AP Spanish - Pablo Neruda - Day Six

Neruda’s primary poetic form was the ode-- a song of praise.  But Neruda did not praise elite things but common things.  Neruda worked hard to make objects that people could pick up easily in their hands.  He worked concretely, at the level of the metaphor, to raise the status of humble objects to an exalted, spiritual level.  He did this not to remove them from our everyday lives or to make still-lifes out of them, but to elevate our everyday lives and endow them meaning.   


Neruda praised things by using metaphor.  He also liked to personify objects or address them directly or tell little narratives about them.  But through metaphor, he makes his most compelling humanist arguments linking the self with the earth and with culture and the cosmos.  So in this assignment, I’d like you write an ode, paying special attention to your use of metaphors.  The following instructions may help you get started.  But feel free to try your own approach - whatever gets you going.  

1. Choose an object X (food, clothes, animals, furniture, tools, etc.) 
2. Or choose an activity X (walking, running, drinking, studying, talking). 
3. Describe X.  What are the physical qualities, the attributes, the important parts?   How does X look, feel, sound, taste, smell? 
4. What normal functions do you associate with X? 
5. What experiences have you had with X? 
6. What could X be like?   
7. Can we understand X like or as something else?   
8. If X has no sound, what sound would you imagine it to have? If X has no smell, what would you imagine it to smell like? 
9. What do we gain from speculating about X in terms of something/someone else?


Your oda - in the style of Neruda - is due in class on 3/27.