IOP Journal 2

I looked up Pablo Neruda's political views today. It turns out that he immersed himself in Communism only around in the mid to late 1930s. He served as a senator for the Communist party in Chile in 1943 but was removed from office and exiled in 1948 due to his criticism of the Chilean president in "I Accuse" (something that we read earlier). His view on Communism carried itself through the Spanish Civil War as he supported the LEFTIST Republicans in Spain and even published "Spain in My Heart" for Republican troops fighting the nationalist spanish government.

IN SUMMARY to this, Neruda was against fascism and hence the many rising dictators of the world preceding World War II (i.e. Hitler). But he did openly praise Stalin and the Soviet Union despite the terrible acts that Stalin committed. Neruda admired the Soviet Union especially because of its role in the defeat of Nazi Germany. Much later, Neruda also supported the socialist Salvador Allende and the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity party) in the late 1960s until his death (September 23rd, 1973).

Now to relate this background info to his poetry....

I'm still trying to analyze the poem "To the Foot from its Child", although I am considering to switch from XCVII to "And the City Now Has Gone" (also from the Extravagaria) after researching XCVII. It turns out the number is just another number from one of Neruda's 100 Love sonnets and the number 97 signifies its place in that collection.

To the Foot from its Child seems to express a very lecturing tone and the foot is a metaphor, but I'm still not totally sure whether it is a metaphor for children or adults? Maybe it progresses throughout the poem as the child grows up?
There is also a motif of fruit and apples, representing imagination?
The format is somewhat important to the poem, because it does guide the reader through the progression by separating the stanzas according to the foot's defeat, it's adaptation to the shoe, the growth of the foot, works of the foot, then it's "burial"....

I'll sleep on it and do another journal tomorrow....