B. Translating Love: Desire and the Male Gaze 'Poema 20’ by Pablo Neruda (1924)

Original language text with translated captions, using archival footage as intertext. (Four Seasons Production: uses footage of Rudolph Valentino silent movies):

Read translated poem here (also translated in captions on screen)

  • What is the effect of having the poem translated onscreen?
  • How does the soundtrack of the guitar and the church bells help set the scene in the opening of the poem?
  • Turn down the volume and say the English words aloud as they appear onscreen. How might the feeling of this poem change if the translation were used as a voice-over instead of the original Spanish?
  • Note how this text uses pauses where no words are spoken. What affect is achieved?

 

  • How does Neruda’s poem represent women? How does the Valentino footage portray women? In your view, do the combination of the two texts reaffirm the attitudes of the original texts to women or does it serve to undermine them? If you believe the latter, how is this affect achieved? If you think it is the former, what view of women does the multimodal text convey? What features of the text create this impression?

    Write a justification of your view in your learning log.
    Debate this question in class.