" Sweetness, Always" ( Analysis)
             For those who are accustomed to Pablo Neruda's predominantly either romantic or political poetry, "Sweetness, Always" may result confusing and somewhat deceiving. However, Neruda beautifully uses deception to convey a message of protest against the lack of sweetness and the starvation of the soul.
             Initially, it seemed to me as though it was some sort of protest concerning the socio-political situation of his country Chile. There are various factors and points that lead to this specific conclusion. Therefore, I will here explain briefly some of them.
             First of all, I must acknowledge that while having some of the author's biographical information helps enhance comprehension of a specific piece; in this case it became the causal influence of the arrival to a misleading set of premises and conclusions about the poem.
             Moreover, the first piece of evidence that pointed to this poem's political nature, is found in the first and last lines of the first paragraph when the author asks " Why such harsh machinery?...must poems be dressed up in gold, in old and fearful stone?" (788). Because of the socio-economic and political crisis Chile was going through since the beginning of Augusto Pinochet's presidency in 1973, it could be assumed that the "harsh machinery" the poet talks about, refers to guns or bayonets, and that the the "gold" and "old and fearful stones" refer to the gold in the uniforms of high ranked Army officials, and that the old and fearful stones are their jewelry. Let us remember that in a dictatorship, richness is prevalent only those officials that are part of the party or form of government in power.
             Another Factor that leads us to think that Pablo Neruda, longs for social relief for his country, makes itself evident in the sixth paragraph, when the author says, "I want verses of felt and fe...