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As human, we all have love and feeling toward someone or somewhere you love.
Sometimes, we could not express love to someone who we are falling in love with. Otherwise,
we will lose them. However, the good way to pass all the feelings toward someone would be
composing a written work. Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poetry, was born in 1904. Most of his
poems are translated from Spanish to English. Neruda won the Nobel Prize for literature in
1971. Gabriel Garca Mrquez, a Columbian novelist, called him as the greatest poet of 20th
century in any language (Pablo Neruda, Poemhunter.com). Neruda was well known from
writing the twenty love poets and almost all of his works are about love. For both If You Forget
Me and I Like For You To Be Still are entitled in The Captains Verse which was published in
1952 (Pablo Neruda, Poetryfoundation.org). Importantly, they are the late poem of him. By that
time, it examines every situation for his struggles as well as his good memories that he had been
through all his life. Moreover, once Neruda lived in Spain, there was a civil war. His experience
about civil war still embedded in his mind, and he chronicled them via the poem. Neruda
expressed the theme of intimate relationship through nature symbols, metaphors, and technique
Neruda uses nature symbol as a figurative language to make an assumption that he has a
lot of good memories with his beloved such as crystal moon, red branch, and a butterfly. In If
You Forget Me, there are 2 different symbols that are found in this poem. The poem starts with
the pointed line I want you to know / one thing. (lines 1-2) to make the reader feel interested
and it seems to be followed along with the title. The following line reveals the feeling of the
poet toward his lover. Neruda writes You know how this is: / if I look / at the crystal moon, at
the red branch / of the slow autumn at my window, (lines 3-6); he symbolizes crystal moon and
red branch as nature symbol to represent his lover in this line. He thought that the crystal moon
is a tool to carry him to her as for everything carries me to you (line 11), and it makes them
getting closer even they are apart. Moreover, the red branch can be guessed that he and his
woman were having a good time together under the red branch in autumn. In I Like For You To
butterfly of dream (line 11). Naturally, butterfly makes no sound while it is flying in an open
sky and appears for a short period of time. A butterfly can be revealed as silent. Neruda refers
A butterfly cooing like a dove / And you hear me from far away / And my voice does not reach
you / Let me come to be still in your silence / And let me talk to you with your silence (lines
16-20). Whenever he sees a butterfly, it reminds him about his lover. Even the woman he loved
might not hear his word, he just wants to be in her heart and beside her in every situation. With
references to the poems nature symbol, all the symbols which the poet uses can be linked to his
Both poems would not be completed if Neruda did not describe about rhetorical
technique of metaphor that helps the reader understand and be able to imagine what the poem is
about. With regard to If You Forget Me, the roots of trees are represented metaphorically as
his love embedded as a root of land, but he is going to move his root out of the land which it
represents his lover to move forward to the new one which can make him happy according to
Nerudas description I shall lift my arms/ and my roots will set off / to seek another land (lines
33-35). Furthermore, he compares that she is the root of his tree which deep inside his heart as
mentioned in the poem to leave me at the shore / of the heart where I have root (lines 28-29).
Even though the root has been pulled out, there would still be a hollow that reminds him about
his lover. Unfortunately, he could not forget how much the good experiences had happened with
his woman. Nonetheless, mentioning in I Like For You To Be Still, metaphor is mentioned
again and again such that fire is illustrated as a negative way of love. For instance, if I touch /
near the fire / the impalpable ash / or the wrinkled body of the log. / everything carries me to
you, (lines 7-11), the poet analyzes the way he touches an ash which it will be destroyed by her
touch in the future. Ash represents an untouchable passion that the woman gave to him which a
log can be represented as a new passion that can be burned by the woman again. Therefore,
roots and fire combine to make the poem excessively the concept of intimate relationship.
Published a lots of impressive poems, Neruda refers to pronoun you in two different
ways which can be represented as his woman and his homeland. Using the second person
pronoun is the way the poet uses to refer to something or someone he does not want to reveal
while the reader is reading the poem, it can be thought in many different ways. Instead of saying
directly, you means woman according to One word then, One smile is enough (If You
Forget Me, line 31) The only reason is a woman can smile and her smile is the only one thing
which makes him happy. On the other hand, you could also depict as homeland of the poet. As
Neruda lived in Spain during civil war began, he was expelled out from the country because he
fourth stanza, If suddenly you forget me / do not look for me / for I shall already have forgotten
you., he expresses his motion toward his homeland which is Chile. After he was exiled out
from the country and if one day the country need him to be back, he will not go back anymore.
By that time, he might not want the country to look for him because he would already forget his
native homeland. Additionally, in I Like For You To Be Still, I like for you to be still / It is as
though you are absent / Distant and full of sorrow / So you wouldve died (lines 27-30), even
Neruda does not stay in his homeland now, his mind is still thinking about it all the times. At
first, he might think that whenever the country needs him, he will always be available but his
perspective changes over time. Due to the passion the poet uses pronoun you in both poems,
they are able to recognize the feeling toward his love one for both woman and homeland.
Every idea in Nerudas poem relate to the theme of intimate relationship and feels
heartache toward his lover and his homeland. Relevant nature symbol, understandable metaphor,
and using the second pronoun you are some of the technique that Neruda uses in both If You
Forget Me and I Like For You To Be Still to enhance his poems. It is clearly explained that
Nerudas pain about his lover are poignant to him. An unspeakable feeling of Neruda cannot be
expressed out loud to the one he loves. He writes poems as a way to dispose of the pain his lover
gives to him. However, all the boom and bust situations he had been through keep going along
all of his life and do not fade out from his life. He emitted his heart wholeheartedly into his
poetries and leaving us with the great and meaningful written works that we all can be learned
from them.
References
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/pablo-neruda
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/audio/detail/77000
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/9922/i-like-for-you-to-be-still/