From the Heights of Macchu Picchu to the world: a few pathways for Pablo Neruda’s ruin poetry

Abstract

“Alturas de Macchu Picchu” (the Heights of Macchu Picchu), part of Pablo Neruda’s Canto general, has enjoyed a remarkably international reception, which may be surprising given it is a poem ostensibly rooted in a specific place, Machu Picchu in Peru. The article seeks to understand this global reception and to measure the radial dimensions of “Alturas de Macchu Picchu”. It frames the poem within Canto general, using a genetic and historical approach in order to establish a sense of the interplay of the local and the general in the making of the work. It then focuses on “Alturas de Macchu Picchu” itself, from a textual and intertextual perspective, showing how the poem turns Machu Picchu into a continental nexus, connected to a large space and a deep history. This seemingly topographical poem is also entangled with multiple poetic traditions, ranging from Dante to baroque Spanish poetry. The article ends with a few selected examples of illustrated editions of the poem in translation (in English, French and Ukrainian), which tend to highlight either the local dimension or the global. Taken together, illustrated editions and translations stretch what was compressed in the poem. Approaching the poem from the angle of its reception unfolds its multiple spatial layers.