Tonight I Can Write

by Pablo Neruda

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Historical Context

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Latin American Literature

Following World War I, Latin American authors began to gain global recognition. Consequently, these writers started to transition their focus from regional concerns to more universal themes. They also began experimenting with new literary styles. Modernism, in particular, had a significant influence on Latin American poets. Themes like love, family, and social protest became prevalent, especially among Uruguayan writers Delmira Agustini and Juana de Ibarbourou, as well as Chilean poets Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda.

Marisol and Marisombra

Neruda acknowledged that the poems in Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair were inspired by his relationships with two women during his student days in Santiago. In the collection, two distinct women appear—a mysterious girl wearing a beret and another young woman. Although Neruda did not name these women in the poems, he later referred to them as Marisol and Marisombra in an interview. The posthumous publication of his letters in 1974 revealed that the girl in the beret was Albertina Azocar, the sister of his close friend Ruben Azocar.

Literary Censorship

Chile's leading publisher initially refused to publish Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair due to its explicit eroticism. When the collection was eventually released, many readers were shocked by its sexually explicit imagery. Political and literary censorship has existed in various forms since the dawn of civilization. In the United States, censorship has been present since the colonial era, though the focus has shifted over time from political to literary. Before 1930, literary classics such as James Joyce’s Ulysses were banned from entering the United States on the grounds of obscenity. Other works, like D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley's Lover, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, and John Cleland’s Fanny Hill, were only allowed entry after prolonged court battles. In 1957, the Supreme Court began issuing a series of rulings that relaxed restrictions on obscene literature. However, in 1973, the Supreme Court granted individual states the authority to define what constitutes obscenity.

Literary Style

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Style

Readers have warmly embraced Neruda’s innovative, straightforward language and minimalistic imagery in “Tonight I Can Write.” Agosin, in her book on Neruda, notes that this poem, along with others in the collection, “marks a clear transition from the era of Spanish-American modernism to that of surrealism, with its often disconnected images and metaphors, which will dominate Neruda’s next phase.” The poem lacks a consistent meter. Although Neruda avoids rhyme, he achieves rhythm through a blend of consonance and assonance. Frequently, a single line stands alone, emphasizing content over form. In Earth Tones: The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, Duran and Safir describe “Tonight I Can Write” as a “constructive” poem, stating that it is “organized around experiences in which real human beings, Neruda himself and the women he loved, provide a stabilizing platform upon which [the poem] is built.”

Symbolism

In “Tonight I Can Write,” Neruda employs nature imagery to depict his lost love and their relationship. When the speaker mentions the “endless sky” and his love’s “infinite eyes,” he implies that their relationship reached a cosmic dimension. Additionally, Neruda uses nature to convey the speaker’s emotional state. By describing the stars as “blue and shiver in the distance,” he suggests the growing distance between the lovers and the coldness of the speaker’s solitude.

Compare and Contrast

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  • 1924: The first airplanes to complete a round-the-world trip land in California after covering 30,000 miles in five months.
    1996: NASA announces potential evidence of life on Mars, based on the analysis of a meteorite discovered in Antarctica in 1984.

1924: The United States Congress enacts the Johnson-Reed Act, eliminating immigration restrictions...

(This entire section contains 126 words.)

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from Canada and Latin America. Consequently, by the year's end, immigration figures from these regions hit record highs.
1996: Mexico and the United States sign multiple agreements, including the Migrants’ Rights pact, which extends rights to both legal and illegal Mexican immigrants in the U.S.

1924: The United States Congress grants U.S. citizenship to Native Americans.
1996: South Africa completes its transition from apartheid to democracy with a new constitution, leading to the resignation of President F. W. de Klerk.

Media Adaptations

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In 1996, Viking Penguin released all the poems from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair on cassette.

Bibliography and Further Reading

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Sources

Agosin, Marjorie, “Chapter 2: Love Poetry,” in Twayne's World Authors Series Online, G. K. Hall Co., 1999.

———, Pablo Neruda, translated by Lorraine Roses, Twayne Publishers, 1986.

Clemens, Robert, Review in Saturday Review, July 9, 1966.

de Costa, René, “Pablo Neruda: Overview,” in Reference Guide to World Literature, 2nd ed., edited by Lesley Henderson, St. James Press, 1995.

Duran, Manuel, and Margery Safir, Earth Tones: The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, Indiana University Press, 1981.

Neruda, Pablo, Memoirs, translated by Hardie St. Martin, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976.

“Pablo Neruda,” in Twentieth Century Authors, First Supplement, edited by Stanley J. Kunitz, H. W. Wilson Company, 1967, p. 709.

Schade, George D., “Pablo Neruda,” in Latin American Writers, Vol. 3, Scribners, 1989.

For Further Reading

Bencivenga, Jim, Review in The Christian Science Monitor, April 22, 1999, p. 21. This reviewer perceives Neruda's poems in Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair as featuring a speaker akin to “Narcissus turning away from his image in the pool only to find it wherever he looks.”

Review in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 240, No. 45, November 8, 1993, p. 59. This reviewer notes that in Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair “Neruda charts the oceanic movements of passion, continually invoking imagery of the sea and weather.”

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