Pablo Neruda (Chile, 1904–73)

Three factors are traditionally taken into account in explaining Neruda's shift from the Vanguardist thematics and diction of the first two Residencias to the more Americanist and populist poetry in and after Canto general. One is the formulation of the doctrine of Socialist Realism in Russia at the Moscow Writers' Conference of 1934, a doctrine which took on a new lease of life after World War II. The second is, of course, Neruda's reaction to the Spanish Civil War which in his own view was the key to his poetic development thereafter. The third is the evolution of politics and society in post-World War II Chile, in which a relatively small but growing middle class, perhaps 20 per cent of the population, was acquiring a leadership role in an ideological and political struggle against the “Seventy Families” who spearheaded the landowning and commercial-industrial oligarchy. Initially this struggle appeared to be succeeding, with the victory of the only popular Front experiment outside Europe in 1936. However, after maintaining for a while an uneasy coalition with the Left, president González videla in 1948 outlawed the Communist party, to which Neruda had belonged since 1945, only to see the country turn to a general (Ibañez) in 1952. The economy stagnated and at least half the population of Chile lived below the poverty level. But despite setbacks, the Left was on the move and Neruda became its mouthpiece.