A Critical Review of Elemental Odes by Pablo Neruda

Abstract

This paper explores the reconstituted style of the classical Ode by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda in his Odas Elementales. Pablo Neruda is the pen name of Ricardo Eliecer Neftali Reyes Basoalto. He was born in Parral, Chile on July 12, 1904. Pablo Neruda wrote his odes in the latter half of the twentieth century. His first volume of odes known as Elemental Odes published in 1954. In his odes, Neruda has explored and celebrated the wonder of ordinary things. The simplicity of his odes is very surprising to see that it is an ode, which traditionally meant a poem to be sung in an elevated manner for celebrating a person or an object. Pablo Neruda has written four volumes of Odes, Elemental Odes (1954), New Elemental Odes (1956), Third Book of Odes (1957), and Voyages and Homecomings (1959). In order to distinguish Neruda’s odes from that of the classical prototypes of the ode as a poetic form one needs to dwell briefly on its birth and growth as a poetic form. Therefore, the current research will focus on the comparative study between the traditional ode form and the odes written by Pablo Neruda in his poetry.