Canto General: Neruda’s Quest for Historicity

Abstract

The paper intends to explicate Canto General (1950), one of the most notable works by Pablo Neruda, in the light of Karl Marx's dialectical materialism. It broadly encapsulates how Neruda, a socially and politically committed poet, identified the meeting points between the general history of Latin America and the struggle of the masses there for liberation. This paper also exposes how the bourgeois governments intentionally excluded the contribution and sacrifice of the liberators of the continent from the text-book history to mislead the coming generations. It indicates the poet's love for and commitment to the struggle of the proletariat who sacrificed immensely to glorify the history of the entire continent. This research inquires into how the bourgeoisie exploited the proletariat during the post-colonial era in the mid-twentieth century in Latin America. Therein it elucidates the manifold contributions of the true liberators of the continent who sacrificed their lives to bring socio-political changes in society. On the whole, the paper explores how ahistoricity stands as a threat to history and historicity in Latin America, and why the proletarian struggle is important to challenge and question the rise of ahistoricity. Alongside this, this research concentrates on the concept of the Marxist vision of freedom which, in the end, accelerates the proletarian movement.