In Isla Negra, Chile, on August 31, a writing desk at one of Pablo Neruda’s residences, which is now a museum. Despite recent criticism of the Chilean poet, who passed away in 1973, the museum continues to draw a steady stream of tourists. hide caption Paz Olivares Droguett for NPR
switch to caption NPR’s Paz Olivares Droguett In Isla Negra, Chile, on August 31, a writing desk at one of Pablo Neruda’s residences, which is now a museum. Despite recent criticism of the Chilean poet, who passed away in 1973, the museum continues to draw a steady stream of tourists.
ISLA NEGRA, Chile (Paz Olivares Droguett for NPR) — Fans are pouring into the museum where Pablo Neruda, widely regarded as Chile’s greatest poet, once lived. It is perched on enormous, black rocks that overlook the Pacific Ocean. In addition, Neruda’s grave is there.
Despite the poet’s passing 49 years ago, his legacy is still developing.
Because of his left-wing beliefs, Neruda has always been divisive in Chile. However, the burgeoning feminist movement in Chile is now denouncing him as a male chauvinist and sexual predator.
Human rights advocate Lieta Vivaldi, who belongs to the Chilean Feminist Lawyers Association, declares that “he has been canceled.”
2018 saw the emergence of Chile’s #MeToo movement against sexual assault, which sparked the most recent debate surrounding Neruda, who was won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971 and became the second Chilean to do so. Activists picked out specific lyrics by Neruda as being sexist and brought fresh attention to a number of upsetting incidents in the poet’s history.
After being announced the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Pablo Neruda met with media in Paris while still serving as Chile’s ambassador to France. hide caption Laurent Rebours/AP
switch to caption Author: Laurent Rebours After being announced the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Pablo Neruda met with media in Paris while still serving as Chile’s ambassador to France.
Author: Laurent Rebours Neruda left his mother and only kid, Malva Marina , behind. His daughter, who was born with hydrocephalus, a buildup of fluid in the brain that can result in head swelling, passed away at the age of eight.
Neruda also wrote about raping a housekeeper in his hotel room in 1930, in what is now Sri Lanka.
“I chose to follow through. I tightened my hold on her wrist. The encounter involved a man and a monument, as Neruda described in his memoir which was released in 1974, a year after his cancer-related passing. “She was right to hate me,” she said.
At first, his admittance practically went unnoticed. However, the incident has received attention from Chile’s feminist movement, which has been recently re-energized by a number of sexual abuse scandals at the nation’s institutions and by the global #MeToo movement, and scorn for Neruda is growing.
Salvador Young, who purchases books for Chile’s National Digital Library online, claims that over the previous few years, his superiors have told him not to buy any of Neruda’s works. Otherwise, readers will ask, “Why are you endorsing a rapist?” he claims.
On August 31, graffiti was found at one of Pablo Neruda’s residences, which is now a museum, on Isla Negra, Chile, saying, “Let’s not forget that Neruda with his love poems discloses to us that “anecdote” of rape with impunity.” Visitors can leave notes, poetry, and their names on a fence that surrounds the museum. hide caption Paz Olivares Droguett for NPR
switch to caption NPR’s Paz Olivares Droguett On August 31, graffiti was found at one of Pablo Neruda’s residences, which is now a museum, on Isla Negra, Chile, saying, “Let’s not forget that Neruda with his love poems discloses to us that “anecdote” of rape with impunity.” Visitors can leave notes, poetry, and their names on a fence that surrounds the museum.
NPR’s Paz Olivares Droguett Neruda is not taught in several universities and high schools in Chile. Many of his female students, according to one high school teacher who requested anonymity because NPR was not given permission to interview him by his institution, hate Pablo Neruda. Less now than he did a few years ago, he instructs him.
In contrast, he asserts, “When I was in school, we were required to study Neruda and perform his poetry. Students of my generation continue to recite and examine certain verses.
He mentions “ From the Heights of Machu Picchu ” as one of them, which Neruda penned after visiting the historic Incan hilltop site for inspiration. The Chilean band Los Jaivas has set the text to music.
A proposal to rename Chile’s primary international airport after Neruda was dropped by Chile’s Congress in 2018 due to feminists’ strong support for the poet. While the #MeToo marches were taking place in Santiago, Chile’s city, anti-Neruda graffiti was spray sprayed on a number of walls.
Kemy Oyarzun, a poet and professor of gender studies at the University of Chile, cautions that it is simple to mistake Neruda’s writings. Even so, she has recently become less enthused by Neruda. hide caption Paz Olivares Droguett for NPR
switch to caption NPR’s Paz Olivares Droguett Kemy Oyarzun, a poet and professor of gender studies at the University of Chile, cautions that it is simple to mistake Neruda’s writings. Even so, she has recently become less enthused by Neruda.
NPR’s Paz Olivares Droguett This was a response to one of Neruda’s most well-known verses, an ode to stillness titled “ Poem XV ,” claims poet and gender studies professor Kemy Oyarzun.
“I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,” it says at the outset.
According to Oyarzun, several feminists believed that Neruda was telling his poem’s subject to be quiet. They retaliated by spray-painting a wall with the message, “Neruda, now you shut up!”
High school student Laura Brodsky, 18, said that her instructors are not teaching Neruda at a #MeToo protest in Santiago in August. Brodsky highlighted that she and her fellow classmates “had no interest in learning about him,” referring to the rape confession in his biography.
This is a surprising turn of events for one of the most well-known, prolific, and best-selling poets in the world, who is frequently likened to Walt Whitman. Canto General (General Song), one of Neruda’s greatest works, is an epic history of Latin America told via 231 poems.
Neruda was known as the poet of the people in a nation where poetry had traditionally been written by and for the wealthy. He frequently wrote about the working class and Indigenous tribes, as well as Chile’s natural beauty.
Additionally, Neruda received recognition from all over the world for his humanitarian efforts following the Spanish Civil War. He assisted in bringing more than 2,000 Spaniards people who were escaping Gen. Francisco Franco’s newly erected military rule to Chile in 1939 after completing his diplomatic duties as a consul.
In 1949, at the conclusion of the Congress of Partisans of Peace in Paris, Pablo Picasso (on the left) gave Pablo Neruda a hug. hide caption AP
toggle caption AP In 1949, at the conclusion of the Congress of Partisans of Peace in Paris, Pablo Picasso (on the left) gave Pablo Neruda a hug.
AP Mark Eisner, the author of Neruda: The biography of a poet. , stated that “many working people and progressive activists — not just in Chile, not just in Latin America, but all around the world — adopted him as their hero, declared him as their own.”
Nevertheless, Neruda has had his share of failures.
In 1947, Chile’s government outlawed the Communist Party — of which Neruda was a member — and accused him of treason. He fled into hiding to evade capture, and in 1949 he rode his horse across the snow-capped Andes Mountains to Argentina.
Neruda eventually returned. But when Gen. Augusto Pinochet overthrew the government in 1973, his right-wing military junta destroyed Neruda’s writings and supported poet Malva Marina 0, another Nobel Prize laureate who was then thought to be apolitical.
Many authors and scholars believe the present anti-Neruda campaign has gone too far, just like during the earlier campaigns.
According to Fernando Saez, executive director of the Pablo Neruda Foundation, which is in charge of managing the late poet’s estate, many authors, painters, and musicians have had troubled personal lives. He claims that this should not invalidate their artistic accomplishments.
He claims that doing so “is quite risky.”
Additionally defending Neruda’s literary heritage is author Isabel Allende. I am repulsed by several parts of Neruda’s life and personality, like many young feminists in Chile, Malva Marina 1 Canto General is still a masterpiece despite the fact that Neruda had flaws, as we all do in some fashion.
scenes from Pablo Neruda’s former Isla Negra house, which is now a museum, including a tiny cottage where he once wrote (left). hide caption Paz Olivares Droguett for NPR
switch to caption NPR’s Paz Olivares Droguett Neruda Vivaldi argues that “is a very, very great poet and you cannot just erase him because to his personal life.” “If that were the case, we’d be judging everyone,”
According to Oyarzun, Neruda is similarly simple to misunderstand. Consider “Poem XV,” which some people see as a request for his lover to stop talking.
Oyarzun responds, “That’s not what he meant.” He intended to study women. He says, “Silence is my favorite dimension, and I learn from your silence. I adore it when you’re in it.”
One of Neruda’s three residences was the Isla Negra Museum. hide caption Paz Olivares Droguett for NPR
switch to caption NPR’s Paz Olivares Droguett One of Neruda’s three residences was the Isla Negra Museum.
NPR’s Paz Olivares Droguett Even Oyarzun, though, has recently become less enthused about Neruda. She claims that since there has been so much attention on Neruda for so long, the work of Chile’s female poets, many of whom are still relatively obscure, has been overshadowed.
She claims, “I myself have decided to teach young women’s poetry that was suppressed for so many decades.” I won’t do it, if you ask me to teach a course that is solely about Neruda.
Many supporters of the poet dismiss criticism of him at the Neruda museum on Isla Negra. One of them is Jorge Daz, a storeowner in Santiago, who claims that many Chilean men of Neruda’s generation acted in a similar manner.
He claims that Neruda had a dark side. Everyone, however, has a dark side.
On August 31, a visitor and a staff member were present at the Isla Negra Neruda Museum. Ships in bottles, seashells, and a narwhal tusk are just a few of the nautically inspired artifacts that Neruda kept around the house. hide caption Paz Olivares Droguett for NPR
switch to caption NPR’s Paz Olivares Droguett On August 31, a visitor and a staff member were present at the Isla Negra Neruda Museum. Ships in bottles, seashells, and a narwhal tusk are just a few of the nautically inspired artifacts that Neruda kept around the house.
NPR’s Paz Olivares Droguett
