If You Forget Me

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1952

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Literary Context

“If You Forget Me” draws upon the tradition of love poetry. Western love poetry is rooted in medieval French troubadour lyrics. These, in turn, draw from Sufi poetics. Sufi poets, like Rumi, refer to God as the beloved. When troubadour lyrics became popular, the beloved left the sacred realm and became a secular figure. The religion of love, such as seen in the courts of Marie de Champagne, replaced love of a deity with love of a person. Neruda uses the poetic convention of the “beloved” (Line 46) to refer to the woman he ended up marrying—Matilde Urrutia.

Western love poetry also borrows poetic conventions from Chinese and Japanese poetry, such as looking at the moon. Neruda’s “crystal moon” (Line 5) can be compared to how the moon was central to the poetics of Li Bai (also known as Li Po). Li Bai was even rumored to have died trying to embrace the moon’s reflection in a river. A famous figure in Western poetry who used moon symbolism is Federico García Lorca, who directly influenced Neruda. When Neruda traveled to Spain as a Chilean diplomat, he became involved with Lorca and the Generation of ’27.

Neruda is a successor to the Modernismo movement, which developed a tradition of poetry unique to South America and less entangled with Spanish poetry. Among his contemporaries, Neruda was considered the greatest poet of his generation, including by other Nobel winners such as Jorge Luis Borges, who personally disliked him, and Gabriel García Márquez. The movement uses elements of Surrealist imagery as well as strong naturalistic themes.

Biographical Context

While The Captain’s Verses was originally published anonymously, Neruda later took credit for it. Translator Donald D. Walsh’s introduction explains that the poems within, including “If You Forget Me,” are about “his love for and his lover’s quarrels with Matilde Urrutia” (v). The couple married in 1955, a few years after the original publication of The Captain’s Verses. In Neruda’s preface to a 1963 edition, where he admits he is the author of the poems, he writes (and Walsh translates), “What I debated with myself, meanwhile, was whether or not I should remove it from its intimate origin: to reveal its source was to strip bare the intimacy of its birth” (v). The couple began their affair in secret, which is part of the reason for the anonymous publication of Neruda’s poetry about Matilde. After their marriage, Neruda wrote his 100 Love Sonnets (Cien Sonetos de amor) about Matilde. It was published in 1959 with a dedication to her by Neruda.

Matilde, Neruda’s third wife and widow, wrote about their relationship in My Life With Pablo Neruda, which was published posthumously. She discusses how they met in 1946 at a concert in Santiago. Matilde was a physical therapist at that time. Neruda built her a house in Santiago, called La Chascona, which holds a painting by Diego Rivera of Matilde. She remained with Neruda until he died from cancer in 1973. It is also worth noting that Neruda wrote poems to and about several other women, and carried on several affairs, including one with Matilde’s niece, Alicia Urrutia, as well as a sexual encounter of dubious consent, described in his memoirs.