Ilya Ehrenburg called this poet the happiest man in the whole world. However, one can even agree with this loud statement. After all, Neruda was considered the property of the Latin American continent during his lifetime. He was also loved in the USSR. The best translators worked on his texts. Want to know more about him? Then read this article.
The life of Pablo Neruda is rich in external events. Neftali was born Ricardo Reyes Basualto - this is the poet's real name - in the city of Parral, in central Chile. This event occurred on July 12, 1904.
Origin of the poet
His father was a railway conductor - he accompanied trains loaded with rubble. Mother died of consumption one month after the appearance of her son. Father married a second time, and the family moved to the city of Temuco, which is somewhat south. There the boy grew up. Pablo Neruda retained grateful memories of his stepmother. He wrote that she was a kind and affectionate woman who possessed peasant humor. She constantly bothered and took care of everyone.
Education at the Lyceum
At 6 years old, the child was taken to a lyceum. Gradually, Pablo Neruda became interested in reading, and began to compose himself. He published the first poems in newspapers, while still a lyceum student. It was then that the pseudonym was born - in attempts to hide poetry from his father, who saw in them the reason for his son’s chronic failure in mathematics. The name was chosen under the influence of a minute - Pablo liked one of the stories of the Czech classic of the last century, Jan Neruda, while the boy did not understand the stress and became Neruda. Subsequently, this name was assigned to him by an official act - it was entered in the passport.
First Prize, First Collection
At the end of the lyceum, the young man moved to Santiago and entered the pedagogical institute located at the capital's university. Here he studied English and French. Then Pablo Neruda received the first prize for a poem called "Festive Song" at a student competition. A 19-year-old Neruda became the author of the collection of Sunsets, a poetry collection, the costs of which he paid for himself by selling miserable property. Even then, his stormy poetic temperament manifested itself - Neruda recalled that he wrote 2, 3, 4, and even 5 poems a day. Basically it was landscape lyrics, student and imitative. But the still fragile poetic voice did not prevent him from carrying a big idea, which became his artistic credo. Pablo Neruda wrote that he wanted to become a poet who would cover as much as possible in his work. He longed to merge events, passions, nature and man, and so that all this was shown in interconnection.
In those same years, Neruda became involved in political activities, published articles on newspapers in newspapers, and took part in the work of trade unions and student societies.
Consul Position, Travel
Having completed a full course at the institute, Neruda is in no hurry to begin working life. He has been trying to get some sort of diplomatic post for a long time and finally in 1927 becomes consul in Rangoon, the capital of Burma. This “work” (he recalls that he had to fulfill official duties every three months) could be called a sinecure, if it was well paid, but the usual companion of young poets - poverty - did not pass him either. Then Neruda is transferred to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), he also visited China, Japan, Argentina, etc. The East enriched the worldview, giving Neruda creativity that universality, one might say - cosmicity, which is typical for a mature poet.
"Residence - Earth"
The book prepared on the basis of accumulated impressions bore the name reflecting these views: "Residence - Earth". She came out in 1935, when Neruda already got the place of the Chilean consul in Madrid. Subsequently, the poet recalled this collection, which brought him fame that his book was filled with bitterness in the manner of writing and the truth of life. Gabriela Mistral responded with a benevolent article, she saw in the "intense expressiveness of Neruda" the features of vernacular. The method of unexpectedly bold, arbitrary associativity of Neruda used in this book is preserved in the future.
Political Preferences and Their Consequences
With the outbreak of the civil war in Spain, Neruda became involved in the political struggle on the side of the Republicans, writes the poetry collection "Spain in the Heart." The Chilean government regarded this behavior as incompatible with the diplomatic post and transferred him to the post of consul in Paris. By that time, the time of disorder was left behind, and the famous poet was already buying in Chile, 150 kilometers from the capital, a rich villa "Isla Negro" (Black Island).
Neruda becomes a communist
His political sympathies are gradually transforming - in 1945 he joined the Communist Party of Chile, and since 1959 he has been a member of its Central Committee. For Latin Americans, such sentiments are common. They see the reasons for the political and economic backwardness of their countries in an unfair social system, respectively, and they seek solutions to urgent issues only on the paths of social change. For Neruda, individualism is also unacceptable. At Nobel’s Day, he said that he had chosen the difficult path in which he shared responsibility with people, and he worshiped the individual as the center of the universe, preferring modest service to a large army, which at times can be mistaken, but moves forward tirelessly.
At the same time, he, who rejects individualism, is attracted to the idea of a hero. In his late years, Neruda recalled that the dark sides of the personality cult did not supplant from his memory the image of Stalin, a stern man, a "titanic defender" of the revolution in Russia. From the circumstances that accompanied this "titanic defense", Neruda turned away, as from particulars that did not change the essence of the matter. So he remained until the end.
Senator job, flight to Argentina
One of the most striking episodes in the biography of Neruda is associated with the post-war period. In the 1947 election campaign, he supported the candidacy of González Videla, who did not skimp on promises. He became president of Chile, and Neruda was elected senator. However, in the worst Latin American traditions, Videla, having come to power, began mass persecution of former supporters, including the Communists. In response, Neruda delivered a harsh speech in the Senate, in which, without escaping theatricality, he said, "I blame!" Like once Zola. A month later, a decision appeared on his arrest. I had to go underground, and then, dressed as a cattle driver, run through the mountains to Argentina. Life in exile was filled with trips to different countries, participation in peace congresses of peace supporters, etc.
last years of life
In 1969, Neruda was nominated for the presidential election in Chile, but he withdrew in favor of Salvador Allende. With the victory of the latter, Neruda becomes Chile’s ambassador to France, where he learns about the Nobel Prize. But a serious illness makes the poet return to his homeland. He died in a Moscow clinic 12 days after a bloody government coup (September 23, 1973).
Exhumation
Interestingly, almost 40 years after his death, the poet's body was exhumed. Her goal was to find out the true reasons that led to the death of the poet. The fact is that the Nobel laureate died under very mysterious circumstances. He died 12 days after the military junta seized power in Chile. The death certificate said that her cause was prostate cancer. But friends testified that several hours before the death of Neruda he talked, walked independently, was vigorous. His death came after an injection made to him in the hospital. An analysis conducted in 2011 confirmed the conclusion made by doctors.
Analysis of the work of Neruda
In the postwar years, Neruda still wrote a lot. In total, he created 40 independent, in no way repeating each other books. His poetry has been translated into many languages (Salvatore Quasimodo translated it into Italian), it has gained worldwide recognition, but he was constantly accompanied by the reputation of a poet, perhaps a genius, but too "excessive", chaotic, erratic. Neruda could seem either too complicated, or almost primitive, too prone to rhetoric and verbosity, in short, a poet who, with his undeniable merits, does not meet the generally accepted requirements of taste in literature. This is how many critics of Pablo Neruda presented himself.
Reviews about him, however, are not so clear. Critics make the reservation that the interpretation of Neruda’s work is partly due to translations: the reconstruction of his works in a foreign language element, dominated by other poetic forms, is a task of exceptional complexity. However, in the Spanish-speaking world, this lyrics often caused a mixed feeling of irritation and admiration. Even before the war, Juan Ramon Jimenez called Neruda nothing more than a "great bad poet." Subsequently, he commuted the sentence, saying that Spanish-American poetry unbridledly expresses itself in his face, and it incorporated the cycle of nature, as well as the metamorphoses of death and life inherent in the reality of this continent.
Modern Latin America is called the "continent where all eras meet." They are also found in the contradictory, unbridled and impulsive poetry of Pablo Neruda, which, as literary scholars note, tends to epic inclusiveness and suffers from earthliness, plunges into the depths of mythological thinking and is full of everyday life of the present.
Translations of Pablo Neruda's works into Russian
It is worth noting that all translations of the poet’s poems into Russian are very inaccurate, despite the fact that the best translators worked on them. The fact is that Neruda used a difficult style of writing - without rhyme, waved long lines, very difficult to execute. Specialists smoothed verses as much as possible, turned them into rhymed traditional ones. Margarita Aguilera and Ilya Erenburg were especially distinguished in this field. Pablo himself considered Pavel Glushko the best translator of his creations. However, he could have been mistaken. After all, Neruda did not speak Russian.
Russia is showing increasing interest in the work of this poet. This is also evidenced by the fact that educational and cultural institutions are called in his honor. An example to other regions is given by Moscow.
