Saturday, March 15, 2008

Neruda's "Tonight I Can Write..."

Pablo Neruda's "Tonight I Can Write..." is a poem filled with conflicting emotions. In the beginning of the poem, Neruda uses specific words to depict his feelings of isolation and sadness. He repeats the phrase "Tonight I can write the saddest lines" to let the reader know the deep sadness that his break-up has caused him. he uses words such as shattered, blue, shiver and distance to convey his feelings of sadness and isolation. In fact, "shattered" and "distance" are used twice to really emphasize Neruda's feelings of brokenness and isolation. Then, in line 14, he uses a simile to describe how easily his breakup allows him to write sad lines, stating, "the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture," implying that these verses come upon him naturally. However, equal to the feelings of sadness are ones of uncertainty and regret. He uses the line, "I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too," and then flips it around, stating that "She loved me, and sometimes I loved her too." He makes numerous references to missing her, such as when he states the immense night is "still more immense without her," or when he mentions his sadness over losing her. He then states that he no longer loves her, then admits that he may still love her. With the line, "Love is so short, forgetting is so long," Neruda seems to have captured the complex emotions associated with the regret and uncertainty associated with many break-ups. While he concludes the poem by stating that these verses will be "the last that I write for her," unless this poem is his form of closure, one cannot help but doubt that this will truly be the last time that Neruda writes about his former lover.

1 comment:

Babu Syed said...

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