Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto(July 1904 – September 1973)

What is in a name?What is in a name?The Chilean writer and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes

Basoalto assumed the pen name Pablo Neruda and, later made it his legal name.

Neruda assumed his pen name as a teenager, partly

because it was in vogue, partly to hide his poetry from his father, a rigid man who wanted his son to have a "practical" occupation.

Highlights of his Life Highlights of his Life Came from a modest working class backgroundFather disliked his writing poetryInfluenced by Gabriela Mistral- a future Nobel winnerBy the 1920s a formidable poet; but besieged by povertyBecame an ardent communist after the Spanish Civil warHeld various diplomatic positionsTravelled widely1971- received the Nobel Prize "for a poetry that with the

action of an elemental force brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams"

His writingsHis writings

“If you ask me what my poetry is, I must answer : I don’t know

but if you ask my poetry, it will tell you who I am”

Pablo Neruda

Poetry as a meditation on lifePoetry as a meditation on life Neruda's body of poetry is rich and varied . It developed along four main directions:

His love poetry, such as the youthful Twenty Love Poems and the mature Los versos del Capitán (1952; The Captain's Verses), is tender, melancholy, sensuous, and passionate.

In “material” poetry, such as Residencia en la tierra, loneliness and depression immerse the author in a subterranean world of dark, demonic forces.

His epic poetry is best represented by Canto general, which is a Whitmanesque attempt at reinterpreting the past and present of Latin America and the struggle of its oppressed and downtrodden masses toward freedom.

And finally there is Neruda's poetry of common, everyday objects, animals, and plants, as in Odas elementales.

These four trends correspond to four aspects of Neruda's personality: his passionate love life; the nightmares and depression he experienced while serving as a consul in Asia; his commitment to a political cause; and his ever-present attention to details of daily life, his love of things made or grown by human hands.

Keeping Quiet

the necessity of quiet introspection and creating a feeling of mutual understanding among human beings

Theme : a plea to mankindTheme : a plea to mankindTo Question the way we move through our lives without

pausing or caring for the world around us the suffering of nature, the world and other people

To Criticize the divisive tendency of man- let us not speak in any language; we would all be together in a sudden strangeness

To Chastise mankind for murder of animals and other men and reminds them of - victory with no survivors

To Cleanse oneself of all guilt and hatred - put on clean clothes

and walk about with their brothers

To Identify with To Identify with QUIETNESS

The SilenceThat will teach us

The meaning of sadness in our livesThe death threat we constantly live under

And help us understand ourselvesAnd adopt Earth as our teacher

Language Language Simple, common wordsStraightforward sentence constructions

Ironically sensitizes the reader to the power of SILENCE Ironically sensitizes the reader to the power of SILENCE Intensify the magnitude of the issues that threaten

mankind and propel him to extinctionAwaken in him the necessity to take urgent steps

to stop the imminent annihilation