Canto General is Neruda's vast epic of the Americas, published in 1950. It contains hundreds of poems arranged in fifteen sections. It begins with the land itself, its plants, animals and rivers, then turns to the ancient peoples, the Spanish conquest, the heroes of independence, and the struggles of workers and the poor. Neruda also writes of his own life and exile. Bold, political and richly imagined, it is one of the major poems of the twentieth century and a landmark of Latin American literature.
Quotes
Amor America (1400), st. 3-4
To the lands without nameor numbers,the wind blew down from other domains,the rain brought celestial threads,and the god of the impregnated altarsrestored flowers and lives.
It was the twilight of the iguana.
I put my brow amid the deep waves,descended like a drop amid the sulphurous peace,and, like a blind man, returned to the jasmineof spent human springtime.