PABLO NERUDA ---------- Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines

5.         

Pablo Neruda is the revolutionary poet of Chile and the most celebrated of Latin American poets. He was a lifelong communist and held many distinguished diplomatic positions in Asia, Spain and France. Like John Keats, Pablo also speaks about sensuous love in his poetry. But his style of narrating love poem is amazingly beautiful. He is like the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin who composed many famous love poems including “I loved you”. “Tonight I can Write the Saddest Lines” is one of the most celebrated and original of the poems of Neruda. It is a monologue written in a confessional mood, expressing the deep lamentations of a jilted lover. His lost love and its remedy is the theme of the poem. The elements of nature such as the night,  the wind the stars and the darkness remind him of his lost love. The dew falling on green pastures, the twinkling stars in the sky, the music of the wind and the moonlit night are the universal qualities of love which the poet mention in the poem. This love poem of Neruda belongs to you and me. Millions of young men  and women keep this poem to their breast and whisper ‘ it is mine own love poem’ because of the frank confession of the narrator. “She loved me, sometimes and I loved her too”.

The theme of the poem is love, loss of love and how the narrator survives the irreparable loss. There are two types of love, the spiritual love and the sensuous love. Spiritual love is divine and holy. There is neither quarrel nor separation in spiritual love. But here the narrator speaks about his sensuous love which is based on physical and sexual desire. This is why the lover speaks about her bright body, starry, infinite eyes and her sweet voice. He also says that in such nights he used to hold her in his arms and showered kisses on every part of her bright body. The night, the wind and the stars encouraged their love. But sensuous love often breaks and here too the lovers are separated. She becomes  another man’s wife. It is unbearable for the narrator. But he knows the horrible truth that his love is lost for ever. Yet the fire brands of his lost love are still burning like a volcano and the past memories haunt him day and night. This is why he says “Love is so short, forgetting is so long”.

Finally the narrator finds the remedy for the survival. He believes that pen is mightier than the sword. His stubborn decision to kill all the memories of his lost love is declared. He says, “Tonight I can write the saddest lines”. He uses his powerful pen as a sword to make a ritualistic killing of his love for her through these lines of the poem. The narrator believes that ‘the verse falls to his soul like dew to the pasture”. With the  ritualistic killing of his love for her, the narrator can escape from the memories  of  her and it is survival.

1.       “And the verse falls to the soul like  dew to the pasture” - explain

This passage is quoted from Pablo Neruda’s famous love poem titled “Tonight I can Write the Saddest Lines”. The narrator speaks about his love, loss of love and his survival. He wants to escape from the unbearable pain and sufferings from the sweet memories of his lost love. He makes use of poem as his mighty weapon to kill the haunting memories of his lost love. He says that the lines of the poem falls upon his burning soul like dew to pasture. An effective simile is used here to express his emotions.

2.       Consider the universal qualities of the poem – answer 1^st para.

3.       The poem is about love, loss of love and survival – Discuss   answer: 2^nd paragraph of the  essay.

4.       Compare “Tonight I can write the saddest lines” with Alexander Pushkin’s “No Tears”

The narrator of the poem “No Tears” written by Alexander Pushkin is also a love poem with a difference. The narrator learns the death of his lady love in  a far away village. But he does not shed even a drop of tear on his demise because death is a universal truth and it happens to every one including the narrator. But he thinks of her love which was so exciting and deep for him. In his younger days, he was like a mad man only thinking about her love day and night. At that time his heart was like a burning oven and some of the brands are still unextinguished in his loving heart. But in Pablo Neruda’s poem titled “Tonight I can Write the Saddest Lines” the narrator speaks about his love, loss of love and his survival. He wants to escape from the unbearable pain and sufferings from the sweet memories of his lost love. He makes use of poem as his mighty weapon to kill the haunting memories of his lost love. He says that the lines of the poem falls upon his burning soul like dew to green carpeted pasture. An effective simile is used here to express his emotions.