Pablo Neruda
Love is like a garden; it grows, it dies, it sprouts anew. In Pablo Neruda’s book, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, he writes intricate poems about the lust and loss of love. Even though he was only in his 20’s in 1924, he knew what he was talking about. At the age that I am in, I can understand his meanings. The one I want to analyze for its tone, imagery, and tension is “I have gone marking”.
Neruda begins telling a story about a woman. It starts by how he’s getting to know her body; ’marking the atlas” (l.1 pg.29). Even though he was scared like a spider (l.3 pg.29), he continues on to explore with intimacy. Then she was sad and he was happy like a fruitful season (l. 8 pg.29). Without warning, she left him, alone and sad, “between two motionless gondoliers” (l.12 pg. 29). Through the rest of the story, he slips into a depression, even he calls for calls for her, and there is no reply. He summarizes by quoting “…I have reached the most awesome and the coldest summit, my heart closes like a nocturnal flower” (l.23 pg.29).
The best way to describe the poem is “a confusingly obvious relationship of loss”. The tone was set by “atlas of your body” (l.1 pg.29) as passionate and joyful and switches by “I loved you” (l.9 pg.29). as strayed and dismayed because it shows how the relationship went from great to bad in a short period of time. With this, the imagery is placed as you watch how he loves and loss, seeing him at home alone next to the sea. The tension would have been hard if you had not completely read the whole story because there were many directions it would have taken like if you didn’t catch the”I loved you” part, you would have thought that she died or it was an affair. The tension was harsh because through out the poem, you’d wonder why and how she was gone.
“I gone marking” oozed feminism. Even though back then in 1924 were shovenist pigs ruled most of the world, women showed and still shows signs of power. In the...