Five Decades: Poems 1925-1970

by Pablo Neruda

Overview

This bilingual volume is the definitive collection of the poetry of Pablo Neruda, the 1971 Nobel Prize winner and one of the most profoundly influential poets of the twentieth century. His love poems are earthy and transcendent, and his political poems are the work of a man as incisive, impassioned, and ferociously intelligent as he was sensual. Ben Belitt has drawn the 138 selections in Five Decades from all of Neruda's major works, including the early volumes Residence on Earth, General Song, Elemental Odes, Voyages and Homecomings, Book of Vagaries, A Hundred Love Sonnets, Black Island Memorial, and the later The Hands of Day, World's End, and Skystones.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802130358
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	01/12/1994
Series:	Neruda, Pablo Series
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	651,300
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.25(d)

About the Author

Date of Birth:

July 12, 1904

Date of Death:

September 23, 1973

Place of Birth:

Parral, Chile

Place of Death:

Santiago, Chile

Education:

University of Chile, Santiago

Editorial Reviews

"It is difficult to speak of Pablo Neruda's poetry as poetry. It is easier to compare him to Bartok for his driving rhythms, his intensity of passion, or to Stravinsky for his harsh dissonances and strange harmonies. Or if not music, perhaps painting. Critic Angel Flores likens him to Picasso...[for] 'their fertile, chameleon-like creativeness, their constant, unpredictable transformations.'" -- The Christian Science Monitor

Christian Science Monit

"It is difficult to speak of Pablo Neruda's poetry as poetry. It is easier to compare him to Bartok for his driving rhythms, his intensity of passion, or to Stravinsky for his harsh dissonances and strange harmonies. Or if not music, perhaps painting. Critic Angel Flores likens him to Picasso...[for] 'their fertile, chameleon-like creativeness, their constant, unpredictable transformations."

Monitor Christian Science

"Neruda's poetry inevitably calls forth Wagnerian language from overwhelmed observers -- 'force of nature,' 'avalanche,' 'volcano'... [He] led an epic life as a revolutionary prophet and... national hero in Chile."

New York Times Book Review