If You Forget Me

“If You Forget Me” draws upon the tradition of love poetry. Western love poetry is rooted in medieval French troubadour lyrics. These, in turn, draw from Sufi poetics. Sufi poets, like Rumi, refer to God as the beloved. When troubadour lyrics became popular, the beloved left the sacred realm and became a secular figure. The religion of love, such as seen in the courts of Marie de Champagne, replaced love of a deity with love of a person. Neruda uses the poetic convention of the “beloved” (Line 46) to refer to the woman he ended up marrying—Matilde Urrutia.

Western love poetry also borrows poetic conventions from Chinese and Japanese poetry, such as looking at the moon. Neruda’s “crystal moon” (Line 5) can be compared to how the moon was central to the poetics of Li Bai (also known as Li Po). Li Bai was even rumored to have died trying to embrace the moon’s reflection in a river. A famous figure in Western poetry who used moon symbolism is Federico García Lorca, who directly influenced Neruda. When Neruda traveled to Spain as a Chilean diplomat, he became involved with Lorca and the Generation of ’27.