in the cornfields?
Do you know that in Patagonia
in midday, mist is green?
Who sings in deepest water
in the abandoned lagoon?
At what does the watermelon laugh
when it's murdered?
Neruda's Book Of Questions, published posthumously, is a curious work of simple aesthetic meandering. It is nonetheless impossible to withdraw much meaning from its pages. The first couplet here contains many possibilities. To me, it reflects an oversight of the relative wealth possessed by the farmsman. With this interpretation, "the gold in the cornfields" may refer to the simple joys that the burden of labor contrasts in the common man's life. Historically, it could represent the longevity of heritage and culture in Latin America. Despite the many conquests that destabilized working systems of government, and despite the many riches that were seized, there is still a common humanity in things so arbitrary as cornfields.
The second couplet is mysterious. The text, overall, seeks a near childish simplicity in harmless images of surreal joy. On page XLIV, for instance, the author laments "where is the child I was? Still inside me or gone?". This is the theme I will suggest the second couplet corresponds to; A strive towards innocent wonder.
The third couplet is a reference to the sirens of greek myth. The text is rife with them. Aesthetically, it is an intense questioning of feminine mystery – futile as it receives no answer. There is much mythological reference in this work, perhaps harking to an imbedded spiritualism in its author. I tend to believe that in this broad array of questioning reference, the author also shakes his head at the conventional moral lock-down present in modern religion that often makes a point of stifling intellectual doubt. In a line from page XXV, he wonders " how do we know which is God/among the Gods of calcutta?". Perhaps he is also considering the unification of popular religion in post-conquest Latin America; Considering that loss of culture.
The final lines are a mental play on images – that of a sliced watermelon characterized into a post-mortal grin. The powerful composition counts on the reader's easy connection to the referenced shape, as well as the unusual thought – somewhat morbid – of being overjoyed with death. Beyond its base of structure, the image's full scope of reactive questionings suggests possibilities of absurdism.
I think your analysis of the first three couplets is informed and solid. I love to see long responses to short text, you demonstrate your deep reading and critical thinking abilities here.
ReplyDeleteI felt the most inspired by your brief but wise last paragraph. These lines in particular reminded me of an Emily Dickinson poem, "At what does the watermelon laugh
when it's murdered?"
but sadly I could not remember the first line of the Dickinson poem, and after scoping multitudes, I was unsuccessful in locating the one. But I did find another two poems with similar ideas about the nature and absurdity of death,
I shall share with you in place of the desired one:
Nobody knows this little Rose by Emily Dickinson
Nobody knows this little Rose --
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it --
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey --
On its breast to lie --
Only a Bird will wonder --
Only a Breeze will sigh --
Ah Little Rose -- how easy
For such as thee to die!
The second is a very famous poem I think you may have read before:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
I wonder if you see any connections? If I ever find the golden one I was searching for I will share it with you.
The first relates very well with an minute, arbitrary action metamorphosed into a scale tragedy. This is accomplished via methods of personification, as well as cathartic imagery. We feel for the loss of a beautiful thing, laugh at the deep reaction to the tiny death, and I think overall it offers a hopeless retort to absurdism i.e. rejoice in the small things, and fear them as well.
ReplyDeleteThe second is one I have contacted, yes. In its first stanza, I believe it comments mainly on the supremacy of death above all; the common equalizer between classes, and the final destination of every soul. Putting away one's labor and leisure for death is ironic here, as it is depicted as a courtesy when it is truly an ultimatum. One has no choice in the matter, to be certain. The second stanza reinforces this, and offers further claim to death's spatial omnipresence. The children playing at the beginning of this stanza, and the setting sun at its end, empower the life cycle imagery that is the spine of the piece and the archetypal characterization of death. In the third, the last two lines catch me most. In the universality of death, the author has also chosen to comment on the futility of possession with "for only gossamer my gown/my tippet only tule". The opening lines of the next stanza go on to describe the humble nature of death's abode, which I think solidifies this notion. Ending the poem with "eternity" is a synchronous, if not cheesy, gesture towards the combined continuity of death as well as life.
ReplyDelete