Comparing Two Poets: Neruda & Yeats

Comparing Two Poets: Neruda & Yeats

Two greatest artists of 20^th century share a lot of immediate similarities.

It is Neruda (July 12, 1904–September 23, 1973) and Yeats (13 June 1865 - 28 January 1939). Both were recipients of Nobel Prize. Both of them held political positions. But Neruda could only live two more years after receiving the Nobel.

Yeats: A true National Poet

Yeats saw early half of 20^th century only, seeing two world wars and its reverberations on the Irish nationalism. He could see the imperial royal waves and decolonization spree that happened to British imperialism. But he was deeply affected by the drifting conscience of Irish nationalism alike the personal unfulfilled love towards Maud Gonne. He was influenced by all sorts of knowledge and philosophical systems in history. His sensibility was attuned by the intellectual beauty of womanhood and historical legacy of Ireland. His personal agonies accentuated his poetic sensibility towards a greater national consciousness. It stirred a new spirit in the national arena, inspiring contemporary artists and future ones to come. His poetry was the reflection of the Irish psyche eager to see the dawn of nationhood, above the clutches of British Empire.

Yeats drew energy from the pagan folklores and Gaelic myths. His imagery was full of Celtic threads and had a poetic vision in par with any great national poet. He sensed the troublesome future of nationhood. In the twilight of life he was attracted to the ideals of totalitarianism through Ezra Pound, but regained his senses and became attracted to the republican waves in Spain. He interacted with Neruda through letters about the Spanish Civil war and the dangers of fascism.

Though influenced by all sort of religious myths and philosophies when it came to the cause of nationalism, Yeats fought with Catholic Church for interfering with politics and stirring a divide between South and North Ireland regions. Thus Yeats saw a tumourous period of Irish history.

Thus national sovereignty and personal quest for love were two unflinching ends of a poetic beacon named W.B.Yeats.

Neruda: A true Working Class Poet for all the nations

For Neruda everything was lovable even when it is invisible and absent. He loved abundance of nature and sang like the ancient nomadic tribe free to wander the entire earth.  But he was devoid of any sort of wealth and was accompanied by stark wings of poverty. He had to embrace the wings of darkness to feel the depths of real women. But he epitomized women and craved for uniting with female soul, when he was in exile in Rangoon.  So Neruda started from null and void of nature and traveled through the Asian continent. He invented a new style in Spanish poetry with his The Twenty Love Poems. His poetry captured the attention of awakening Chile. He became a cultural diplomat of a continent rich with myths and human harmony with nature. Neruda was a human being his senses were awakened every time seeing the meta-narratives of life, be absence of love, despair for freedom, and greatness of Inca civilizations. His encounters in Spain with Lorca made his views truly revolutionary. 

May be we can say that for Yeats love and nationalism were inspired by the intellectual admiration for womanhood of Maud Gonne and this sense continued with Yeats till the end of his life. But for Neruda, he was more than a national poet who drew abstract energies from concrete beauty of life. He learned the beauty of things which have been shielded from him, yet he never gave up. He continued to see the matter of things from a labourer’s perspective.

If women’s beauty is not my personal asset, let it be a public asset. He praised women’s private body like the fertile and flowering nature. It was a really provocative and innovative approach.

This aesthetic sense is actually driven by the creative energies of modernist art. It made his poetry really surreal. When he wrote about Machu Picchu, he made the achievements of Inca civilization both aesthetic and poetic material. Thus we can say that Neruda used modernist methods of imagery he absorbed from French and African art in poetry with the best use of Spanish verse. He was influenced by the surrealist imagery of Lorca as well. The anarchist threshold of Lorca ignited Neruda to the pinnacles of poetic astuteness.  Neruda became more and more political and became more and more clear and sharp in his poetic approach.

This transition is not much visible in Yeats and but he continued to write in paganistic vein. His pessimistic melancholy has encompassed more and more humanscapes and became true emotive expressions of a national spirit to the Hegelian scales that Germany had seen in the advent of 20^th century.

So to summarise, we can see that Yeats and Neruda scene the deeper landscapes of human history, through different lenses. Yeats ignited poetry to the fiery ranges through conventional style and diction to depict the deplorable fate of imperialism and alienation of a lifelong lover of feminine energy and intellect. Neruda through the regenerating poetic brilliance spanning mythical human history and natural imagery in the surrealist realms draw a world of monumental scales that has universal reverberations.

@Gokul Alex