Date of Award

6-2014

Document Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Modern Languages and Literatures

First Advisor

Alvaro Jarrin

Language

Spanish

Keywords

exile, Neruda, poetry, life, collections, experience

Abstract

This thesis explores exile and its effects on the lives of those who experience it. Pablo Neruda, the great Chilean poet of the 20th century, lived in exile for three years, during which he continued to write and publish his poetry. The negative and positive consequences of exile, such as the loss of identity and the experience of traveling and knowing others, respectively, can be seen clearly in the poetry of Neruda during and after his exile. Exile has a great effect on the personal life of the exiled and this logically is expressed in the exile’s work, especially for an artist like Neruda. In this study, I analyze two collections of poetry by Neruda, The Capitan’s Verses, Los versos del cpaitán (1952), and Fully Empowered, Plenos poderes (1962). The former was written and published while Neruda was in exile and the latter was written some years after Neruda had returned to Chile. This study puts the two works in conversation to better identify the changes in tone, audience, and focus of the collections in order to understand the effect of exile on Neruda’s life and his poetry. The most notable conclusion of this thesis is the fact that Neruda used love as a force to combat the negative consequences of exile. He writes about his love for his county and most notably for his lover and future wife Matilde in The Captain’s Verses, and it is clear that his purposeful focus on the positive gave him hope in a difficult time of his life.

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