Neruda and Whitman Essay

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Hughes in week five, tell us about one of Neruda's poems. Don't tell us about theme or how you relate to it. Tell us about the form of the poem. Name and define some of the elements of the form. Tell us about its attributes and history, what are Neruda's influences in this poem, and so on. Can you find Whitman's influence? How is it revealed in ways comparable to Hughes? You'll have to do some research and attribute it in MLA style. You'll have to make specific references to Neruda's poem to clarify and exemplify what you are saying about his form. You'll need a thesis.

Neruda was a politician, social activists and poet and his poetry often follows many of these influences. In fact, his politics - where he espoused Communism and sought to free the Chilean people - was often confused with love poetry where his love for his people romanticized itself into erotic love for women. One of his most famous poems in this regard was his "Body of a Woman." criticized for its eroticism, its figurative beauty is evident.

Imagery and metaphor are resonant in this poem:

But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.

Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.

Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!

Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad! (allyshenandoah.

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It is sensuous with details and descriptive playing heavily. There is also a languid tone (contrast with Hughes angry brusque tone when describing the plight of the Blacks or his languorous tone when describing the journey of the woman in "Bound North Blues").

The repetition of "Oh" alludes to and reinforces Neruda's desire for the woman -- or rather for her physical attractions?

There is figurative language and metaphor a-plenty here. In lines 1-4, for instance, Neruda describes the body of the woman as white-fleshed, lying helplessly in surrender, vulnerable to advance: "Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs, you look like a world, lying in surrender," She sounds like the Earth and, indeed, Neruda will plow into her depositing his seed in her and she, the woman, is Mother Earth, giver of life.

He goes on to describe his own body s worthless and rough in comparison to his treading on her. This is a metaphor to careless footsteps f man that scrunches up the earth.

Color is used heavily in the poem with different connotations. In the first line of "Body of a Woman," the narrator praises the whiteness of the body of his….....

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