compared his poetry to the daily bread that can
nourish the human community. His love poetry is
for everyone. In his Memoirs, Neruda writes,
‘‘Poetry is an act of peace.’’
‘‘Night’’ brings premonitions of death. ‘‘Son-
net LXXIX’’ declares that lovers can defeat dark-
ness by tying their hearts together as they sleep.
In LXXX, the speaker tells the beloved to play a
barcarole on her guitar to build a shelter for
them, but he would share the song with everyone;
he wants bread for all workers. There is joy in the
night, especially since he can share darkness with
the one he loves. This section brings images of the
vaster expanse of the night sky; he feels the flow
of time and realizes they are a drop in the river.
He feels solidarity with all humans at night.
Most of the ‘‘Night’’ sonnets are concerned
with death and time. ‘‘Sonnet LXXXIX’’ is a vision
of his own death as the speaker asks his beloved to
be his companion in his last hour and then go on
living so that she can testify to the truth of their love
and his tributes to her in song. This poem is espe-
cially moving in light of Matilde’s memoirs in
which she describes Neruda’s death and funeral
amidst the crumbling of Allende’s socialist Chile
and the terror of the Pinochet dictatorship that
followed. She also writes of the period after his
deathwhenshehadtocarryonhislegacy.In
danger herself, she smuggled a copy of his memoirs
out of the country and helped edit them for pub-
lication. These ‘‘Night’’ sonnets in which the
speaker anticipates separation through death
are poignant when compared to the historical
accounts. Matilde herself refers in her memoirs
to ‘‘Sonnet XCIV’’ as giving her strength to go
on alone, to travel and to speak out for Chile’s
oppression, because Neruda asked her to be
strong. Her memoirs also provide the answer-
ing female voice the critics find missing in the
sonnets.
Fernando Alegria’s remarked in ‘‘Neruda:
Reminiscences and Critical Reflections’’ on his
friend Neruda, right after his death are. Alegria
proposed that Neruda conquers death through
his love poems and gives as an example the
poems Neruda published a few months before
his death in the August issue ofCrisis Magazine
(1973), still praising Matilde.
In ‘‘Pablo Neruda, Interpreter of Our Cen-
tury,’’ Guissepe Bellini sees a ‘‘suggestive panthe-
ism’’ in theOne Hundred Love Sonnets, ‘‘providing
redemption from the fear of absence and death.’’
(Pantheism is a kind of paganism that identifies
whatever is eternal with the forces of nature.)
Instead of speaking of heaven, Neruda envisions
the lovers joining the river of time and the material
world. Once more the poet’s love expands; he
renounces personal life and identifies with the
ongoing life of the earth. He declares that the love
the lovers shared will go on after death, because
love itself has no beginning or end. He uses images
of large cycles of time, of planets, rivers, and stars,
predicting there will come a purer time on earth.
In hisMemoirs, Neruda wrote, ‘‘My poetry
rejected nothing it could carry along in its course;
it accepted passion, unraveled mystery, and worked
its way into the hearts of the people.’’ Neruda
acknowledged Walt Whitman’sLeaves of Grassas
a model for much of his later poetry. Like Whit-
man, Neruda is in love with nature, life, and the
common people. Neruda, however, realized the
popularity that Whitman only wished for. Neruda’s
poetry was recited and loved by the people because
it affirmed the oppressed.One Hundred Love Son-
netschronicles a personal love, which Neruda pre-
pares as bread that can be shared by all. Though not
blind to violence and suffering, he wanted to leave a
legacy of hope, as he wrote in theMemoirs:‘‘AndI
go on believing in the possibility of love. I am
convinced that there will be mutual understanding
among human beings.’’
Source:Susan K. Andersen, Critical Essay on ‘‘Sonnet
LXXXIX,’’ inPoetry for Students, Gale, Cengage Learning,
2010.Odette Magnet
InthefollowingessaytranslatedbyKathyOgle,
Magnet and Ogle give information about the per-
sonal background that inspired Neruda’s sonnets.
He was Pablo Neruda’s friend for four dec-
ades and a fellow Communist Party member. Chil-
ean Volodia Teitelboim (2002 National Award for
Journalism), author ofNeruda, speaks about his
friend Pablo Neruda and the women in his life. On
the centennial celebration of Neruda’s birth, this
interview with Teitelboim gives us a small window
into Neruda’s most intimate world, allowing us to
explore through the eyes of a friend, the soul of the
poet and the man.
Their friendship was a long and close one.
Today, the writer says with a certain sadness,
‘‘His death interrupted our dialogue, our ongoing
conversation. He was sick and death awaited him,
but that was one thing we never talked about.’’
According to Teitelboim, Neruda always had
a special way with women. Women are ‘‘our betterSonnet LXXXIX