Overview of Neruda's Works

His love poetry, such as the youthful Twenty Love Poems and the mature Los versos del Capitán (1952; The Captain's Verses), is tender, melancholy, sensuous, and passionate. Neruda's imaginative scenes of sexual encounters and intimate details have a universal appeal to the sensory experiences of all readers.

This period marked Neruda's emergence as an important international poet. In “material” poetry, such as Residencia en la tierra, loneliness and depression immerse the author in a subterranean world of dark, demonic forces that are surrealistic and fragmented. According to some critics, this was Neruda's "most powerful and extraordinary" poetry.

Neruda's epic poetry is best represented by Canto general. In this work, Neruda attempts to reinterpret the past and present of Latin America and the struggle of its oppressed and downtrodden masses toward freedom. These poems contain historical allusions, imagery, and powerful metaphors to transport the readers' thinking

Pablo Neruda wrote a total of 225 odes. An ode is a poem expressing the writer's thoughts and feelings about a particular person or subject, usually written to that person or subject. Neruda's odes are his direct, uncensored dialogues with nature. And they are politically charged. Neruda's odes include homages to everyday objects, animals, and plants, and other objects of nature.