Pablo de Rokha and Pablo Neruda, or, On the Dissimilarity of Similar

The article considers the specific poetry of one of the largest poets of Chile of the 20th century — Pablo de Rokha in relation to the poetry of his compatriot and contemporary Pablo Neruda. Both poets belonged to Latin American avant-garde aesthetics, both of whom enjoyed great fame and shared common ideological views, but were diametrically opposed in both human and artistic dimensions. Pablo Neruda was a great collector of things of the world; Pablo de Rokha (his pseudonym and the word “stone” sounds the same), unlike Neruda, who collected neither stones, nor any other elements of earthly existence. At the same time his poetry is filled with the smell of steppe herbs, smoke of night fires, it is very material. The difference between the two “materialistic” Pablos is that de Rokha is not only calling their names – he is busy with creating, naming, making of the new world. That is why his poetic material it is so heavy, rude, and rough – earthly, stony words that he unwinds without any concern for beauty and clarity. If Pablo Neruda poeticizes every spiritual movement, every random thought, however insignificant it may be, making them objects of artistic expression, de Rokha does not let his emotions pass through the aesthetic filter – they come from the gut and he turns them in his poetic material, rude and primitive. The main thing that distinguishes de Rokha from Neruda is de Rokha’s tragic worldview expressed in his poetic writing. A coеmparison of the two poets leads to the conclusion that Pablo Neruda and Pablo de Rokha are two opposite versions of the same type of creative personality, extremely similar in their dissimilarity.