What Spain Was Like
What Spain Was Like - context Summary
Support for the Spanish Republic
Written from a stance of political solidarity, the poem pictures Spain as both harsh and beloved: a land of poor people, rugged landscape and resilient life, yet marred by violence and sacrifice. Neruda’s voice mixes affectionate cataloguing of concrete scenes with proletarian and martial imagery, turning personal admiration into a public solidarity with a nation under threat. The poem functions as an elegy and a declaration of allegiance to the Spanish people.
Read Complete AnalysesSpain was a taut, dry drum-head Daily beating a dull thud Flatlands and eagle's nest Silence lashed by the storm. How much, to the point of weeping, in my soul I love your hard soil, your poor bread, Your poor people, how much in the deep place Of my being there is still the lost flower Of your wrinkled villages, motionless in time And your metallic meadows Stretched out in the moonlight through the ages, Now devoured by a false god. All your confinement, your animal isolation While you are still conscious Surrounded by the abstract stones of silence, Your rough wine, your smooth wine Your violent and dangerous vineyards. Solar stone, pure among the regions Of the world, Spain streaked With blood and metal, blue and victorious Proletarian Spain, made of petals and bullets Unique, alive, asleep - resounding.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.