Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer's Poem XIII: Analysis

XIII. Your Pupil is Blue

Subject

Fullness: Loving, hopeful, evokes feelings of love.

Possibility: To find the inner truth and love through the eyes of a woman.

Summary

Beauty corresponds to the woman's sentiments, to delicacy. Through the eyes, one can know the feelings. Elements are identified with nature.

Structure

We can divide the poem into three parts:

• Part 1 (Verse 1): Sentimental woman, a woman who laughs.
• Part 2 (Stanza 2): Sentimental woman, a woman who cries, who transmits sadness.
• Part 3 (Verse 3): Intelligent male ("radiates an idea"). The woman thinks novelty because she does not lose time. Women feel but also think.

Commentary

With respect to the analysis of this poem and its resources, we can highlight:

• Anaphora: 1st stanza, 2nd stanza, 3rd stanza; "Your pupil is blue..."
• Antithesis: Stanza 1 and 2, verse 1, (1st stanza) "when you laugh..." (2nd verse) "when you cry..."
• Comparison:
  • Verses 3 and 4: "I remember the shimmering glow of the morning which is reflected in the sea."
  • Verses 6 and 7: "They seem to me like the transparent tears, like dewdrops on a violet."
• Hyperbaton: Verses 2, 3, and 4; "Its smooth clarity reminds me of the shimmering glow of the morning that in the sea reflects."
• Parallelism: 2nd stanza; "Your pupil is blue, and when you cry, the tears in it transparent seem to me like dewdrops on a violet."

(3) In this rhyme, the writer relies more on technique than on inspiring rhetoric.

(4) Addressing the issue of the poem: The subject of this rhyme is particularly unrequited love, conceived positively. In the first verse, he tells us that the clear blue of his beloved's pupil when she laughs, namely, the clarity of vision of his beloved when she laughs, reminds him of the shimmering glow of the morning that is reflected in the sea. Therefore, it is like the timid light of dawn, the first rays of sun that are reflected in the sea. In summary, he compares his lover's eyes while laughing with the first rays of sun reflected on the sea. In the second stanza, he again makes a comparison of his mistress, this time not when she laughs, but the contrary, when she mourns. When his beloved cries, the transparent tears in her eyes look to him like drops of dew on a violet. That is, the tears of the loved one would be like drops in the morning that are on a violet, and we can assume that the beloved would be the violet, the beloved would be like a flower.

(5) In the third stanza, he tells us that if at the bottom of the pupil of his beloved, there is a point of light, a glow that radiates an idea, it looks like a star lost in the afternoon sky. Here he speaks of an idea in the eyes of his mistress that seemed like a star in the evening, in an evening sky with no stars.

(6) That is, that the point of light in the pupil of his beloved makes him think of a lost idea. In this rhyme, he does not describe his feelings upon seeing the different expressions (7) after different emotions of his beloved.

Style

It is estimated in its simple lyricism, denudedness, transparency, and restraint, its intimate tone, its indecisive and faded line, its total absence of rhetorical, conceptual, or ideological intentions. Bécquer excels in his ability to suggest, to drag the reader's imagination with slight hints. Bécquer's lyricism can be classified as symbolic (identifying nature with the poet's state of mind or relating the physical elements and feelings surrounding it). He transforms the elements into symbols to try to express the ineffable. All his effort seeks to shed all accessories, to condense the poem, to reduce its loudness and brightness, to achieve a soft melancholy solitude. To create this intimate poetry, he used suggestive, veiled lines and his own skepticism on the subject. The verbal instrument seems insufficient for communication; it will only be possible to suggest rather than express directly.

Metrical Analysis

Bécquerian verse with assonance rhyme in pairs (Aa) are heroic verse (major art) and seven syllables (minor art).