The ‘Ode’, one of the most popular poetic verses, has its origins in Ancient Greece. The generic term ‘ode’ is derived from the Greek word ‘oide’ which referred to any poem that was to be formed into a song and sung in public. M.H Abrams defines the ode as “A long lyric poem that is serious in subject and treatment, elevated in style, and elaborate in its stanzaic structure.” The steady rhythmic voice and energetic attitude of the speaker reciting the ode beautifully supported it’s exalted verse and its celebration of a person, religious reference to God or the praise of an even that was marked in history.
Initially, the ode was developed for singers and the chorus in Greek drama. However, its usual structure soon began to develop into forms like ‘Pindaric’ and ‘Horatian’ and it moved towards an era that resorted the ‘ode’ to an essentially poetic form. The English Renaissance bothrevived the Homeric as well as Pindaric odes in the strict structural form of poetry and retained its musical elements as Edmund Spencer composed the form of the ‘ode’ in two of his marriage hymns, “Epithalamion” and “Prothalamion”. This was followed by subsequent ages that used the form of the ‘ode’ in various ways. While the Elizabethan age that saw the resurgence of dramatic elements and elaborate verses of the odic form with Abraham Cowley presenting a third form of ‘ode’ after Horace and Pindar and its extensive use in the works of poets like Alexander Pope and John Dryden; Romantic poets moulded the form of the ‘ode’ into a passionate descriptions of human life and emotional portrayals of it. The advent of Third World Literature necessarily challenged and subverted many canonized forms of EnglishLiterature within which Pablo Neruda’s use of the standardform of the ode was an important intervention to the traditional odic forms that spanned the ages of English literary formation and revival. Neruda’s poems hold on to the issues and politics of Chile and Spain, two nations that were subjected to political strife, historical changes and a rapid influx of cultures into their traditional setting. My paper would explore Pablo Neruda’s odes –“Ode to Tomato”, Ode to Salt”, “Ode to Artichoke” and “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market”- taken from the Odas Elementales and comment on the political and cultural memory he paints using the form of the ‘ode’.
Structurally, the odes are composed of short verses with the length of the lines as small at five to seven syllables and there is a constant movement in the verses. The pace is steady and the commas add occasional stops that are also effective in highlighting the images that the odes are loaded with. The odes do exhibit compliance with the traditional form of the ode but, more importantly, are a refreshing way to disrupt the classic adherence to structure and form, the established canon and the grand idea of heroism, reverence and exaltation associated with the odic form. It also subverts the epistemologies of valour and grace, used in the odic form that are necessarily traditionally Western and sing the praises and glories of men. The most important political dimension of Neruda’s poetry is his deliberate engagement with the representations of the society. Herepresents objects from everyday life that is a part and parcel of every household, especially food that is a part of the domestic space; Neruda addresses the aspects of political strife, compassion and cultural inclusion. The odes address social reality; their broken verses and rapid pausesare ways of communicating the politically and culturally fragmented society to the general public. Personified representations of the food items promote the idea of a nation that is united by paying homage to the warriors who fought and sacrificed their lives for it. “Ode to Artichoke” is an evident portrayal of the warrior. Neruda refers to the artichoke as “Armoured night with a tender heart” thatwaits to be eaten by the woman, Maria, who has picked him up randomly. The artichoke resembles a warrior who is aware of his fate and prepared to accept it. The final stanza where Neruda explains the devouring of his ‘tender green heart’ captures the poignant portrayal of a soldier who gradually sheds every ‘layer’ of his body to protect the land. “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market” does involve certain aspects of the classical form of the ode as the poem invokes the knowledge, wisdom and courage of the tuna that now lies dead intermingling with the vegetables in the market, away from the depths of the ocean. Neruda calls the tuna a “grieving arrow”, “sea javelin” and “nerveless oiled harpoon”, associating it with weapons of destruction yet, at the same time, raising it to the pedestal of wisdom, as someone who has, “survived the unknown and the unfathomable darkness, the depths of the sea.” There is a purpose and direction to the tuna’s life that ends in ‘the waters of death’ but the tuna retains its movement and its identity as a protector and preserver of what he has gained from the ocean. Mourning the loss of the fish, Neruda’s form of the ode is neither celebratory nor optimistic; it is a peculiar intermingling of the domestic space with the arena of conquests and political turmoil that both Chile and Spain were subjected to. The two odes are a flow of expression through the images of fish markets, vegetable markets, right in the middle of the busy streets, that inhabit a livelihood. The personified objects are given sublime values that are associated with the grandeur of valour, beauty and sacrifice, qualities that make a fearless warrior.
While Neruda’s odes present the historical memory of Chile and Spain as nations that thrived in conquests like the Spanish Civil War and Communism; his odes also paint a vibrant picture of the cultural milieu that the two nations formed with each other. “Ode to Tomato” is a poem that describes the cultural influence of Spain over Chile through the rapid invasion of tomatoes in the household and ‘kitchen’ of the land. The short lines of the poem seem to present a constant movement that would finally lead to the construction of a salad, a popular meal in South America.The spilling of the red colour of the tomato over the kitchen is an evocative image of political and cultural invasion of Spain into the culture of Chile. The kitchen is the arena of war where shades of violent ‘intermixing’ of vegetableswith the tomatoes is both a sight of destruction and a beautiful culmination of cultures. Cut into two halves, the tomato represents two hemispheres or lands that, finally, blend in within the salad bowl. However, the poem does not try to erase Chile’s original existence and its historical past that the invasion of the Spanish cultural diversity would have tried to overshadow. The lines “The knife sinks into living flesh red viscera” embodies the bloodshed that marked Chile’s history as the Spanish forces came in attracted by the minerals that were abundant in Chile. An essential part of the poem is the union of the tomato and the onion where tomato, the “inexhaustible sun” is married to the beautiful onion, which it “beds cheerfully”. The union marks one of the various ways in which two different histories of two nations united and tomato became a part of the steady salad making process that involved the essence of olive oil, salt and pepper. The vivid description of the tomato with its convoluted ridges and the process of making the salad highlights Chile’s present as well as near future that the colonizer’s presence and conglomeration into a salad brings about. For Roland Bleiker, “Neruda and his poems epitomise the Zeitgeist of an epoch, the ups and downs of a century whose spirit has come to define the passage into the next millennium.” Penetrating into the domestic sphere of the kitchen, where culinary processes showcase the abundance of a nation, Neruda develops the conquest of the tomato and circumscribes it into the social and political realities of Chile. The final result is the consummation of a union within the glorious colours of the salad bowl that instantly entrenches cultural diversity into Chile’s future and happily comingles with it own historical representation. For Anjana Dutta, “The melting pot of the culture of America has now been replaced by the concept of the salad bowl where all the colours can mix without losing their original shape, form, individuality or identity.”Much like the tomato, “Ode to Salt” is a poem that celebrates the omnipresence of salt in all the meals and, thus, all over the nation. Neruda refers to the salt as “translucent cathedral” immediately invoking religious images and memories the makes salt an everyday object that is to be revered. Neruda traces the long history of salt along with its simplicity and the way in which it becomes one with the food that it is sprinkled on. Tracing the ‘holy history’ of salt, he calls it “preserver of the ancient holds of ships” and is inspired with its piquant and finite presence. In the lines, “in it we taste finitude”, Neruda highlights the miraculously small size of salt and the amount of history that holds within it. The poet is inspired by the way salt interconnects all cultural and historical events being a part of the vast sea, “Dust of the sea, in you, the tongue receives, a kiss from ocean night” and beckons its glorious existence to literally be sung in the poem. The lines, “It sings, salt sings, the skin, of the salt mine, sings” also highlight the reverence that salt holds as it sings its history almost like a hymn to the world. The reader is compelled to hear alliteration working itself into the poem as salt sings it story. Interestingly, the poem is able to draw the patterns in which salt mingles with the historical and cultural histories of the world keeping its own past beneath the sea. While the tomato invades kitchens, salt gloriously blends in, illuminate with simplicity and inspired by its finite and ancient presence that revives histories rather than creating violent ones.
Neruda’s odes and the visual, olfactory and tactile images that it evokes create a beautiful blend of nature with the historical, political and cultural changes that take place in the world. Nature has been present during the course of all the political strife and war the bring nations down and unite others and Neruda’s poetry consciously embeds them into the Western notions that glorify history made and remade by men. The odes closely examine the world around them and, as Roland Bleiker says, “hold on to faint voices and perspectives that may otherwise have vanished into the dark holes of historical narratives” Finally, with the all encompassing presence of nature, food and everyday items in them, Neruda’s poetry essentially portrays the need to reach out to the masses and make them aware of the historical and political memory that is constantly being created around them.
Works Cited
• https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ode-to-tomatoes/(Ode to Tomato)
• https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ode-to-salt/ (Ode to Salt)
• https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ode-to-the-artichoke/ (Ode to Artichoke)
• https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/49322/ode-to-a-large-tuna-in-the-market (Ode to A Large Tuna in the Market)
• Gugelberger, M George. “Blake, Neruda, Ngugi wa Thiong'o: Issues in Third World Literature”, Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Winter, 1984), pp. 463-482, Penn State University Press
• Bleiker, Roland. “Pablo Neruda and the Struggle for Political Memory”, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 6 (Dec., 1999), pp. 1129-1142, Taylor and Francis Ltd.
• Anderson, G David Jr, “Pablo Neruda’s Non Celebratory Elementary Odes”, Romance Notes, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Spring, 1986), pp. 226-231, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for its Department of Romance Studies.
• Abrams, M H, and Geoffrey G. Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Boston, Mass: Thomson Wadsworth, 1999. Print.
