Pogadaeva E.V.

 

America as an ontological substance in Pablo Neruda’s poem La Lámpara en la Tierra. Pp. 145–157.

UDC 821.134.2-1.09″19″

DOI 10.37724/RSU.2025.89.4.015

 

Abstract. The article attempts to analyze the ontological foundations of Americanness in the first section of Pablo Neruda’s General Song (Canto General) — the poem A Lamp on Earth (La Lámpara en la Tierra) in which almost all the characteristics of his poetics can be found. The relevance of the study is due to the importance of Neruda in world literature and Latin American literature and the insufficiently explored phenomenon of Americanness in his poetry. In the research, the poem’s lyrical subject, form and structure, major images and motifs are examined in the frames of ontology. It is concluded that in this poem Neruda created a model of the New World, an ideal American society, or locus amoenus. The poetic image of the world is integrated and synthetic, and it emerges from space. Despite the fact that the New World in Neruda’s poem is mythological and suprahistorical and exists as an ontological substance, it is inseparable from America. The image of the Citizen of the New World, the New Man, is telluric and has indigenous roots. It is presented as an ethnic type, at once a collective image of a Latin American and a human being. In order to show the uniqueness of the New American World, Neruda reconsiders many originally European mythologemes, motifs and categories, turning upside down top and bottom, day and night, silence, solitude, etc., which makes them specifically Latin American. Drawing on European cultural archetypes, Native American myths, and constants of Latin American national consciousness, the poet reshapes them and offers his own mythology. Assuming the role of the Prime Creator, the poet strives to speak as if for the first time: he rejects established norms of poetic expression and uses free verse that helps him to better convey the nature of the new ontological reality, different from the European one. Furthermore, with his enumerative technique, the poet-demiurge’s words acquire foundational power, enabling him to create a model of his own unique ontological reality where the cosmic, the natural and the human merge in harmony.

 

Keywords: Canto General, A Lamp on Earth, ontological foundations of Americanness, Pablo Neruda, General Song, La Lámpara en la Tierra.

 

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