Civil War Poetry: Serving the People  

From Whitman's Drum Taps

From Neruda's Spain in the Heart: Hymn to the Glories of the People at War

   

The American Civil War and the Spanish Civil War were primarily wars of principle.  The conflicts represented a critical point for each respective nation, a time of either death or continuation for the countries.  Both Whitman and Neruda exibit a  key shared element in the poets' works of the concept of a cosmic rebirth illustrated in their poetry through a celebration of the perpetual cycle of life and death fostering optimism. This mutual philosophy is manifested in Neruda and Whitman's poetry in several interesting ways.  One of the most striking biographical parallels between the two poets originates from their direct involvement in civil war.  Whitman served as a nurse in war hospitals during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and his poem Drum Taps, published just after the war ended, chronicles his war experience and serves as a record of the conflict.     The Battle field in Fredericksburg  from Whitman and Civil War   Nearly seventy years later, Pablo Neruda found himself entangled in a different intra-national conflict, the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).  Neruda served as Chilean consul to Spain in the Republican capital city of Madrid during its bombardment by Federalist forces and later rallied for the Republican cause after being removed from his position.  Neruda's poem Spain in the Heart: Hymn to the Glories of the People at War, published as the war still raged in 1937, follows in the tradition of Whitman's Drum Taps, offering an intimate eye witness account of civil war.        Through the volumes of Drum Taps and Spain in the Heart, Whitman and Neruda offer poetic responses to their profound experiences during civil war, depicting the potential rebirth of society out of the destruction of war through the victory of democracy.  Within these volumes, each poet includes a section reflecting on the conflict after it has just begun and at the point where it is beginning to escalate dramatically.  In the section "Arrival in Madrid of the International Brigade" Neruda shows the troops from the international forces arriving in the desolate city of Madrid.  This section mirrors Whitman's Drum Taps section of poetry "Eighteen Sixty-One" which also focuses on the war as it is reaching a critical point of expansion.  Centered on the time of most profound national crisis, the poets use the image of gathering soldiers to validate their cause.  The solider becomes the embodiment of the poets' war philosophies of reconstruction out of destruction.  Neruda and Whitman concentrate on the soldier's sacrifice as requisite for societal salvation.         Each poem reflects the desolation resulting from the beginning stages of the conflict and subsequently presents the gathering soldiers as a reason for hope.  The sections begin submerged in the bleak solemnity of the turmoil of war.  This represents a shift from the booming patriotism in the proceeding section in Drum Taps.  Whitman's speaker shifts to a grave tone, lamenting the  "Arm'd year-year of struggle, / No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you terrible year" (lines 1-2).  The "terrible year" is replete with the profound disintegration of societal structures as the order of the United States is destroyed.  The gravity presented in "Eighteen Sixty-One"  assumes a physical manifestation in "Arrival in Madrid" as Neruda observes the completely devastated city of Madrid following Federalist bombings in a "world filled only with devouring monsters and furies" (line 7).  The beginnings of each section are permeated with the images of the nations of Spain and the United States in chaos.  Arriving into the darkness, the legions of soldiers offer powerful reason for hope.          Neruda and Whitman's soldiers in America and Spain embody characteristics of manly valor, and their inherently masculine characteristics are observed directly by each speaker.    Whitman's speaks to the troops and projects his vision of one  "as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a rifle on your shoulder, / with well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands, with a knife / in the belt at your side."  The Union forces here are the fundamentally masculine soldiers classically depicted in war literature.  The forces in the International Brigade inherit many of these qualities as the speaker in Neruda's work   reflects this Whitmanesque sentiment of manly valor.       from  Spanish Civil War posters   "I saw with these eyes I have, with this heart that sees,/ I saw the bright and spirited and commanding combatants / of the lean, tough, mature, ardent and steadfast brigade arrive" (lines 10-12).  Neruda contrasts the manly presence in the city of Madrid with its previously helpless state as inhabited only by women.  "It was an anguished time when women / bore an absence like a terrible chunk of coal" (lines 13-14).  This absence of men to hault the destruction is also the absence of hope similarly portrayed by Whitman through his "terrible year."   The arrival of such symbolic men evokes a reverential response from the speakers as they celebrate their strong characteristics particularly considering their inevitable self-sacrifice that will follow.        As the physical characteristics of the men reflect their heroics to validate the political cause that each speaker supports, so too is their solidarity with each other, the cause, and as the speaker expresses toward them, crucial in building the significance of their sacrifice.  There is a great geographical diversity in Whitman's troops.  The men have gathered from all over the United States and are united instantly by their uniforms and everything their uniforms represent.  Workmen from Manhattan to mountain men from Chattanooga all feel compelled to fight for the new order.  Bonded by their commonality of conviction, this makes them a great force against the enemy, thus promising great hope for the new order to be established.  Neruda notes the same kind of solidarity despite even more distinct backgrounds, as the international brigade consisted of soldiers from all over the world.  These men "from your corners, from your lost cities" (line 31) are all united by the glorious cause of liberty.  This also bonds the speaker in both poems to the soldiers in a profoundly intimate manner.  Neruda calls to his comrades exclaiming "I saw you, / and my eyes are even now filled with pride, / because I saw you through the morning mist arrive to the pure front of Castile" (lines 26-28).  The bond that Whitman and Neruda's speakers feel toward the soldiers presses them closer into the collective society encompasing all of humanity.  The reverence and fellowship the speakers express toward the soldiers only serves to heighten the nobility of their inevitable sacrifice.         Through similar language, the two poets evoke the death in battle of the soldiers as a sacrifice they feel sure will occur but couple this with their profound kinship with the soldiers and the promise of deliverance through their sacrifice.  The speakers in "Eighteen Sixty-One" and "Arrival in Madrid" are personally troubled by inevitable loss of these men and the created sense of solidarity between these men and all of humanity deepens the profundity of loss for the reader.  Whitman's "year that suddenly sang by the moths of the rounded-lipp'd cannon" (line 15) echos the loss of his heroes, the reverberating lamentation for their noble sacrifice.  The loss is that of an intimate brother and the resulting devastation is intense.  Neruda reflects this intensity of loss as the men will fall with the city.         Out of the ashes of this sad lamentation of loss, comes the hope of rebirth for the speaker in Neruda and Whitman's poems.  The sacrifice will be noble and lasting, as the deaths will lead to rebirth, both through victory on the battlefield and through the poets validating and celebrating the sacrifice through their poetry.  Just as Whitman promises  "I will repeat you" (line 16) to remember the loss of fine men, Neruda promises to the troops "that all the stars, all the wheat of Castile and the world / may write down your name, your steadfast struggle / and your victory, / strong and earthy as a red oak" (lines 42-44).  The immortality of the men through their sacrifice will be perpetuated even by nature itself and by the poetic glorification of the speakers.  The loss of these soldiers is at a great price but also for a profound reason.  The death of the soldiers is a necessary element to the cycle of death and life.  Neruda concludes with this central idea by addressing the soldiers "and through your abundance, your nobility, your deaths / as through a valley of hard bloodied rocks, / an immense river passes with doves of steel and of hope" (lines 47-49).  The desolation of the land caused by the mounting conflict is literally washed away both by the steal that the fervent soldier-heroes march into battle with and the subsequent hope emerging from their tragic but crucial deaths.  Neruda represented Whitman's men so intimately tied to the land in the metaphor for renewal out of destruction.        The poets in "Eighteen Sixty-One" and "Arrival in Madrid of the International Brigade" assume the role of the voice and interpretive validator of the men using the image of the gathering troops as a vehicle for validating the cause of the conflicts while lamenting the heroic loss of such good men.  By intimately connecting with the soldiers through solidarity, the recognition of their sacrifice assumes a more profound significance.  The portrait of the soldiers presents these men as heroes who will be able to bring order out of the chaos.  The philosophy of cosmic rebirth that Neruda and Whitman share unites the work of the men as it is expressed through their common experience of civil war.