By Cindy Sebastian,Veronica Arzola

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You BY Pablo Neruda

I do not love you except because I love you;I go from loving to not loving you,From waiting to not waiting for youMy heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;I hate you deeply, and hating youBend to you, and the measure of my changing love for youIs that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consumeMy heart with its cruelRay, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one whoDies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You By Pablo Neruda

Pablo was born July 19, 1904 in Parral, Chile and Died September 23, 1973 in Santiago. Whose real name is Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, in the town of Parral in Chile. His father was a railway employee and his mother, who died shortly after his birth, a teacher. Some years later his father, who had then moved to the town of Temucoand remarried.He wrote in variety of styles such as erotically charged love poems as in his collection Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair, surrealist poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos.He won the noble prize in Literature in 1971.He died of cancer.

Pablo Neruda’s Biography

The poem genre of ”I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You” is a love and hatred poem.The poem form is by telling how someone loves and hate you at the same time

Genre & Form

Language of the poem

How is the poem organized?

In this poem there is no rhyme or rhythm. After we read it over paragraph by paragraph still there was nothing.

Rhyme & Rhythm

What is the dramatic context of the poem?

What motivates the speaker is that he is experiencing his thought in mind for example “I go from loving to not loving you, From waiting to not waiting for you, My heart moves from cold to fire“

What motivates the speaker to speak now ,in the tone he/she uses?

The theme is about love and hatred. The example of love in the poem is “I love you only because it’s you the one I love;…”. The example of hatred in the poem is “I hate you deeply, and hating you…”

What theme(s) does the poem contain?

The person that is talking is a man that is in love with a women but, that women is not in love with the man. So the man give all his hatred to her instead.

Who is talking?

The speaker is talking to the person that he does not love but still does. The title says it all. When he uses I do not love you which means that he does not love that person but, when he uses except because I love you he is still loving that person.

To whom is the speaker talking?

The speaker is referring to his love as blind in line 9 of the poem , because the person whom he is trying to express his love for is too blind to see how he feels.He is pursuing his gratitude towards his lover , but she refuses to accept it. From what he says in lines 12-13 of the poem he says “ In this part of the story I am the one who dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you.” He is dying on the inside and telling her with his voice on the out. He is dying because she is refusing to accept his loving gratitude and he says he will die of love because he loves her so much. He hates how much he loves her and he knows that she controls his every whim because he loves her so much . “Bend to you” he would change for her if that’s what would make her happy and make her love him back. “Changing love for you”. Sometimes he hates her but he mostly feels compassion, longing, and love.

What happens during the poem?

What was your initial response to the poem?