This time, the final lines of Neruda’s poem called to mind one of Maruja Mallo’s most well-known surrealist paintings, Espantapájaros ( Scarecrows) (1930) – part of her series Cloacas y campanarios (Sewers and Belfries), exhibited in Paris in 1932. I’ve done this type of analytical activity before with poetry and art dealing with the Spanish Civil War, specifically comparing a poem by Vicente Aleixandre and Picasso’s Guernica. As I find it especially fruitful for students to analyze poetry alongside a visual, I was particularly enthused about these similarities. This week in my graduate seminar on AP Spanish American Literature ( syllabus) we analyzed and discussed Pablo Neruda’s 1935 poem “ Walking Around.” As I had been reading quite a bit about the avant-garde Spanish painter Maruja Mallo (I wrote my previous post about her 1920s Verbenas (Carnivals)), I discovered a few fantastic connections between one of her unique series of paintings from the early 1930s and the grotesque, surrealist imagery of Neruda’s poem. One of the things I love about teaching and analyzing Spanish literature is that each time I (re)read a text for a new class or course, I end up interpreting it differently depending on what else I happen to be reading or researching at that time.
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