph Stalin, but his acceptance of the Stalin Prize in 1950 was criticized as
diminishing his chances of appealing to a broader international audience and of
winning a Nobel. After General Song, Neruda was nominated for the Nobel numerous
times before he won, a delay which many scholars suggest was due to the Stalin Prize
and Neruda’s communism. In 1953, Neruda doubled down and accepted the Lenin
Peace Prize.
1.5 INTERNATIONAL ACCLAIM AND THE NOBEL PRIZE (1951-1971)
The warrant against Neruda was dropped in 1952 and he was able to return to Chile.
While in exile, he had written the collection Las Uvas y el Viento (Grapes and the
Wind), which was published in 1954. He published Odas elementales (Odes to
Common Things) over the course of five years, starting in 1954, which marked a turn
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in Neruda’s work away from daily political events to larger historical narratives and
the mysticism of quotidian objects.
In 1955, Neruda divorced Delia and married Matilde. He continued to have affairs but
dedicated many of the poems in his 1959 collection Cien sonetos de amor (One
Hundred Love Sonnets) to Matilde. In 1964, Neruda published a commemorative
autobiographical collection, Memorial de Isla Negra (Isla Negra Memorial), for his
60th birthday.
Following the international success of General Song, Neruda toured New York in
1966, yet did not soften his stance against American imperialism on the trip; he was
still received very avour bly. Between 1966 and 1970, he wrote a further six
collections of poetry and a play. Neruda ran for the presidency in 1970 with the
Communist Party, but dropped out in avour of his friend Salvador Allende Gossens,
who ran as a socialist. When Allende won, he appointed Neruda as ambassador to
Paris.
Neruda was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971 “for a poetry that with the
action of an elemental force brings alive a continent’s destiny and dreams.” Yet the
Nobel committee recognized that this award was contentious, and called Neruda “a
contentious author who is not only debated but for many is also debatable.”
1.5.1 Literary Style and Themes
Neruda avoided as much as possible the florid Spanish poetry of the 19th century,
centring instead on clear and honest poems. He found the classical form of the ode
productive, yet avoided a classical elevated style.
Among his many varied influences, he counted the modernist Nicaraguan poet Rubén
Darío and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s mystery novels. Neruda also cited Walt Whitman
as a key role model.
While the conviction of his Spanish is inexorable, Neruda took a much more flexible
attitude towards translations. Often he would have multiple translators working
simultaneously on the same poem.
1.5.2 Death
In February 1972, Neruda resigned from his ambassadorship, citing poor health, and
returned to Chile. In July 1973, he underwent surgery to combat prostate cancer. In
September, a military coup ousted Neruda’s friend Allende, and two weeks later,
Neruda died during a hospital stay, on September 23, 1973, in Santiago, Chile.
While his death certificate states the cause of death as a cancer-related heart collapse,
recent forensic evidence and testimony suggest that he may have been assassinated.
Neruda’s body was exhumed in 2013 and forensic morticians found samples of lethal
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bacteria. Doctors now suspect infection as the cause of death, however, whether this
was intentional or accidental remains unclear. The Chilean government has not
admitted or denied a part in Neruda’s death. In 2016, an anti-biopic called Neruda,
directed by Pablo Larraín, was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to critical
acclaim.
A move by the Chilean Senate to rename the Santiago airport after Neruda in 2018
was met with resistance by feminists, who cited Neruda’s admitted rape in Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka). The famous Chilean writer Isabel Allende said in response that, “like
many young feminists in Chile, I am disgusted by some aspects of Neruda’s life and
personality. However, we cannot dismiss his writing.”
1.6 LET US SUM UP
Gabriel García Márquez famously called Neruda “the greatest poet of the 20th
century—in any language.” His poetry is one of the most widely translated and has
been published in dozens of languages, including Yiddish and Latin. However, most
of his poems remain available only in Spanish; their complexity and difficulty mean
that only a small portion is considered translatable at all. The Poetry of Pablo Neruda
was a mammoth collaboration in 2003 that saw 600 of Neruda’s poems published in
English for the first time.
1.7 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1. Write a short note on Pablo Neruda and his life and legacy.
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2. What literary themes and styles did Neruda follow?
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3. What is Pablo’s story of Santiago and hi Consulship there?
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UNIT-2 TONIGHT I CAN WRITE: POEM
Structure
2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Tonight I Can Write; The Text
2.2.1 Original Text
2.3 Summary
2.4 Themes
2.5 Historical Context
2.6 Let us sum up
2.0 OBJECTIVE
After going through this unit, the learners will be able to:
 Learn about the poem “Tonight I can write”, understand its themes and style.
 Analyse Neruda’s grief through this poem.
 Learn about the tragic reality of life through this poem.
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Tonight I Can Write" was included in Pablo Neruda's Veinte poemas de amor-y -una
cancion desesperada, a collection of poems released in 1924. W. S. Merwin published
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair in 1969, which was a translation of the
book. The anthology became a successful seller and was translated into other
languages, despite the fact that several critics were horrified by the frank eroticism in
the poetry. The poems follow a love narrative from attraction to passion to separation.
The penultimate poem in the poetic cycle, "Tonight I Can Write," portrays the
speaker's grief at his lover's death. The bittersweet mood evokes their passionate
romance, as well as his realisation that "loving is so fleeting, forgetting is so long.
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2.2 TONIGHT I CAN WRITE; THE TEXT
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, “The night is starry
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.”
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
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My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
2.2.1 Original Text
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: “La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos”.
El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.
En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.
Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.
Oir la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
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Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.
Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.
Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.
La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos
árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.
De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.
Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis
brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.
2.3 SUMMARY
In the first sentence, the notion of remoteness is introduced. When the speaker tells
the reader something, Viking Penguin released all of the poetry in Twenty Love Poems
and a Song of Despair on cassette in 1996.
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“Tonight I can write the saddest lines,” he says, implying that he previously couldn't.
We find later that his grief over a long-lost girlfriend has kept him from writing about
their relationship and its end. The speaker's failure to come to terms with his current
isolated status is demonstrated by his repeated juxtaposition of past and present. The
speaker's emotions are sincere, and Neruda's language, as in the rest of the poem, is
basic and to the point. In the second and third lines, he mentions the stars shivering
"in the distance," emphasising the sensation of distance. These lines also include
pictures of nature, which will serve as a primary link between his past and present.
The speaker ponders the natural world, focusing on those features that remind him of
his lost love and their relationship's cosmic nature. He starts writing late at night, when
the darkness matches his mood. He finds no solace in the night sky, which he describes
as "blue and shivering." Their physical separation from him emphasises his isolation.
He can, however, appreciate the night wind, which "sings" in the same way that his
lyrics will, describing the woman he adores.
Lines 5–10
In the fifth stanza, Neruda repeats the opening line and adds a statement of the
speaker's love for an unknown woman. Thematic cohesiveness is achieved through
Neruda's use of staggered repetitions throughout the poem. "Sometimes she loved me
too," the speaker acknowledges, introducing the first element of their connection and
pointing to a possible reason for its destruction. He then recalls “nights like this one”
when he was with her. The juxtaposition of previous nights with this night illustrates
the shift that has occurred, increasing his sense of isolation. Neruda connects the
speaker's lover with nature in this section, a tactic he'll utilise throughout the poem to
describe their passionate relationship. The speaker recalls kissing his sweetheart "over
and again under the infinite sky" in the eighth line—a sky as everlasting as their
romance, he had hoped. When the speaker says, "She loved me, sometimes I loved her
too," it's an ironic reversal of line six. At this moment, the speaker could be making a
sarcastic observation on love's fickle nature. However, the subsequent beautiful,
bittersweet sentences show that he is attempting to separate himself from the memories
of his love for her in order to alleviate his suffering. "How could one not have adored
her great still eyes," he acknowledges in the following phrase, immediately
contradicting himself. The contrasts in the poem create a tension that symbolises the
speaker's desperate attempts to forget the past.
Lines 11–14
Neruda repeats his opening sentence in line eleven, which becomes a sorrowful
refrain. The speaker's struggle to maintain distance, to convince himself that enough
time has passed for him to have the strength to think about his lost love, can be seen
in the repetition of that statement. These lines, though, are "the saddest." He can't seem
to get away from the agony of remembering. "To think that I don't have her" becomes
almost painful. I'm afraid I've lost her." "The huge night, even more immense without
her," he says, adds to his loneliness. Yet, "like dew to the meadow," the poetry he
writes serves to restore his soul.
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Lines 15–18
The speaker refuses to assess their relationship in line fifteen. What matters to him is
that "the night is starry, and she is not beside me," as she was on comparable starry
nights in the past. "This is all" is now his focal point. When the speaker hears someone
singing in the distant and repeats the phrase "in the distance," he emphasises his
isolation. There isn't a single song being sung to him. "My soul is not pleased," he says
as a result.
Lines 19–26
The speaker conveys his desire to be reunited with his love in these remarks. His eyes
and heart search for her, but "she is not with me," he says. He recalls how similar this
night is to the ones they spent together previously. Nonetheless, he recognises that
they "are no longer the same." In an effort to ease his agony, he declares that he no
longer loves her, "that's definite," but acknowledges that he did in the past. He reveals
that he "tried to find the wind to touch her hearing" but failed, tying their relationship
to nature once more. He must now accept that "she will be another's." He recalls her
"brilliant" physique, which he knows will be touched by others, as well as her
"infinite" beauty.
Lines 27–32
"I no longer love her, that's certain," the speaker repeats, but then contradicts himself,
revealing his dishonesty when he adds, "but maybe I love her." "Love is so short,
forgetting is so long," he continues, a world-weary tone of resignation in his voice.
His poem has devolved into a torturous exercise in forgetfulness. He explains in line
twenty-nine that he cannot forget this night since it is so similar to the nights in his
recollection when he held her in his arms. "My soul is not pleased," he says again.
However, in the final two lines, the speaker is adamant about erasing her memory and
thereby relieving his agony, stating that his verses (this poem) will be "the last verses
that will ever be written."
2.4 THEMES
Memory and Reminiscence
"Tonight I Can Write" is a poem on the pain that memories of a lost love can bring.
The speaker recalls the circumstances of a now-broken relationship throughout the
poem. He constantly juxtaposes pictures of his past enthusiasm for the woman he
loved with images of his current loneliness. He's moved on from the relationship and
admits, "tonight I can write the saddest sentences," implying that the grief he felt after
losing his partner had previously stopped him from recalling or describing it. He can
now write about their love and find consolation in "the verse [that] falls to the soul
like dew to the pasture," despite the grief that had before hampered his creative talents.
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Love and Passion
The speaker confesses his deep love for a woman with whom he had a passionate
romance throughout the poem. "Her large calm eyes," "her voice, her bright figure,"
and "her unfathomable gaze" are among the physical features he recalls. He recalls
kissing her "over and again under the boundless sky," confessing "how I loved her."
Even though he says twice, "I no longer love her," his affection for her is still clear.
Physical and Spiritual
Essence imagery is used by Neruda to imply the speaker's understanding of the

spiritual nature of his relationship with his sweetheart. He portrays his physical bond
with her in cosmic terms when he describes them kissing "over and again under the
boundless sky." He also employs images like this to describe his sweetheart,
establishing a link between her and nature. "Traditionally, love poetry has associated
woman with nature," writes René de Costa in Pablo Neruda's Poetry. This established
style of comparison was elevated to a cosmic level by Neruda, who transformed
woman into a genuine power of the universe.” The "endless sky" is compared to the
speaker's lover's "great still" and "infinite eyes." He also expresses his affection for
her through nature. "I'm trying to find the breeze to touch her hearing," he says.
Alienation and Loneliness
The speaker contrasts recollections of his passionate relationship with his lover with
his current feelings of estrangement and loneliness in his absence. The speaker uses
natural imagery to convey his internal condition. On a night comparable to the nights
he spent with his sweetheart, he writes his "saddest lines." However, the darkness and
stars that "shiver at a distance" reflect his loneliness on this night. "To think that I don't
have her," he says, the "huge night" seems "even more immense" without her. I'm
afraid I've lost her." He adds to his anguish by recalling "nights like this one" when he
held her in his arms. When the speaker mentions that he hears someone singing in the
distance and repeats, "in the distance," he communicates his loneliness. No one sings
for him anymore. “My eye attempts to find her as if to draw her closer,” he says, and
“my heart searches for her, but she is not with me.” As a result, his "soul" is unfulfilled.
In an attempt to alleviate his loneliness, he tells himself, "I don't love her anymore,
that's certain," but then admits, "Maybe I love her." "Love is so short, forgetting is so
long," he continues, a world-weary tone of resignation in his voice. The speaker
declares that these will be "the final lyrics that I write for her," determined to put an
end to his feelings of estrangement and loneliness.
The unique, clear, straightforward language and sparse imagery of Neruda's poem
"Tonight I Can Write" received excellent feedback from readers. According to
Agosin's book on Neruda, the poem "marks a clear transition from the era of Spanish-
American modernism to that of surrealism, with its sometimes fragmented images and
metaphors, which will dominate Neruda's following phase," along with others in the
collection. In “Tonight I Can Write,” readers praised Neruda's inventive, clear, direct
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language and sparse imagery. The poem, along with others in the collection, "marks a
clear movement from the era of Spanish-American modernism to that of surrealism,
with its sometimes fragmented images and metaphors, which will dominate Neruda's
following phase," according to Agosin in her book on the poet.
Symbolism
In "Tonight I Can Write," Neruda employs environmental imagery to depict his lost
love and their connection. When the speaker speaks of the "endless sky" and his love's
"infinite eyes," he implies that their love has reached cosmic proportions. Neruda also
used images of nature to convey the speaker's mood. He alludes to the distance that
has arisen between the lovers and the coldness of the speaker's isolation when he talks
of the stars that are "blue and shiver in the distance
2.5 HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Latin American Literature: “Latin American writers began to acquire international

attention after World War I. As a result, these writers began to move their focus away
from provincial preoccupations and toward more universal topics in their writings.
They also dabbled in new literary genres. Latin American poets were particularly
influenced by modernism. Love, family, and social protest became popular topics,
particularly among Uruguayans Delmira Agustini and Juana de Ibarbourou, as well as
Chileans Mistral and Neruda.
Marisol and Marisombra: Neruda has confessed that his interactions with two ladies
during his college years in Santiago influenced the poetry in Twenty Love Poems and
a Song of Despair. In the poetry in this book, two separate women emerge: a
mysterious girl in a beret and another young woman. Although he does not name the
women in the poems, he later referred to them as Marisol and Marisombra in an
interview. Albertina Azocar, the sister of his close friend Ruben Azocar, was
confirmed to be the girl in the beret when his writings were published posthumously
in 1974.
Literary Censorship: Because of its overt sensuality, Chile's top publisher declined
to publish Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. When the collection was finally
released, the sexually explicit imagery shocked many readers. Since the dawn of
civilisation, political and literary censorship has existed in some form. Censorship has
existed in the United States since the colonial era, but the focus has switched from
political to literary censorship over time. Prior to 1930, literary classics such as James
Joyce's Ulysses were banned from entering the United States due to their profanity.
Other works, such as D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, Henry Miller's Tropic
of Cancer, and John Cleland's Fanny Hill, were only admitted after lengthy legal
battles.
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2.6 LET US SUM UP
Camus was unaware he had observed and was describing a clinical syndrome, let alone
one that was previously unknown; whilst, therefore, Camus cannot take priority for
the discovery of Asperger’s syndrome, perhaps we should give him credit as the
syndrome’s covert co-creator. The finding that the behaviour of a well-known
character in a famous novel was that of Asperger’s syndrome, which the novel’s author
had observed in a close friend and used for the novel’s development, shows that
clinical abnormalities can be detected by sensitive and creative observers, such as a
novelist, despite the absence of a clinical background. Although I have found no
similar instances, but it may nevertheless be found, that a clinical reassessment of other
well-known characters in literature, and their observational sources, produces
evidence of yet other syndromes.
1. What do you understand by the theme of this poem?
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2. Critically appreciate the grief and suffering that has been elucidated in this
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3. Highlight the important themes of the poem.
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UNIT-3 EVERY DAY YOU PLAY....
Structure
3.0 Objective
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The Poem; Every day you play
3.3 Summary
3.4 Analysis
3.5 Let us sum up
3.0 OBJECTIVE
 Explore the various different facets of Neruda’s writings.

 Understand the rhyming scheme of Neruda’s writings
 Explore the themes of love and pain through Neruda’s poems
3.1 INTRODUCTION
Pablo Neruda's poem "Every Day You Play" is composed of eight stanzas divided into
six sets of four lines (quatrains), one set of five lines, and one set of six lines. The
poem does not have a rhyme scheme that is structured or regular. Instead, there are
times when the last words are half, if not whole, rhymes. These occurrences can be
found throughout the poem. One appears in the fifth stanza between "eyes" and "cry,"
in the sixth stanza between "butterflies," and in the seventh stanza between "eyes" and
"cry."
3.2 THE POEM; EVERYDAY YOU PLAY….
Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water,
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
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as a bunch of flowers, every day, between my hands.
You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.
Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.
The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I alone can contend against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns lose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.
You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Curl round me as though you were frightened.
Even so, a strange shadow once ran through your eyes.
Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
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and even your ******* smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.
How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the grey light unwinds in turning fans.
My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
Until I even believe that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic
baskets of kisses.
I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
3.3 SUMMARY
Stanza One
Every day you play with the light of the universe.
(…)
as a bunch of flowers, every day, between my hands.
The speaker begins the first stanza of this poem with the sentence that would become
the poem's title, "Every day you play." This is a broad remark that could apply to a
variety of scenarios. After reading the entire line, the reader realises that the speaker
is not describing something trivial. Instead, he's interested in how someone he cares
about interacts with the universe. This person, he believes, has a significant impact on
the globe. They may be extremely important, but they don't behave like it. Instead,
their acts are "subtle." This somebody appears and disappears from the speaker's life.
They pass through the "bunch of flowers" in his palm on their way to the "water" they
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drink. In reality, this individual is "more" than he could possibly list. They play a
crucial role in the "universe's" operation.
Stanza Two
You are like nobody since I love you.
(…)
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.
The speaker says in the second set of lines that he "loves" this individual. This is one
of the reasons he thinks they're so amazing. He claims that "none" compares to this
individual. The speaker spends the rest of this stanza trying to figure out how to get to
know this person before they "existed." He is so enamoured with them that he wants
to savour their existence, track down their origins, and disperse them "among yellow
garlands."
The speaker is clearly on the point of worship. The lover has been elevated to a
position beyond the grasp of others.
Stanza Three
Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
(…)
The rain takes off her clothes.
The speaker begins the first stanza of this poem with the sentence that would become
the poem's title, "Every day you play." This is a broad remark that could apply to a
variety of scenarios. After reading the entire line, the reader realises that the speaker
is not describing something trivial. Instead, he's interested in how someone he cares
about interacts with the universe. This person, he believes, has a significant impact on
the globe.
The speaker understands in the skies that the "wind" will finally release the "shadowy
fish."
This is one of 'Every Day You Play"s more evocative stanzas.
Rather than explaining something specific that is happening, the speaker is describing
components of his environment in order to provoke certain feelings.
The rain "takes off her garments," he says in the last line.
This is most likely referring to the rain stopping.

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As it pours down from the gloomy sky, it might be naked.
Stanza Four
The birds go by, fleeing.
(…)
and turns lose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.
The fourth stanza is a quintain, which means it is made up of five lines. The speaker
mentions how the "birds" are "fleeing" from the scene in this section. In the second
sentence, he repeats the phrase "the wind" twice. This is done in an attempt to
appropriately reflect its power. What it can do astounds him. He is the only one who
can, due to the nature of the relationship he is in.
[…] contend against the power of men.
Following this path, one could be more inclined to see the "storm" as a metaphor for
life. Instead of fighting the elements, the speaker is concerned with humanity and the
character of modern society. "The storm" can toss whatever it wants at him, but it
makes no difference. For the sake of the person he loves, he can stand up to anything.
Stanza Five
You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
(…)
Even so, a strange shadow once ran through your eyes.
The speaker directs his words squarely at the lover in the fifth verse of 'Every Day
You Play.' "You have arrived," he says first. He enjoys being with this someone and
wants they would not "run away." When they are "frightened," he wants them to rely
on him and "curl around" him.
Stanza Six
Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
(…)
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.
The speaker goes on to discuss his lover's power over him in the sixth verse. While
the speaker must struggle with the force of men, he is able to draw strength from his
lover's love, purity, and beauty. To begin, he claims that this somebody is there to
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"deliver [him] honeysuckle." The flower has an all-encompassing scent. "It's in your
breasts," says the author.
The harsher components of the world are accompanied by this basic movement and
the feelings that go with it. The "sad wind" that "goes killing butterflies" is one of
them. Whatever else is going on, the speaker adores the listener, and their interactions
define his "happiness."
Stanza Seven
How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
(…)
and over our heads the grey light unwinds in turning fans.
'Every Day You Play' begins its finale at the seventh verse. The speaker recalls a
moment when they were not as content as they are now. The "weird shadow" in the
listener's eyes is most probable these days. According to the speaker, this person had
a hard time "getting used to" him. It was difficult to comprehend his,
[…] savage, solitary soul, [his] name that sends them all running.
The listener had no idea what the relationship would be like at first, but they gradually
fell in love with one another. The speaker recalls the "many times" they awoke to the
"morning star...kissing [their] eyes" in the following lines.
Stanza Eight
My words rained over you, stroking you.
(…)
I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
The poem's concluding stanza is a sestet, which means it has six lines. The speaker
ends his love words to the listener at this point. He recalls how his "words showered"
overtop of "you" in another reference to his capacity to calm the listener. He has shown
his affection for this individual in every way imaginable. He was so certain that the
listener "own[s] the cosmos" that he wrote a book about it. The speaker is able to
understand these emotions' bizarre character and accept them for what they are.
Nothing can make him change how he feels.
3.4 ANALYSIS
Every Day You Play’ by Pablo Neruda is an eight stanza poem that is divided into six
sets of four lines, or quatrains, one set of five lines, and one set of six lines. The poem
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does not follow a structured or consistent pattern of rhyme. Instead, there are moments
in which end words are half, if not full or complete rhymes. These instances are
scattered throughout the poem. One occurs between “eyes” and “cry” in the fifth
stanza, “butterflies” in the sixth, and “eyes” in the seventh.
There are also distinct moments of repetition. The word ‘universe” appears at the end
of two lines and contributes to the theme of nature that Neruda’s speaker returns to
frequently. He describes the world in natural terms and with poignant metaphors. The
listener is consistently related to nature, such as when he states that his “happiness
bites the plum of [their] mouth”. You can read the full poem here.
The poem begins with the speaker describing how his love has elevated the listener
beyond all others. This person is a part of every element of the world and empowers
him to face the struggles of everyday life. There have been times in their relationship,
especially at the beginning, in which things were not perfect. It took the listener a
period of time to get used to the speaker’s personality.
Now that the “shadow” is mostly gone from the listener’s eyes, the speaker asks that
he be allowed to be their caretaker. He hopes to comfort and nurture this person until
they bloom like a cherry tree.
3.5 LET US SUM UP
In this poem Neruda recounts how he will bring his lover "happy flowers" for the rest
of the time in the last three lines. These will include a wide variety of flowers, such as
"bluebells/dark hazels," as well as "rustic baskets of kisses." The poem's closing line
is one of the most well-known in Neruda's work: “I want to do with you what spring
does with the cherry trees. He tries to care for his girlfriend till the unusual shadow
vanishes from their vision. They'll be as lovely as a blossoming cherry tree when he's
finished with them.
1. What is the theme of this poem?
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2. Elucidate the stanza 1 of this poem in your own words.
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UNIT-4 OCTAVIO PAZ
Structure
4.0 Objective
4.1 Introduction
4.2 About Octavio Paz
4.3 Pre-Colombian Poetry
4.3.1 Colonial era
4.3.2 19th Century
4.3.3 Modernism
4.3.4 Latin American women poets
4.4 Let Us Sum Up
4.5 Check Your Progress
4.0 OBJECTIVE
 Learn about another important Post-Colombian poet/writer ‘Octavio Paz’

 Analyse Pre and Post Colombian era and their writers.
4.1 INTRODUCTION
During the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin wall, Paz and his Vuelta colleagues
invited world’s writers and intellectuals to Mexico City to discuss the collapse of
communism. It included writers such as Czesław Miłosz, Hugh Thomas, Daniel Bell,
Ágnes Heller, Cornelius Castoriadis, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Jean-François Revel,
Michael Ignatieff, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jorge Edwards and Carlos Franqui. The
encounter was called the experience of freedom (Spanish: La experiencia de la
libertad) and broadcast on Mexican television from 27 August to 2 September. He
even criticised the Zapatista uprising in 1994. He was in favor of “ military solution”
and hoped that the “ army would soon restore order in the region” He signed an open
letter that described the offensive as a “ legitimate government action” with respect to
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President Zedillo’s offence in Feburary 1995.In oreder to reestablish the "sovereignty
of the nation" and to bring "Chiapas peace and Mexicans tranquility".
4.2 ABOUT OCTAVIO PAZ
Octavio Paz was born in Mexico City, Mexico. Though he was born in a poor family
yet his zeal for learning was not hampered, with due support of his grandfather he
aquired knowledge from his library sparked his interest in literature at an early age.
He made his literary debut with the poetry collection Luna silvestre (Wild Moon) in
1933. In one of his trip to Spain in 1938, he got embroiled in the Spanish Civil War.
After returning to Mexico, he started working as a poet, journalist and translator. He
became one of the founds of the journal, Taller, a magazine which signalled the
emergence of a new generations of writers in Mexico as a new literary sensibility. In
1943 he received Guggenheim Fellowship as a result of which he travelled to USA
and got immersed in Anglo- American Modernist poetry. He served as diplomat for
20 years beginning in 1946. He was sent to France, he wrote fundamental study of
Mexican identity, The Labyrinth of Solitude, he participated in various activities and
publications organized by the surrealists. During this year he published numerous
poetry and prose. Paz was appointed Mexican ambassador to India in 1962: crucial
moment in both his life and literary career. The output of the stay was Grammarian
Monkey and East Slope. During the Olympic Games in Mexico there was suppression
of student demonstration in Tlatelolco which demonstrated the government
bloodstained suppression due to which Paz resigned from the diplomatic service. Since
then he continued his work as editor and publisher and even founded two important
magazines dedicated to the arts and politics: Plural(1971-1976) and Vuelta publishing
since 1976. He received his honorary doctrate at Harvard in 1980. He received
numerous awards such as Cervantes award in 1981- prestigious award in Spain and
American Neustadt Prize in 1982 and Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990.
Paz is a poet and an essayist, his poetic corpus is nourished by the belief that poetry
constitutes “the secret religion of the modern age.” Eliot Weinberger said that
according to Paz “the revolution of the word is the revolution of the world, and that
both cannot exist without the revolution of the body: life as art, a return to the mythic
lost unity of thought and body, man and nature, I and the other.” His poetry revolves
around the perpetual motion and transperencies of the eternal present tense. His poems
are collected in Poemas 1935-1975 (1981) and Collected Poems, 1957-1987 ( 1987).
He wrote several book-length studies in poetics, literary and art criticism as well as on
Mexican history, politics and culture.
In one of the best known work he wrote on the Mexican history and culture, El
laberinto de la soledad (1950). This was his only poetry collections. Vuelta and El hijo
prodigo were the literary magazines founded by him. He was influenced by several
different ideology like Marxism, Surrealism, Existentialism, Buddhism, and
Hinduism. Love and eroticism occupied prominent space in his later works. In one of
his poem “Piedra de sol” (“Sunstone”), written in 1957, he praised as a “magnificient”
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example of surrealist poetry in the presentation speech of his Nobel Prize. He
dedicated poems to the work of Balthus, Joan Miro, Marcel Duchamp, Antoni Tapies,
Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Matta. His poetry dealt with love and eroticism, nature
of time and Buddhism.He wrote on myriad of topics such as Mexican politics and
economics, Aztec art, anthropology and sexuality. In one of his essay he describes his
countrymen as hidden behind the masks of solitude The Labyrinth of Solitude. Their
identity is lost because of their history it’s lost between a pre-Columbian and a Spanish
culture. This masterpiece was a key influencer to other Mexican writers, such as Carlos
Fuentes. Quoted by Ilan Stavans “the quintessential surveyor, a Dante's Virgil, a
Renaissance man".
Paz wrote a play La hija de Rappaccini in 1956. The plot centers around a young Italian
student who wanders about in Professor Rappacini;s beautiful gardens and spies his
daughter Beatrice. There he discovers the poisionous nture of the garden;s beauty. This
play was adapted from an 1844 short story by American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne
entitlted” Rappaccini’s Daughter”/ Paz made a amalgamation with Indian poet
Vishakadatta and influences from Japanese Noh theatre, Spanish autos sacramentales,
and the poetry of William Butler Yeats. The opening performance was designed by
the Mexican painter Leonora Carrington. The paly was translated into French as la
fille de Rappaccini by Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues. First performes at the Gate
Theatre in London in English in 1996.It was translated and directed by Sebastian
Doggart and starred Sarah Alexander as Beatrice. It wa adopted for opera in 1992 by
Mexican composer Daniel Catan.
His other works were too transalted in English, Alternating Current (tr. 1973),
Configurations (tr. 1971), in the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works,[20]
The Labyrinth of Solitude (tr. 1963), The Other Mexico (tr. 1972); and El Arco y la
Lira (1956; tr. The Bow and the Lyre, 1973). There are also critical studies and
biographies including of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Marcel Duchamp (both, tr. 1970),
and The Traps of Faith, an analytical biography of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the
Mexican 17th-century nun, feminist poet, mathematician, and thinker. His poems ere
edited and translated by Eliot Weinberger, who acted a sPaz translator into American
English potry collection are Águila o sol? (1951), La Estación Violenta, (1956), Piedra
de Sol (1957). In English, Early Poems: 1935–1955 (tr. 1974) and Collected Poems,
1957–1987 (1987).
In his nascent stage of Political Career he used to support the Republicans during the
Spanish Civil War, the Stalinist secret police murdered one of his friend, due to which
he became disillusioned. In 1950 while a stay in France he came in contact with David
Rousset, Andre Breton, and Albert Camus. He even started publishing his views on
totalitarianism in general and particularly against Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet
Union. He even exposed the violation of human rights in communist regimes in his
magazines Plural and Vuelta including Castro’s Cuba. This lead to animosity from
Latin America. In thr prologue to Volume IX Paz stated from the time he abandoned
communist dogma, the mistrust of Mexican intelligentia got transformed into an open
and intense enmity. He started to consider himself man of the left, democratic,
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“liberal” left, not the dogmatic and illiberal one. He even criticized the Mexican
government and leading party that dominated most of 20th century. He was politically
social democrat, he increasingly supported liberal ideas without ever renouncing to his
initial leftist and romantic views. Paz was “very slippery for anyone thinking in rigid
ideological categories," Yvon Grenier wrote on Paz’s political thought "Paz was
simultaneously a romantic who spurned materialism and reason, a liberal who
championed freedom and democracy, a conservative who respected tradition, and a
socialist who lamented the withering of fraternity and equality. An advocate of
fundamental transformation in the way we see ourselves and modern society, Paz was
also a promoter of incremental change, not revolution."
Paz got dazzled by T.S.Eliot’s The Wasteland a translation done by Enrique

Munguia’s as El Paramo published in the magazine Contemporaries in 1930. He
maintained his primary interest in poetry, had an unavoidable outlook on prose:
“Literally, this dual practice was for me a game of reflections between poetry and
prose.” He was much more worried abouth the existence of morals and poetry. He
published an article “Ethics of the Artist” where he questioned the duty of an artist
amomg what would be deemed rt of thesis, or pure art, which disqualifies the second
a s its outcome of teaching of tradition. Marxist finds true value of art in its purpose
and meaning by assimilating a language that resembles a religious style. While the
followers of true art, are found in an isolated position and they favour the Kantian idea
of the “man that loses all relation with the world”.
The magazine Branadal put together by Rafael López Malo, Salvador Toscano,
Arnulfo Martínez Lavalle and Octavio Paz appeared in August 1931. All were not in
there youth except Salvador Toscano. Rafael Lopez participated in magazine, “
Modern: as well as Miguel D. Martinez Rendon, in the movimiento de los agoristas,
although it was more commented on and known by the high school students, over all
for his poem, "The Golden Beast". Pz was known as occasional author of literary
narratives that appeared in the Sunday newspaper add-in El- Universal, as well as
Ireno Paz after which a street was given name in Mixcoac identity. Latin American
authors normally write Latin American poetry. It is written in Spanish, but is also
composed Portuguese, Mapuche, Nahuatl, Quechua, Mazatec, Zapotec, Ladino,
English, and Spanglish
The unification of imperial and indigenous culture resulted in a unique and

extraordinary body of literature in this region. There was introduction of African slave
sin later half to the new world, Africans tradition greatly influenced Latin American
poetry. It was written in the colonial and pre-colonial time periods, only in 1960 the
world began to notice the poetry of Latin America. It became influential only after
modernism movement and the international success of Latin American authors.
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4.3 PRE-COLOMBIAN POETRY
The Aztec poetry written in Nahuatl. It was collected in early period of the colonisation
of Mexico by Spanish clergy involved themselves in collecting first-hand knowledge
of all things relate do indigenous civilisation of newly conquered territory. One
Spanish Clergy, fray Bernardio de Sahagun, enlisted the help of young Aztecs to
interview and record stories, histories, poems and other information from older Aztecs
who recalled pre-conquered times. Much of the information collected by
anthropologist was lost but researchers found original copies in libraries around the
world.
4.3.1 Colonial era
Hispanic Americans were educated in Spain during the period of conquest and
colonisation. Poets of this period followed the European trends in literature, style of
romantic ballads as well as satire. Alonso de Ercilla y Zuniga was the first to gain
recognition for their work upon New World. He praised Spanish conquests. Mexican
nun Sor Juana Ines de la Crus was a great figure in colonial era poetry, who wrote
notable works of poetry, prose and theatre in Spanish and other native languages. She
even took feminist standpoints and echoed the beliefs of the Enlightenment ideals
which emerged in Europe. The Counter-Reformation challenged her work it seemed
too promote liberty and freedom. Haitian revolution in 1802, circulation of liberal
ideas was halted by colonisers. Literature of defiance of authority and a sense of social
justice cry for independence by the Spanish colonies that is ever present in Sapnish
American poetics.
4.3.2 19th Century
The poetry of 18th and 19th century saw shift from long-winded ballads of the past
towards more modern and short forms. They continued the trend of 19th century with
trend of liberty and revolution. It focussed on influential fighters and leaders that was
distributed over newlt liberated countries of Latin America, focus on wonders of
American land and its indigenous people. One of the poet- martyr who fought for
freedom of Cuba was Jose Marti. His famous poem, Yo soy un hombre sincero it has
entered into popular culture as it produced hundreds of times into the song
"Guantanamera", by Celia Cruz and even the Fugees. Later it shifted away from
European styles. With the creation of Modernism a distinctive Spanish-American
tradition emerged.
4.3.3 Modernism
Introduced by Ruben Dario, his work Azul (1888), it concluded with death of Dario
which made it acceptable. It arose in Spanish America in late 19th century and
transmitted to Spain. Africans roots are incorporated in poetry in “ Afrro-Caribbean ”
verses, African heritage is acknowledged and celeberated in 20th-century latin
American literature. This type of trend was seen in writings of Puerto Rican and
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Nuyorican poets such as Pedro Pietri, Miguel Algarin, and Giannina Braschi who
contuined the tradition of poetry as performance art with vivid representation of anti-
imperialist political thrust. One of the postmodern poetry epic about immigrant life in
New York City written by Braschi’s Empire of Dreams (1988), a pastiche riffing on
Spanish Golden Age pastoral eclogues and Latin American modernist poems. Scholars
too are much heed to poetry by women, Afro/a-Hispanics, contemporary indigenous
communities, and other sub-cultural groupings.
The major influences from m Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, Ultraism, and surrealism,
the avant-garde was adopted by Latin American poets after the outbreak of WWI.
Many Nobel prize winners wrote in surrealism .Including g Gabriela Mistral, Pablo
Neruda, and Octavio Paz, The reason behind flourishing of such art is as it shows self-
reflective art form that no longer depicts constraints of beauty as a common theme.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez described Pablo Neruda as "the greatest poet of the twentieth
century in any language”. Neruda’s poem Canto General received world wide
recognition as "greatest work" the lyrics resonates with sweeping description of Latin
America from pre-history to the 20th century. It is a blank verse and piles metaphor
upon metaphor with lyric style shows its excesses.
4.3.4 Latin American women poets
They were the driving force behind the innovation in poetry. Begining with the sonnets
and romances by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in the 17th century. Her poems dealt with
myriad of themes and forms ranging from the Spanish Golden Age, her writing had
inventiveness, wit, and a vast range of secular and theological knowledge. The Nobel
Prize winner from Latin America was Gabriela Mistral. Her lyrics had regular meter
nad rhythm which described impassioned female subjects; abandoned, jealous lover,
mother in fear for child, teachers who love her students while imparting knowledge
and compassion. Though it received acclamation from Octavio Paz and Roberto
Bolano, Alejandra Pizarnik's masterpiece it didn’t reached beyond Argentina. It dealt
with themes of solitude, childhood, madness, and death, she explores the realm of
speech and silence. She was influenced by French modernism and was empathetic
towards “the suffering of Baudelaire, the suicide of Nerval, the premature silence of
Rimbaud, the mysteries of Lautréamont,” and “unparalleled intensity” of Artaud’s
suffering." Delmira Agustini’s Empty Chalices (1913) makes a groundbreaking place
in La Vanguardia, alongside Norah Lange (The Street in the Evening). Her charaters
are depicted from Greek antiquity Eros, the Greek God of love, her poems focusses
on themes of female sexuality, love and fantasy. Julia de Burgos’s is considered to be
the precursor to contemporary U.S. Latina/o and Latinx literature, it weaves romance
and political activism for women and African/ Afro- Caribbean writers .One of the
rare , female poet to write epic poetry is Giannia Braschi, her themes deals with cross-
genre like geopolitical subjects ; debt crisi, national building, decolonisation, and
revolution. Afro-Cuban oet Excilia Saldana’s genre of children’s poetry, such as
Noche of it depicts the role of grandmother to pass on widom to younger generation,
her works also include Afro-latino mythology and folklore. She even wrote on
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domestic violence, motherhood, feeling anonymous, and the power of female
friendships.
4.4 LET US SUM UP
Prose poetry tradition dates back to advent of Bible, first surges in Europe with the
modernist poets and symbolists of the 19th century such as s Charles Baudelaire ("Be
Drunk"), Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and
Stéphane Mallarmé. Only back in 20th Century that Latin American poets resurrected
the prose poems as a platform for philosophical inquiry and sensual sentiments; the
major masters of the prose poems are Jorge Luis Borges ("Everything and Nothing"),
Pablo Neruda (Passions and Impressions). Octavio Paz (Aguila o Sol?/Eagle or Sun?),
Alejandra Pizarnik ("Sex/Night"), Giannina Braschi (Empire of Dreams), and Clarice
Lispector (Água Viva).
1. Write a short note on “Colonial Women’s Poetry”.
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2. Elucidate Modernism in your own words.
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3. Write a note on Octavio Paz and his contribution towards Post- Colombian
poetry.
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UNIT-5 BETWEEN GOING AND STAYING THE
DAYS, WAVERS
Structure
5.0 Objective
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Between going and staying, the day wavers; Text
5.3 Summary
5.4 Let us sum up
5.0 OBJECTIVE
 Understand the transparency of Paz’s poems.

 Analyse the morality of people and their decisions
5.1 INTRODUCTION
Poetry and literature have always been a source of inspiration and love for me. The
symbolic nature of words makes it so that meaning is something we must work at.
There is always this sense of mystery that goads my curiosity to understand the piece
as I can right now. Each reading a new experience and an opportunity for a fresh
understanding to emerge; our minds an incessant coming together of sensations,
thoughts, emotions, and heart in the present moment. The poetry of Octavio Paz tends
to meld philosophical thought and elements of prose. His poems are meditations and
musings into the nature of life with language as the medium of instruction. Living in
the crux of poetry and prose, Paz’s fusion of opposites embodies the paradoxical
nature of life that simultaneously mystifies and entrances us. It is this juxtaposition of
opposites that inspires me. Little pearls of insight caught in divergent creases. When
we sit, stillness manifests. There is calm; a sense of peace is available to us. As we
continue in silence, within this deep stillness there is also an ever-present trembling,
pulsating, changing nature to our experience. Our breath is moving, sounds are arising
and dissipating, thoughts coming together and dissolving, emotions moving, melding,
and colouring endless next moments. We find the very nature of our bodies and the
world around to be change.
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5.2 BETWEEN GOING AND STAYING; THE DAY WAVERS, TEXT
Between going and staying
the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.
All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can’t be touched.
Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.
Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.
The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theatre of reflections.
I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.
The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.
5.3 SUMMARY
Poetry and literature have always been a source of inspiration and love for me. The
symbolic nature of words makes it so that meaning is something we must work at.
There is always this sense of mystery that goads my curiosity to understand the piece
as I can right now. Each reading a new experience and an opportunity for a fresh
understanding to emerge; our minds an incessant coming together of sensations,
thoughts, emotions, and heart in the present moment.
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Between going and staying the day wavers, in love with its own transparency. The
circular afternoon is now a bay where the world in stillness rocks. All is visible and
all elusive, all is near and can’t be touched. Paper, book, pencil, glass, rest in the shade
of their names. Time throbbing in my temples repeats the same unchanging syllable
of blood. The light turns the indifferent wall into a ghostly theatre of reflections. I find
myself in the middle of an eye, watching myself in its blank stare. The moment
scatters. Motionless, I stay and go: I am a pause.
Speaker - The poet's voice sounds like a calm guy reflecting on his errors.
Imagery - The speaker employs imagery when he says, "I find myself in the centre of
an eye, starring at myself," which I interpret as him comprehending a couple of things.
He also sounds like he's talking about the conclusion of the day, like night, since he
says, "The round afternoon is now a bay where the world in quietness rocks," which
means that at the end of the afternoon, the globe just sits still and sleeps, because
stillness represents slumber, or no motion.
Figurative Language. He compares the globe to a rock since rocks are always still,
and he chooses a rock to represent the world at night because the world is still.
Tone - This poem has a relieved tone to it, as though he knows he has problems but
that they would soon be resolved.
Theme - The lesson conveyed is to not give up on something even if you are under
duress, such as "you looking at yourself."
The poem's tone is depressing. The narrator is unable to choose between two options.
The narrator speaks as if he is disoriented. The poem is sad because he is unable to
decide what he wants to do and believes that nothing is right for him.
The poem is about those who are perplexed and bewildered in their choices. It implies
that a particular decision is tough for him and that he is unable to perceive the correct
path. It's how most of us feel when our lives are turned upside down.
5.4 LET US SUM UP
The poem is talking about how people are confused and lost in their decisions. It is
saying that particular decision is very difficult for him and he can’t see the right way.
It is how most of feel when we go through a major change in our lives. The mood of
the poem is very sad. The narrator is lost between two decisions that he must make.
The narrator is speaking as if he is lost. The poem is sad because he can’t decide what
he wants to do and nothing seems right to him.
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1. What is the message of the poem?
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2. What is the tone of the poem?
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UNIT-6 MOTION
Structure
6.0 Objective
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Motion; Text’
6.3 Summary and Analysis
6.4 Let us sum up
6.6 Important links and references
6.0 OBJECTIVE
 Analyse the myriad of genres and styles that Paz has written in.
 Understand the importance intricacy of the poem and its impact on life
6.1 INTRODUCTION
The idea of modernity is a by-product of our conception of history as a unique and

linear process of succession. Although its origins are in Judaeo-Christianity, it breaks
with Christian doctrine. In Christianity, the cyclical time of pagan cultures is
supplanted by unrepeatable history, something that has a beginning and will have an
end. Sequential time was the profane time of history, an arena for the actions of fallen
men, yet still governed by a sacred time which had neither beginning nor end. After
Judgement Day there will be no future either in heaven or in hell. In the realm of
eternity there is no succession because everything is. Being triumphs over becoming.
The now time, our concept of time, is linear like that of Christianity but open to infinity
with no reference to Eternity. Ours is the time of profane history, an irreversible and
perpetually unfinished time that marches towards the future and not towards its end.
History’s sun is the future and Progress is the name of this movement towards the
future.
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6.2 MOTION; TEXT
If you are the amber mare
I am the road of blood
If you are the first snow
I am he who lights the hearth of dawn
If you are the tower of night
I am the spike burning in your mind
If you are the morning tide
I am the first bird’s cry
If you are the basket of oranges
I am the knife of the sun
If you are the stone altar
I am the sacrilegious hand
If you are the sleeping land
I am the green cane
If you are the wind’s leap
I am the buried fire
If you are the water’s mouth
I am the mouth of moss
If you are the forest of the clouds
I am the axe that parts it
If you are the profaned city
I am the rain of consecration
If you are the yellow mountain
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I am the red arms of lichen
If you are the rising sun
I am the road of blood
6.3 SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS
The poem Motion portrays the complexities and differences that we as humans have
in our lives. The first basic difference between Latin-American and Anglo-American
literature lies in the diversity of their origins. Both begin as projections of Europe. The
projection of an island in the case of North America; that of a peninsula in our case.
Two regions that are geographically, historically and culturally eccentric. The origins
of North America are in England and the Reformation; ours are in Spain, Portugal and
the Counter-Reformation. For the case of Spanish America I should briefly mention
what distinguishes Spain from other European countries, giving it a particularly
original historical identity. Spain is no less eccentric than England but its eccentricity
is of a different kind. The eccentricity of the English is insular and is characterized by
isolation: an eccentricity that excludes. Hispanic eccentricity is peninsular and consists
of the coexistence of different civilizations and different pasts: an inclusive
eccentricity. In what would later be Catholic Spain, the Visigoths professed the heresy
of Arianism, and we could also speak about the centuries of domination by Arabic
civilization, the influence of Jewish thought, the Re-conquest, and other characteristic
features.
Hispanic eccentricity is reproduced and multiplied in America, especially in those

countries such as Mexico and Peru, where ancient and splendid civilizations had
existed. In Mexico, the Spaniards encountered history as well as geography. That
history is still alive: it is a present rather than a past. The temples and gods of pre-
Columbian Mexico are a pile of ruins, but the spirit that breathed life into that world
has not disappeared; it speaks to us in the hermetic language of myth, legend, forms
of social coexistence, popular art, and customs. Being a Mexican writer means
listening to the voice of that present, that presence. Listening to it, speaking with it,
deciphering it: expressing it … After this brief digression we may be able to perceive
the peculiar relation that simultaneously binds us to and separates us from the
European tradition.
This consciousness of being separate is a constant feature of our spiritual history.

Separation is sometimes experienced as a wound that marks an internal division, an
anguished awareness that invites self-examination; at other times it appears as a
challenge, a spur that incites us to action, to go forth and encounter others and the
outside world. It is true that the feeling of separation is universal and not peculiar to
Spanish Americans. It is born at the very moment of our birth: as we are wrenched
from the Whole we fall into an alien land. This experience becomes a wound that never
heals. It is the unfathomable depth of every man; all our ventures and exploits, all our
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acts and dreams, are bridges designed to overcome the separation and reunite us with
the world and our fellow-beings. Each man’s life and the collective history of mankind
can thus be seen as attempts to reconstruct the original situation. An unfinished and
endless cure for our divided condition. But it is not my intention to provide yet another
description of this feeling. I am simply stressing the fact that for us this existential
condition expresses itself in historical terms. It thus becomes an awareness of our
history. How and when does this feeling appear and how is it transformed into
consciousness? The reply to this double-edged question can be given in the form of a
theory or a personal testimony. I prefer the latter: there are many theories and none is
entirely convincing.
The feeling of separation is bound up with the oldest and vaguest of my memories: the
first cry, the first scare. Like every child I built emotional bridges in the imagination
to link me to the world and to other people. I lived in a town on the outskirts of Mexico
City, in an old dilapidated house that had a jungle-like garden and a great room full of
books. First games and first lessons. The garden soon became the centre of my world;
the library, an enchanted cave. I used to read and play with my cousins and
schoolmates. There was a fig tree, temple of vegetation, four pine trees, three ash trees,
a nightshade, a pomegranate tree, wild grass and prickly plants that produced purple
grazes. Adobe walls. Time was elastic; space was a spinning wheel. All time, past or
future, real or imaginary, was pure presence. Space transformed itself ceaselessly. The
beyond was here, all was here: a valley, a mountain, a distant country, the neighbours’
patio. Books with pictures, especially history books, eagerly leafed through, supplied
images of deserts and jungles, palaces and hovels, warriors and princesses, beggars
and kings. We were shipwrecked with Sinbad and with Robinson, we fought with
d’Artagnan, we took Valencia with the Cid. How I would have liked to stay forever
on the Isle of Calypso! In summer the green branches of the fig tree would sway like
the sails of a caravel or a pirate ship. High up on the mast, swept by the wind, I could
make out islands and continents, lands that vanished as soon as they became tangible.
The world was limitless yet it was always within reach; time was a pliable substance
that weaved an unbroken present.
When was the spell broken? Gradually rather than suddenly. It is hard to accept being
betrayed by a friend, deceived by the woman we love, or that the idea of freedom is
the mask of a tyrant. What we call “finding out” is a slow and tricky process because
we ourselves are the accomplices of our errors and deceptions. Nevertheless, I can
remember fairly clearly an incident that was the first sign, although it was quickly
forgotten. I must have been about six when one of my cousins who was a little older
showed me a North American magazine with a photograph of soldiers marching along
a huge avenue, probably in New York. “They’ve returned from the war” she said. This
handful of words disturbed me, as if they foreshadowed the end of the world or the
Second Coming of Christ. I vaguely knew that somewhere far away a war had ended
a few years earlier and that the soldiers were marching to celebrate their victory. For
me, that war had taken place in another time, not here and now. The photo refuted me.
I felt literally dislodged from the present.
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From that moment time began to fracture more and more. And there was a plurality of
spaces. The experience repeated itself more and more frequently. Any piece of news,
a harmless phrase, the headline in a newspaper: everything proved the outside world’s
existence and my own unreality. I felt that the world was splitting and that I did not
inhabit the present. My present was disintegrating: real time was somewhere else. My
time, the time of the garden, the fig tree, the games with friends, and the drowsiness
among the plants at three in the afternoon under the sun, a fig torn open (black and red
like a live coal but one that is sweet and fresh): this was a fictitious time. In spite of
what my senses told me, the time from over there, belonging to the others, was the real
one, the time of the real present. I accepted the inevitable: I became an adult. That was
how my expulsion from the present began.
It may seem paradoxical to say that we have been expelled from the present, but it is
a feeling we have all had at some moment. Some of us experienced it first as a
condemnation, later transformed into consciousness and action. The search for the
present is neither the pursuit of an earthly paradise nor that of a timeless eternity: it is
the search for a real reality. For us, as Spanish Americans, the real present was not in
our own countries: it was the time lived by others, by the English, the French and the
Germans. It was the time of New York, Paris, London. We had to go and look for it
and bring it back home. These years were also the years of my discovery of literature.
I began writing poems. I did not know what made me write them: I was moved by an
inner need that is difficult to define. Only now have I understood that there was a
secret relationship between what I have called my expulsion from the present and the
writing of poetry. Poetry is in love with the instant and seeks to relive it in the poem,
thus separating it from sequential time and turning it into a fixed present. But at that
time I wrote without wondering why I was doing it. I was searching for the gateway
to the present: I wanted to belong to my time and to my century. A little later this
obsession became a fixed idea: I wanted to be a modern poet. My search for modernity
had begun.
What is modernity? First of all it is an ambiguous term: there are as many types of
modernity as there are societies. Each has its own. The word’s meaning is uncertain
and arbitrary, like the name of the period that precedes it, the Middle Ages. If we are
modern when compared to medieval times, are we perhaps the Middle Ages of a future
modernity? Is a name that changes with time a real name? Modernity is a word in
search of its meaning. Is it an idea, a mirage or a moment of history? Are we the
children of modernity or its creators? Nobody knows for sure. It doesn’t matter much:
we follow it, we pursue it. For me at that time modernity was fused with the present
or rather produced it: the present was its last supreme flower. My case is neither unique
nor exceptional: from the Symbolist period, all modern poets have chased after that
magnetic and elusive figure that fascinates them. Baudelaire was the first. He was also
the first to touch her and discover that she is nothing but time that crumbles in one’s
hands. I am not going to relate my adventures in pursuit of modernity: they are not
very different from those of other 20th-Century poets. Modernity has been a universal
passion. Since 1850 she has been our goddess and our demoness. In recent years, there
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has been an attempt to exorcise her and there has been much talk of “postmodernism”.
But what is postmodernism if not an even more modern modernity?
For us, as Latin Americans, the search for poetic modernity runs historically parallel
to the repeated attempts to modernize our countries. This tendency begins at the end
of the 18th Century and includes Spain herself. The United States was born into
modernity and by 1830 was already, as de Tocqueville observed, the womb of the
future; we were born at a moment when Spain and Portugal were moving away from
modernity. This is why there was frequent talk of “Europeanizing” our countries: the
modern was outside and had to be imported. In Mexican history this process begins
just before the War of Independence. Later it became a great ideological and political
debate that passionately divided Mexican society during the 19th Century. One event
was to call into question not the legitimacy of the reform movement but the way in
which it had been implemented: the Mexican Revolution. Unlike its 20th-Century
counterparts, the Mexican Revolution was not really the expression of a vaguely
utopian ideology but rather the explosion of a reality that had been historically and
psychologically repressed. It was not the work of a group of ideologists intent on
introducing principles derived from a political theory; it was a popular uprising that
unmasked what was hidden. For this very reason it was more of a revelation than a
revolution. Mexico was searching for the present outside only to find it within, buried
but alive. The search for modernity led us to discover our antiquity, the hidden face of
the nation. I am not sure whether this unexpected historical lesson has been learnt by
all: between tradition and modernity there is a bridge. When they are mutually isolated,
tradition stagnates and modernity vaporizes; when in conjunction, modernity breathes
life into tradition, while the latter replies with depth and gravity.
The search for poetic modernity was a Quest, in the allegorical and chivalric sense this
word had in the 12th Century. I did not find any Grail although I did cross several
waste lands visiting castles of mirrors and camping among ghostly tribes. But I did
discover the modern tradition. For modernity is not a poetic school but a lineage, a
family dispersed over several continents and which for two centuries has survived
many sudden changes and misfortunes: public indifference, isolation, and tribunals in
the name of religious, political, academic and sexual orthodoxy. Because it is a
tradition and not a doctrine, it has been able to persist and to change at the same time.
This is also why it is so diverse: each poetic adventure is distinct and each poet has
sown a different plant in the miraculous forest of speaking trees. Yet if the works are
diverse and each route is distinct, what is it that unites all these poets? Not an aesthetic
but a search. My search was not fanciful, even though the idea of modernity is a
mirage, a bundle of reflections. One day I discovered I was going back to the starting
point instead of advancing: the search for modernity was a descent to the origins.
Modernity led me to the source of my beginning, to my antiquity. Separation had now
become reconciliation. I thus found out that the poet is a pulse in the rhythmic flow of
generations.
Christians see the world, or what used to be called the siècle or worldly life, as a place
of trial: souls can be either lost or saved in this world. In the new conception the
45
historical subject is not the individual soul but the human race, sometimes viewed as
a whole and sometimes through a chosen group that represents it: the developed
nations of the West, the proletariat, the white race, or some other entity. The pagan
and Christian philosophical tradition had exalted Being as changeless perfection
overflowing with plenitude; we adore Change, the motor of progress and the model
for our societies. Change articulates itself in two privileged ways: as evolution and as
revolution. The trot and the leap. Modernity is the spearhead of historical movement,
the incarnation of evolution or revolution, the two faces of progress. Finally, progress
takes place thanks to the dual action of science and technology, applied to the realm
of nature and to the use of her immense resources.
Modern man has defined himself as a historical being. Other societies chose to define
themselves in terms of values and ideas different from change: the Greeks venerated
the polis and the circle yet were unaware of progress; like all the Stoics, Seneca was
much concerned about the eternal return; Saint Augustine believed that the end of the
world was imminent; Saint Thomas constructed a scale of the degrees of being, linking
the smallest creature to the Creator, and so on. One after the other these ideas and
beliefs were abandoned. It seems to me that the same decline is beginning to affect our
idea of Progress and, as a result, our vision of time, of history and of ourselves. We
are witnessing the twilight of the future. The decline of the idea of modernity and the
popularity of a notion as dubious as that of “postmodernism” are phenomena that
affect not only literature and the arts: we are experiencing the crisis of the essential
ideas and beliefs that have guided mankind for over two centuries. I have dealt with
this matter at length elsewhere. Here I can only offer a brief summary.
In the first place, the concept of a process open to infinity and synonymous with
endless progress has been called into question. I need hardly mention what everybody
knows: natural resources are finite and will run out one day. In addition, we have
inflicted what may be irreparable damage on the natural environment and our own
species is endangered. Finally, science and technology, the instruments of progress,
have shown with alarming clarity that they can easily become destructive forces. The
existence of nuclear weapons is a refutation of the idea that progress is inherent in
history. This refutation, I add, can only be called devastating.
In the second place, we have the fate of the historical subject, mankind, in the 20th
Century. Seldom have nations or individuals suffered so much: two world wars,
tyrannies spread over five continents, the atomic bomb and the proliferation of one of
the cruellest and most lethal institutions known by man: the concentration camp.
Modern technology has provided countless benefits, but it is impossible to close our
eyes when confronted by slaughter, torture, humiliation, degradation, and other
wrongs inflicted on millions of innocent people in our century.
In the third place, the belief in the necessity of progress has been shaken. For our
grandparents and our parents, the ruins of history (corpses, desolate battlefields,
devastated cities) did not invalidate the underlying goodness of the historical process.
The scaffolds and tyrannies, the conflicts and savage civil wars were the price to be
46
paid for progress, the blood money to be offered to the god of history. A god? Yes,
reason itself deified and prodigal in cruel acts of cunning, according to Hegel. The
alleged rationality of history has vanished. In the very domain of order, regularity and
coherence (in pure sciences like physics) the old notions of accident and catastrophe
have reappeared. This disturbing resurrection reminds me of the terrors that marked
the advent of the millennium, and the anguish of the Aztecs at the end of each cosmic
cycle.
This short review shows that we are very probably at the end of a historical period and
at the beginning of another. The end of the Modern Age or just a mutation? It is
difficult to tell. In any case, the collapse of Utopian schemes has left a great void, not
in the countries where this ideology has proved to have failed but in those where many
embraced it with enthusiasm and hope. For the first time in history mankind lives in a
sort of spiritual wilderness and not, as before, in the shadow of those religious and
political systems that consoled us at the same time as they oppressed us. Although all
societies are historical, each one has lived under the guidance and inspiration of a set
of metahistorical beliefs and ideas. Ours is the first age that is ready to live without a
metahistorical doctrine; whether they be religious or philosophical, moral or aesthetic,
our absolutes are not collective but private. It is a dangerous experience. It is also
impossible to know whether the tensions and conflicts unleashed in this privatization
of ideas, practices and beliefs that belonged traditionally to the public domain will not
end up by destroying the social fabric. Men could then become possessed once more
by ancient religious fury or by fanatical nationalism. It would be terrible if the fall of
the abstract idol of ideology were to foreshadow the resurrection of the buried passions
of tribes, sects and churches. The signs, unfortunately, are disturbing.
The decline of the ideologies I have called metahistorical, by which I mean those that
assign to history a goal and a direction, implies first the tacit abandonment of global
solutions. With good sense, we tend more and more towards limited remedies to solve
concrete problems. It is prudent to abstain from legislating about the future. Yet the
present requires much more than attention to its immediate needs: it demands a more
rigorous global reflection. For a long time I have firmly believed that the twilight of
the future heralds the advent of the now. To think about the now implies first of all to
recover the critical vision. For example, the triumph of the market economy (a triumph
due to the adversary’s default) cannot be simply a cause for joy. As a mechanism the
market is efficient, but like all mechanisms it lacks both conscience and compassion.
We must find a way of integrating it into society so that it expresses the social contract
and becomes an instrument of justice and fairness. The advanced democratic societies
have reached an enviable level of prosperity; at the same time they are islands of
abundance in the ocean of universal misery. The topic of the market is intricately
related to the deterioration of the environment. Pollution affects not only the air, the
rivers and the forests but also our souls. A society possessed by the frantic need to
produce more in order to consume more tends to reduce ideas, feelings, art, love,
friendship and people themselves to consumer products. Everything becomes a thing
47
to be bought, used and then thrown in the rubbish dump. No other society has produced
so much waste as ours has. Material and moral waste.
Reflecting on the now does not imply relinquishing the future or forgetting the past:
the present is the meeting place for the three directions of time. Neither can it be
confused with facile hedonism. The tree of pleasure does not grow in the past or in the
future but at this very moment. Yet death is also a fruit of the present. It cannot be
rejected, for it is part of life. Living well implies dying well. We have to learn how to
look death in the face. The present is alternatively luminous and sombre, like a sphere
that unites the two halves of action and contemplation. Thus, just as we have had
philosophies of the past and of the future, of eternity and of the void, tomorrow we
shall have a philosophy of the present. The poetic experience could be one of its
foundations. What do we know about the present? Nothing or almost nothing. Yet the
poets do know one thing: the present is the source of presences.
In this pilgrimage in search of modernity I lost my way at many points only to find
myself again. I returned to the source and discovered that modernity is not outside but
within us. It is today and the most ancient antiquity; it is tomorrow and the beginning
of the world; it is a thousand years old and yet new-born. It speaks in Nahuatl, draws
Chinese ideograms from the 9th century, and appears on the television screen. This
intact present, recently unearthed, shakes off the dust of centuries, smiles and suddenly
starts to fly, disappearing through the window. A simultaneous plurality of time and
presence: modernity breaks with the immediate past only to recover an age-old past
and transform a tiny fertility figure from the Neolithic into our contemporary. We
pursue modernity in her incessant metamorphoses yet we never manage to trap her.
She always escapes: each encounter ends in flight. We embrace her and she disappears
immediately: it was just a little air. It is the instant, that bird that is everywhere and
nowhere. We want to trap it alive but it flaps its wings and vanishes in the form of a
handful of syllables. We are left empty-handed. Then the doors of perception open
slightly and the other time appears, the real one we were searching for without
knowing it: the present, the presence.
6.4 LET US SUM UP
The last element in this hasty enumeration is the collapse of all the philosophical and
historical hypotheses that claimed to reveal the laws governing the course of history.
The believers, confident that they held the keys to history, erected powerful states over
pyramids of corpses. These arrogant constructions, destined in theory to liberate men,
were very quickly transformed into gigantic prisons. Today we have seen them fall,
overthrown not by their ideological enemies but by the impatience and the desire for
freedom of the new generations. Is this the end of all Utopias? It is rather the end of
the idea of history as a phenomenon, the outcome of which can be known in advance.
Historical determinism has been a costly and blood-stained fantasy. History is
unpredictable because its agent, mankind, is the personification of indeterminism.
48
1. Broadly elaborate the theme and genre of this poem.
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2. What is the motive behind the title “Motion”? Explain.
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6.6 IMPORTANT LINKS AND REFERENCES
https://soundsandcolours.com/articles/chile/i-confess-that-i-have-lived-the-life-of-
pablo-neruda-south-americas-finest-poet-
2448/#:~:text=Musicer%20in%20the%20distance.%E2%80%9D
https://poemanalysis.com/pablo-neruda/every-day-you-play/
https://www.stillnessrocks.com/inspirations.html
http://english2worldpoetry.blogspot.com/2016/03/octavio-paz-between-going-and-
staying.html
49
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1990/paz/biographical/
https://www.essaytown.com/subjects/paper/motion-moviento-octavio-paz-
specifically/98238
https://www.poetryverse.com/octavio-paz-poems/motion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Neruda
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/pablo-neruda
https://poets.org/poet/pablo-neruda
https://medium.com/poem-of-the-day/pablo-neruda-tonight-i-can-write-
3c5a23982e0d
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jul/03/featuresreviews.guardianreview27
https://poemanalysis.com/pablo-neruda/every-day-you-play/
https://allpoetry.com/poem/12407024-every-day-you-play-by-pablo-nerud-by-daen
50

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Unit-2 Tonight I Can Write: Poem

Unit-3 Every Day You Play…

Unit-4 Octavio Paz

Unit-5 Between Going and Staying The Days, Wavers

1.2 About the writer; Pablo Neruda

1.2.1 Childhood and Education

1.3 Early work, Santiago, and Consulship (1923-1935)

1.4 War, The Senate, and Arrest warrant (1936-1950)

1.5 International acclaim and The Nobel Prize (1951-1971)

1.5.1 Literary Style and Themes

1.6 Let us sum up

1.7 Check your progress

1.2 ABOUT THE WRITER; PABLO NERUDA

In 1921, Neruda began studying to become a French teacher at the Pedagogical

1.2.1 Childhood and Education

1.3 EARLY WORK, SANTIAGO, AND CONSULSHIP (1923-1935)

Discouraged by unsustainable poverty, Neruda sought a consular posting at the

1.4 WAR, THE SENATE, AND ARREST WARRANT (1936-1950)

1.5 INTERNATIONAL ACCLAIM AND THE NOBEL PRIZE (1951-1971)

1.5.1 Literary Style and Themes

1.6 LET US SUM UP

1.7 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

2. What literary themes and styles did Neruda follow?

3. What is Pablo’s story of Santiago and hi Consulship there?

2.2 Tonight I Can Write; The Text

2.2.1 Original Text

2.5 Historical Context

2.6 Let us sum up

2.7 Check your progress

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, “The night is starry

and the blue stars shiver in the distance.”

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.

Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses.

Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.

2.2.1 Original Text

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: “La noche está estrellada,

y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos”.