Analyzing Rafael Alberti’s ‘Nocturnal’: A Poem of Repression
‘Nocturnal’ is a poem by Rafael Alberti, a writer of the Generation of ’27, written during the Franco regime and the suppression of freedom of expression in the post-war era. The characteristics of this movement include admiration for literature, the search for beauty through imagery, and expressions of helplessness and anger.
Theme: Social Problems and Lack of Freedom
The central theme of this poem is the social problems experienced at that time and the lack of freedom of expression. Let’s analyze the poem stanza by stanza:
Stanza 1: Suffering and Anger
The first stanza depicts the suffering of the Spanish people. They feel anger, hatred, revenge, and powerlessness against the Franco government. These deep feelings of anger are expressed through words and references to parts of the human body, such as bone, marrow, and blood.
Stanza 2: Bullets and Repression
The repetition of “Bullets, bullets” signifies war, shooting, and killing. It highlights the repression experienced by society, where people are killed for expressing their ideas. The repetition emphasizes the lack of freedom.
Stanza 3: Futility and Despair
The third stanza conveys the idea that all efforts to speak out are futile; everything written and done is burned and lost. This creates a sense of sadness and anger, reflecting the pain and lack of freedom of expression. The use of listing and exclamation marks amplifies these feelings.
Stanza 4: Reinforcement of Violence
The fourth stanza reiterates the violence with the repetition of “Bullets, bullets.”
Stanza 5: Living in Repression
The fifth stanza describes the experience of living under repression. It conveys the feeling of being killed by the inability to express oneself, despite the desire to manifest.
Stanza 6: The Call to Fight
Again, the repetition of “Bullets, bullets” serves as a call to fight to end the oppression.
Stanza 7: Sadness and Devotion
The seventh verse expresses sadness and devotion to his words, coupled with the inability to change the Franco regime. The poem concludes with a final sentence that encapsulates this sentiment.
Poetic Language and Structure
The poem employs a poetic, religious, proper, and adequate language, aiming for clarity and understanding. It reflects the learned vocabulary of the time (e.g., abyss, marrow). There is a shift in tenses: the first stanza uses an impersonal tense to describe the collective feelings of society, while the fifth and seventh stanzas switch to a personal tense to express the poet’s individual feelings after the struggle.
The poem is structured in seven stanzas. The first, third, fifth, and seventh stanzas are Alexandrian (fourteen syllables), while the second, fourth, and sixth are of four syllables. The poem aims to represent reality without explicitly describing it. The verses containing “bullets, bullets” stand apart from the others.
Figures of Speech
The poem utilizes figures of speech, such as:
- Listing: The third verse contains a list: “Manifestos, articles, reviews, speeches, lost smoke, fog stamped…”
- Listing: The fifth stanza contains another list: “…to now suffer the poor, the wretched, sad, miserable and dead…”
- Anaphora: The repetition of “Bullets, bullets” emphasizes the violence, fighting, and lack of dialogue.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this poem exhibits several characteristics of the Generation of ’27, addressing human and social issues, repression, and the lack of freedom of expression. Its purpose is to denounce this lack of freedom through religious language, conveying the feelings of helplessness experienced by the Spanish people and the poet under the Franco regime.