Neruda and His Precursors

Pablo Neruda had complex relations to his multiple precursors. They belonged to various periods, from Dante’s Middle Ages to the present time, with Gabriela Mistral. They also belonged to varied cultural and linguistic spheres: early modern Spanish poets loomed large (Ercilla, Quevedo), but so did a number of French poets, especially Arthur Rimbaud, or the American Walt Whitman. This chapter aims to map out these spheres of influence and understand the various ways in which Neruda engaged with his precursors. He “negotiated his debts” (a phrase he used for Whitman) in commentaries, homages, and quotes, but also in complex intertextual operations. While he easily discussed the poets he admired, he also emulated them so as to find his place in certain traditions (especially in his love poetry) or used them for political purposes.