Mediated Experience, Structure, And Gnosticism in Pablo Neruda's Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu.

PABLO Neruda, winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize for Literature, was one of the greatest poets of the Twentieth Century, and, according to Robert Pring-Mill in his introduction to Nathaniel Tarn's translation of Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu, this is "his finest poem" (Tarn vii). The poem sequence that is Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu was first written in September of 1945 in Mexico based on a 1943 trip to the ruins of Macchu Picchu, and it was incorporated into Neruda's General Song of 1950. Yet, according to Kay Engler writing in Symposium in 1974: "The criticism which exists on Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu is either vague and impressionistic or thematic" (Engler 130). The situation has not improved in the 32 years since Engler's comment, and despite Engler's best efforts, the structure of this poem sequence has eluded critics until now. In my reading of this dynamic poem sequence, I argue that there is a very clear and simple structure, perhaps the simplest possible, one based on the concept of an initial topic sentence that sets up the rest of the poem. Furthermore, the opening lines of the twelve poems are tied to each other forming a figurative net of meaning; however, structure alone is not enough to forge a new understanding of this exciting poem sequence, for we also have to look at the concept of mediated experience and the poet's ultimately Gnostic experience of reality.