The Poetry of Pablo Neruda

[Heteronym]

Cat's Dream

How neatly a cat sleeps,
sleeps with its paws and its posture,
sleeps with its wicked claws,
and with its unfeeling blood,
sleeps with all the rings--
a series of burnt circles--
which have formed the odd geology
of its sand-colored tail.

I should like to sleep like a cat,
with all the fur of time,
with a tongue rough as flint,
with the dry sex of fire;
and after speaking to no one,
stretch myself over the world,
over roofs and landscapes,
with a passionate desire
to hunt the rats in my dreams.

I have seen how the cat asleep
would undulate, how the night
flowed through it like dark water;
and at times, it was going to fall
or possibly plunge into
the bare deserted snowdrifts.
Sometimes it grew so much in sleep
like a tiger's great-grandfather,
and would leap in the darkness over
rooftops, clouds and volcanoes.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night,
with episcopal ceremony
and your stone-carved moustache.
Take care of all our dreams;
control the obscurity
of our slumbering prowess
with your relentless heart
and the great ruff of your tail.

Translated by Alastair Reid
-----------------------------------------------------

I bought The House in the Sand today, which gave me the idea of starting this thread. My first contact with Neruda's writings was actually his autobiography, one of the best I've read in my life. But the great introduction to him was in fact the Italian movie The Postman.

His poetry I discovered some time later. I started with Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, which didn't hold my attention as much as I expected. But I persevered and this new collection of poems seems far more interesting.

What do people here think of the Chilean poet?

[Gregory Samsa]

I love Neruda and I am glad that he won the Nobel Prize. I can recommend his Nobel Lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1971/neruda-lecture-e.html

If You Forget Me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine


Stationary Point

I would know nothing, dream nothing:
who will teach my non-being
how to be, without striving to be?

How can the water endure it?
What sky have the stones dreamed?

Immobile, until those migrations
delay at their apogee
and fly on their arrows
toward the cold archipelago.

Unmoved in its secretive life,
like an underground city,
so the days may glide down
like ungraspable dew:
nothing fails, or shall perish,
until we be born again,
until all that lay plundered
be restored with the tread
of the springtime we buried—
the unceasingly stilled, as it lifts
itself out of non-being, even now,
to be flowering bough.

[Hawkman]

I've not read any Neruda before and if this is the kind of work he produces I want to read more. A lot more, actually. Thanks for the introduction.

[Heteronym]

Neruda's poetry has many facets. As far as I'm concerned, he was the last great poet of love.

This is an excerpt from Canto General, a long poem about the history and gepgraphy of South America:

Arise to birth with me, my brother.
Give me your hand out of the depths
sown by your sorrows.
You will not return from these stone fastnesses.
You will not emerge from subterranean time.
Your rasping voice will not come back,
nor your pierced eyes rise from their sockets.

Look at me from the depths of the earth,
tiller of fields, weaver, reticent shepherd,
groom of totemic guanacos,
mason high on your treacherous scaffolding,
iceman of Andean tears,
jeweler with crushed fingers,
farmer anxious among his seedlings,
potter wasted among his clays--
bring to the cup of this new life
your ancient buried sorrows.
Show me your blood and your furrow;
say to me: here I was scourged
because a gem was dull or because the earth
failed to give up in time its tithe of corn or stone.
Point out to me the rock on which you stumbled,
the wood they used to crucify your body.
Strike the old flints
to kindle ancient lamps, light up the whips
glued to your wounds throughout the centuries
and light the axes gleaming with your blood.

There's also his playful side, from The Book of Questions:

Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?

Why do trees conceal
the splendor of their roots?

Who hears the regrets
of the thieving automobile?

Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?


There's his love poetry, for instance from One Hundred Love Sonnets:

One time more, my love, the net of light extinguishes
work, wheels, flames, boredoms and farewells,
and we surrender the swaying wheat to night,
the wheat that noon stole from earth and light.
The moon alone in the midst of its clear page
sustains the pillars of Heaven’s Bay,
the room acquires the slowness of gold,
and your hands go here and there preparing night.
O love, O night. O cupola ringed by a river
of impenetrable water in the shadows of Heaven,
that raises and drowns its tempestuous orbs,
until we are only the one dark space
a glass into which fall celestial ashes,
one drop in the flow of a vast slow river

And he also wrote some unfortunate poems glorifying the Soviet Union and Stalin in particular:

To be men! That is the Stalinist law! . . .
We must learn from Stalin
his sincere intensity
his concrete clarity. . . .
Stalin is the noon,
the maturity of man and the peoples.
Stalinists, Let us bear this title with pride. . . .
Stalinist workers, clerks, women take care of this day!
The light has not vanished.
The fire has not disappeared,
There is only the growth of
Light, bread, fire and hope
In Stalin's invincible time! . . .
In recent years the dove,
Peace, the wandering persecuted rose,
Found herself on his shoulders
And Stalin, the giant,
Carried her at the heights of his forehead. . . .
A wave beats against the stones of the shore.
But Malenkov will continue his work.

[stlukesguild]

A strong argument could be made for Neruda as the greatest poet of the 20th century. He is certainly worth reading. Especially check out Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, The Captain's Verses, and Residence Earth.

[stlukesguild]

he also wrote some unfortunate poems glorifying the Soviet Union and Stalin in particular

Yes... and he later regretted this... and admitted as much in some of his later poems. One must remember that flirtation with Communism and the Russian Revolution was part of the efforts toward a greater equality: the labor movement, and the struggle against fascism in Europe... especially Spain. Neruda made the same mistake many have made in assuming that the enemy of one's enemy is one's friend.

[Riverrun...]

Pablo Neruda is fantastic.

The Soviet Union/Stalin poems seem to be of lower quality than his other writing, and I'm sure it's not just because of the subject matter. If they were his earliest poems, perhaps it has something to do with that?

[mayneverhave]

Pablo Neruda is fantastic.

The Soviet Union/Stalin poems seem to be of lower quality than his other writing, and I'm sure it's not just because of the subject matter. If they were his earliest poems, perhaps it has something to do with that?

Not necessarily. His early poems were quite good, actually. With Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair published when he was 19/20 to establish his reputation, it wasn't exactly that age could be correlated with quality. He wrote occasional poems, political poems, etc., which were perhaps sub-par (most likely do to them being obligatory), but a poet's complete oeuvre is rarely entirely spotless.

[Riverrun...]

With Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair published when he was 19/20

I didn't know that. That's very impressive.

[Heteronym]

he also wrote some unfortunate poems glorifying the Soviet Union and Stalin in particular

Yes... and he later regretted this... and admitted as much in some of his later poems. One must remember that flirtation with Communism and the Russian Revolution was part of the efforts toward a greater equality: the labor movement, and the struggle against fascism in Europe... especially Spain. Neruda made the same mistake many have made in assuming that the enemy of one's enemy is one's friend.

As someone with left-wing sympathies, I'm not one to judge Neruda for his support of the Soviet Union. But it has cost him the admiration of many. There are many who only see poet who wrote odes to Stalin and who try to denigrate the rest of his work because of his political sympathies. This article (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/328fipbb.asp) is quite illustrative of what I mean.

[miyako73]

This is according to a creative writing professor:

Neruda's poems are good, nice, or what have you because they were written by Neruda. Had they been written by an unknown poet, literary critics could have easily dismissed them as too wordy, too cheesy, and too flowery.

[Gregory Samsa]

This is according to a creative writing professor:

Neruda's poems are good, nice, or what have you because they were written by Neruda. Had they been written by an unknown poet, literary critics could have easily dismissed them as too wordy, too cheesy, and too flowery.

That sound like bull**** to me. ;)

I love his early poems, specially his second book "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair". It is vigorous, poignant, and direct, yet subtle and very original in its imagery and metaphors. The poems express young, passionate, unhappy love perhaps better than any other book of poetry!

Tonight I Can Write

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

[miyako73]

Do an experiment. Pick a not so famous poem of Neruda and have your creative writer friend read it without saying a word that it's Neruda's. You will get the following:

Too wordy, too cheesy, too flowery.


If "I kissed her again and again under the endless sky." were written by an unknown poet, do you think it will appear in an anthology? NOPE. Cliche.

[mayneverhave]

This is according to a creative writing professor:

Neruda's poems are good, nice, or what have you because they were written by Neruda. Had they been written by an unknown poet, literary critics could have easily dismissed them as too wordy, too cheesy, and too flowery.

Well, that kinda presupposes that Neruda was born with a good reputation, which is obviously not the case. It had to be earned.

THE INSECT

From your hips to your feet
I want to make a long journey.

I am smaller than an insect.

I go along these hills,
they are the color of oats,
they have slender tracks
that only I know,
burnt centimeters,
pale perspectives.

Here there is a mountain.
I'll never get out of it.
Oh, what giant moss!
and a crater, a rose
of dampened fire!

Down your legs I come
spinning a spiral
or sleeping en route
and I come to your knees
of round hardness
as to the hard peaks of a bright continent.

I slide toward your feet,
to the eight openings
of your sharp, slow,
peninsular toes,
and from them to the void
of the white sheet
I fall, seeking blind
and hungry your contour
of burning cup!
(tr. Donald D. Walsh)

Neruda's poetry embraces his sensual, anti-intellectual sensibilities. Often it verges on the point of being bawdy, but the poetry is always controlled by metaphor and a delicate subtlety.

[miyako73]

Neruda's early love poetry in spanish had its period in chile. If translated to English, it loses its Spanish/Chilean/Latin-American literary vim.

[miyako73]

Correction: I should have said Neruda's English-translated poems.


Neruda's original:

Duerme, duerme, gato nocturno
con tus ceremonias de obispo,
y tu bigote de piedra:

Reid's Translation:

Sleep, sleep cat of the night,
with episcopal ceremony
and your stone-carved moustache.

To maintain the masculinity of Neruda's tone and imagery, the translation should have been:

Sleep, sleep, nocturnal cat
with your bishop's ceremonies
and your mustache of stone.

The differences:

nocturnal cat - masculine
cat of the night - feminine

with your bishop's ceremonies - authority/power - masculine
with episcopal ceremony - blessing/grace - feminine

and your moustache of stone - hard - masculine
and your stone-carved moustache - soft - feminine


----- the way neruda's poems have been translated, most of the time, is just too feminine and opposite to what neruda felt (as expressed by his tones and imageries) when he wrote them.

[Heteronym]

This is according to a creative writing professor:

Neruda's poems are good, nice, or what have you because they were written by Neruda. Had they been written by an unknown poet, literary critics could have easily dismissed them as too wordy, too cheesy, and too flowery.

Fascinating logic that...

So tell me, before Neruda became a known poet, why did people praise and read his poetry? Doesn't it make sense to assume that he became known exactly because of the quality of his poetry?

[miyako73]

Read my correction: Neruda's English Poems. Translation is awful.

[Heteronym]

I've only read him in translation, and he's still good :wink5:

[Gregory Samsa]

Read my correction: Neruda's English Poems. Translation is awful.

I dont agree with you. I love his poems in Swedish and English. Like Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said: "Neruda is the greatest poet of the 20th century — in any language."

[Heteronym]

Well, now that might be an exaggeration, but I forgive Gabo for his hyperboles :smile5:

More influential than T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound on 20th century poetry he certainly wasn't. More innovative than Fernando Pessoa, who contained several poets inside him, he definitely wasn't either.

Pablo Neruda is an inventive, tender, seductive poet.

[stlukesguild]

More influential than T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound on 20th century poetry he certainly wasn't.

Are you sure of that... or are you basing your assumptions of the importance of T.S. Eliot and Pound vs Neruda solely upon the impact of the poets on English-language literature? Neruda picks up and continues where Federico Garcia-Lorca leaves off in the whole of Spanish language poetry... and we should note that Spanish literature of the time was an absolute hothouse.
Along with Borges, Neruda is one of the central figures in the Renaissance of Latin-American literature... an equivalent of Whitman... or Diego Rivera in painting.

Neruda can indeed be a seductive, tender, lyrical poet... but he is much more than that. He builds upon a unique Spanish use of metaphor with the visionary fervor of San Juan de la Cruz, Blake, Whitman... and Garcia-Lorca... and marries these to French trends coming from Symbolism and leading toward Surrealism. Cursory readings of Residence on Earth or the Captain's Verses reveal a poet far more complex and ambitious than the popular love lyrics alone might suggest.

[Heteronym]

I'd say that in the English-speaking world, Neruda hasn't been more influential or important than Pound and Eliot. I have no doubt of that. I don't know the world of Spanish-speaking poetry well enough to judge Neruda's place in it, but I'd like to see evidence of his great influence before believing it.

[miyako73]

As I said, Neruda's poetry sounds beautiful, makes sense, and even feels minimalist in Spanish, but its English translation is awful--full of cliche, feminine punch, and soap operatic flare.

[Gregory Samsa]

As I said, Neruda's poetry sounds beautiful, makes sense, and even feels minimalist in Spanish, but its English translation is awful--full of cliche, feminine punch, and soap operatic flare.

We heard you the first time! And you have wrong he is wonderful in English translation.

[stlukesguild]

As I said, Neruda's poetry sounds beautiful, makes sense, and even feels minimalist in Spanish, but its English translation is awful--full of cliche, feminine punch, and soap operatic flare.

And why should we take your opinion as the last word when some of us who may actually be as well read or far better read than yourself are of a different opinion?

[miyako73]

It is absurd to compare Neruda to English-speaking/writing poets.

[stlukesguild]

It is absurd to compare Neruda to English-speaking/writing poets.

No... It's absurd to make such absurd proclamations. Homer is compared with Virgil and Milton. Shakespeare is compared with Dante. Baudelaire is compared with Whitman... and Whitman is compared with Pessoa and Neruda. Literature continually involves a dialog between writers of different cultures, languages, and eras.

[JCamilo]

Do an experiment. Pick a not so famous poem of Neruda and have your creative writer friend read it without saying a word that it's Neruda's. You will get the following:

Too wordy, too cheesy, too flowery.


If "I kissed her again and again under the endless sky." were written by an unknown poet, do you think it will appear in an anthology? NOPE. Cliche.

yet,

La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito

is just perfect. You know what else is cliche? A writer that descend to hell...

by the way, if was Eliot and Yeats... But Pound... no sorry...

[miyako73]

why is "La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito" better than "I kissed her again and again under the endless sky."?

It's the language, the nuances of Spanish, the mother tongue of Neruda.

el ciel infinito is deeper and more meaningful than the endless sky. Linguists and translation experts know what I'm talking about.

Besides, language is culture. Translating Neruda's poems without considering his culture is an ingredient for a literary disaster.

[JCamilo]

Not all translation is a disaster, some translations are good enough, jewells on their own. Homer is never original.
Anyways, the main reason is not the meaning (the meaning is the easier translation) is the sound. It uses the exactly few worlds that could produce that harmony in spanish. (in this case I think the repeation of again is not good for the verse, also the spanish words are longer, one would say pompous, but that is ignoring spanish is a pompous language. This make the long lines that Neruda used so much adquire a softness, a distance. It is slow. I do not fell it coming from this english line, maybe something "Kissed her a thousand times beneath the infinite sky" could be more close, however stll the problem of cielo infinito ending the line with the one syllabe of sky.)
All this does not mean it is the problem of translation, it is much more the solution. Yes, Neruda sounds more Neruda in spanish. But the already mentioned Pound thought Virgil sounded better translated by Chapman. Go figure.

[stlukesguild]

I would agree that Pound's influence... at least from his poetry alone... does not rival Eliot or Yeats. I would suspect that Rilke was another major influence looking at the other poets, including Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Montale, etc... who cite him as such... to say nothing of the number of talented translators... including many poets of real merit... who have been drawn to Rilke.

why is "La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito" better than "I kissed her again and again under the endless sky."?

It's the language, the nuances of Spanish, the mother tongue of Neruda.

el ciel infinito is deeper and more meaningful than the endless sky. Linguists and translation experts know what I'm talking about.

Who are these "translation experts?" Are we speaking of academics who major in translation from Italian or Spanish? They are almost always wrong in that they are so focused upon the literal "meaning" that they lose the poetry. I don't know how many times I have read glowing reviews from academics expounding on the literal accuracy of a translation that is all but dead as actual writing.

The goal of any translation, as Dante Rossetti stated it, is to bring one more work of literary beauty into a given language, built upon another work of literary beauty that is otherwise inaccessible. The fact that many readers find pleasure in Neruda in English translation... many readers who are not altogether ignorant of good poetry... suggests that to a certain extent the translations have been successful. Certainly the translation will never be the same as the original... but this is no more true of Neruda than it is of Homer, Virgil, Dante, etc...

Translating Neruda's poems without considering his culture is an ingredient for a literary disaster.

The translators and readers need to know of the culture of Neruda before translating and reading him? And so you assume that none of his translators took the time to actually study the man and his history and the culture from which he sprang? What translator actually invests such labor into translation without doing such? Most translation involves the input from your linguistic and language "experts" as well as other poets an editors in the language into which the work is being translated.

[JCamilo]

I would agree that Pound's influence... at least from his poetry alone... does not rival Eliot or Yeats. I would suspect that Rilke was another major influence looking at the other poets, including Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Montale, etc... who cite him as such... to say nothing of the number of talented translators... including many poets of real merit... who have been drawn to Rilke.

Yeah, Rilke is certainly a major player in this game. He wasnt mentioned by anyone, but he is there. I do not read much of his poetry (my lack of capacity to understand germany stops me), more of his prose and correspondence. Of course, from South American perspective, Carlos Drummond de Andrade is head to head with Neruda and it is only natural that major languages have great representative names, so I will leave here the _________ for JBI include the chinese or japanese poet too :D

I do not think Knowing Neruda political life adds anything to translate his poems. Funny enough, Borges once called him a romantic poet of 2th rate (And I think that is a compliment, not everyone can be a Keats or Wordsworth or Schilling) but funny enough, Borges liked more his political poems than his love poems. Apparently, Borges admired Neruda effort to drawn and Bolivarism to america similar to Walt Whitman. Knowing spanish is another obvious thing, you do not translate the poem, you must translate the feeling. English is a faster and have more options for short sillabes than Spanish, but you certainly can find great poets that used english with "pompous" style. I think Robert Browning would do a good job with Neruda for example. Now, if a great artists do a translation that have nothing to do, so what? You can always read both.
For example ,The Raven translated by Machado de Assis is an admirable work. To use the same repetion of syllabes (or), Machado went to "ais", a longer but omnious sound, so it added to create the feeling necessary for the poem. The metric is not similar at all to Poe, but but the the "Nunca Mais" said by the bird stands... (And even, Raven in Portuguese is gralha, but the poem here is Corvo, which is Corvo. I suspect we should blame it on Baudelaire).

[miyako73]

I thought, before reading Lorca, everything could be easily translated from one language to another.

Translating words is easy but not translating concepts.

The concept of "duende" had influenced Lorca's writing and thinking throughout his life/career. How can you translate and appropriate duende into English?

Goblin? Dwarf? Elf?

Using Lorca's understanding, it's none of the above. It's deeper than the English speakers' idea of a supernatural midget.

[stlukesguild]

Is there even a need to translate "duende"? Anyone with some knowledge of Spanish poetry and music will probably have picked the term up (even if they haven't read Lorca's essay or Hirsch's book, The Demon and the Angel). By the same token there is little need to translate "Gemütlichkeit", "Schadenfreude", "Gesamtkunstwerk", or "Angst" from German into English.

[miyako73]

Do yourself a favor. Read some postcolonial writings on literature and translation.

[JCamilo]

Do you understand that for a spanish or portuguese person, Duende is not deep than a supernatural midget? It is necessary to understand Lorca to see that he took a word from commun usage to a new significance. Just uttering Duede means nothing, thus I could say the translation is "Ziggy" and explain the concept and would work in a similar way.

[miyako73]

we also have "duwende," but it's not a goblin or an elf, nor is it a "disney" dwarf. It's untranslatable. It won't make sense in English, but in my language it's as common as fairies.

My contention:

There are Tamil poems in India that are as good, if not better, as Neruda's, but they are not translated. If translated, they will lose sense and depth and nobody will read because, besides being written by unknown poets, they will sound flowery, wordy, and outdated.

There you go the colonializing power of language.

[JCamilo]

As I said, Duende in spanish have nothing to do with Lorca. It means something else. Lorca build a concept that is not linked the to meaning of the word in the original language, so it is irrelevant if the concept is applied to english. Allegories work like this.

Anyways, if his literature is not tranlatable, then it is not as powerfull as Neruda. The notion that translations reduce the power of literature is easily dismissed by Homer.

[miyako73]

Lorca's words in English:

"Whoever travels the bull’s hide that stretches between the Júcar, Guadalfeo, Sil and Pisuerga rivers (not to mention the tributaries that meet those waves, the colour of a lion’s mane, that stir the Plata) frequently hears people say: ‘This has much duende’. Manuel Torre, great artist of the Andalusian people, said to someone who sang for him: ‘You have a voice, you understand style, but you’ll never ever succeed because you have no duende.’

All through Andalusia, from the rock of Jaén to the snail’s-shell of Cadiz, people constantly talk about the duende and recognise it wherever it appears with a fine instinct. That wonderful singer El Lebrijano, creator of the Debla, said: ‘On days when I sing with duende no one can touch me.’: the old Gypsy dancer La Malena once heard Brailowsky play a fragment of Bach, and exclaimed: ‘Olé! That has duende!’ but was bored by Gluck, Brahms and Milhaud. And Manuel Torre, a man who had more culture in his veins than anyone I’ve known, on hearing Falla play his own Nocturno del Generalife spoke this splendid sentence: ‘All that has dark sounds has duende.’ And there’s no deeper truth than that."

Now you're saying Lorca just made duende up. I'm from a culture with 300 years of history under spain.

Ask any Classics professor which is better between English Iliad and Greek Iliad.

[JCamilo]

Tsc. Several will say that english Iliad is better because very few actually read any original greek. Never the less the classic teacher who say it will be just a bad teacher. It is irrelevant which is better, if any is better: Homer is only influential because he can be translated. (He is not the only example, 1001 nights is more influential due the translations than the "original").

And I have not said Lorca made the duende up. His concept of Duende is a alegorical. It is not the usual spanish/portuguese idea of a sobrenatural little being. Thus, the concept is translatable as it needs explanation even in spanish, as would need in any language.

And I do not care from where you are. It is always silly to try to improve the credibitily this way, after all, you have no idea from where I am. Or Stukles for what matters.

[miyako73]

In case you don't know, Classics majors take Latin and Greek, at Harvard for instance, so they can use primary texts.

Read lorcas word's again. Even gypsies use it.

We use duwende as verb, adjective, and noun. I don't think you can say "I am being goblined or dwarfed or elved." Duwende just has no fixed equivalent in English.

[stlukesguild]

I always love the presumptions of these new sophomore lit majors who assume they are so much more read than anyone else online.:rolleyes:

[miyako73]

LOL. Sorry, not sophomore. BS Physics, MS Biomathematics, Certificate Culinary Arts, and currently in a writing workshop for Fiction.

[Heteronym]

Do yourself a favor. Read some postcolonial writings on literature and translation.

I'd personally prefer to read literature instead. I don't see the purpose of reading a lot of essays that emphasise the uniqueness of some language or culture and how that makes good translations impossible. It seems like an excuse against negative criticism: "It's not the text that's bad, it's the translation! But it's such a unique language that only a handful of people can read it; but if only you could too, you'd see it's the greatest work of literature in the history of Mankind!"

Rubbish! I don't need to know Russian to know Dostoyevsky is the greatest writer in history (in my opinion, of course).

Writers have been influencing each other, from different ages and cultures, through translations for millennia. It's quite a lot of arrogance to arrive at the middle of the 20th century and suddenly say that it can't be done. There are a lot of mysticisms attached to language, but language is nothing special. It's a useful evolutionary tool for communication. All languages are translatable, language is born in the human mind, and if all minds are the same - and if you say they're not you're opening an interesting can of racial worms - then everything can be translated. So one word in one language may need three or four to express the same idea in another, but that's a minor detail. Translations above all must reproduce meaning, not the same lenght of sentences or number of words.

[Scheherazade]

R e m i n d e r

Please do not personalise your arguments.

Off-topic posts and/or those posts containing personal/inflammatory comments will be removed without further notice.

[JCamilo]

In case you don't know, Classics majors take Latin and Greek, at Harvard for instance, so they can use primary texts.

Read lorcas word's again. Even gypsies use it.

We use duwende as verb, adjective, and noun. I don't think you can say "I am being goblined or dwarfed or elved." Duwende just has not fixed equivalent in English.

They do not read original Homer, get it? Homer influence is more due to latin translations than any greek. Classics major as you described are needing to learn literature.

Read what I said again: Duende is to the major of spanish and portuguese world a imaginary being, a faery kind, etc. It is not the concept of Lorca (Which is neither a verb). The absence of equivalent in english is irrelevant ,It is not the limite literal translation that matters. If I have said "Kobold is a power of music, that came from inside" it would mean the same. You could not even need to translate the actual word, after all the power is not in "duende" but in Lorca principle. For god's sake, he quotes Goethe - GERMAN - to explain it.

"Estos sonidos negros son el misterio, las raíces que se clavan en el limo que todos conocemos, que todos ignoramos, pero de donde nos llega lo que es sustancial en el arte. Sonidos negros dijo el hombre popular de España y coincidió con Goethe, que hace la definición del duende al hablar de Paganini, diciendo: "Poder misterioso que todos sienten y que ningún filósofo explica"."

So, not only the argument that it can not be translated as there is no satisfactory word in goblin or elf because the duende would not be a magical being as english speakers think is failed as even your idea that the idea can not be translated is false by Lorca himself. Dante already, long ago, explained all writing have different levels of meaning, literal being one of them. The classification of translation as a failure because of literal meaning is a banalizaton of the very artistic power that all great writers have. You must go beyond the literal, beyong the fact the defintion of duende in english is not perfect (by the way, If you go to city to city, all spanish and portuguese speakers will give you different descriptions of duede, so even in the original, the deffinition is not perfect) to the real concept in Lorca poetry. It is must easier to explain about the "Glamour", "enchamentment", "aura", than the word eeire and this have not stop us to read Poe. I will ignore Gypsies using it. Gypsies either are just spanish talkers or their own language. The distinction is irrelevant.

And Dwarf can be used as a verb.

[miyako73]

Here's Erica Mena's reaction to Ralph Angel, the translator of Lorca's "Poem of the Deep Song," that succinctly expresses what I have in mind about translating poetry.

"While performing an act of translation this complex, this steeped in history and rhythm, is heroic, Angel’s translation at times does not achieve the full expression of Lorca's poetry. No translation is devoid of the translator’s hand – it would be both impossible and undesirable – but there are times when Angel seems to overtake Lorca, and this becomes painfully obvious in the awkward English phrasing of some beautiful Spanish lines."


The greatness of a piece of literature should be based on the original language it is written. Neruda's poems in Spanish will always stand out even without his name on them because they are well-written.

His book of poems in English? I would not have read it if there was no Neruda on its cover.

Duende has many meanings. If translated into English, at least three words can convey its slight meaning. There you go the wordiness.


Yes dwarf can be used as a verb, as in to dwarf or be dwarfed but the meaning is its opposite, to tower or be towered.

[miyako73]

Where did you get this absurd notion?

"They do not read original Homer, get it? Homer influence is more due to latin translations than any greek."

Homeric epics, as what they are today, are based on the translation by Alexandrine gramarrians from archaic greek to hellenistic greek.

Even ancient romans studied greek so they could read Homer.

[JCamilo]

Meh, do you understand there is no original Homer at all? The greek used by the alexandrine translators was already not original? And the actual status of Homer is stabilished in post medieval reading, basead on Latim. The first translations of greek were much latter.

And it is irrelevant how many meaning Duende have. You insist in the point that Lorca definition is somehow untranslatable when he used a german to exemplify it. This totally blows up the argument (Lorca use of duende can not be expressed in 3 words in spanish, so it is only natural that english meaning is beyond 3 words as well). And: being unable to translate a single word is meaningless. Literatura is beyond literal meaning.

And finally, the notion that translations do not add strength to the original is only possiblei f you despite literature. All variations we have today are dude the fact something is often gained and everytime you start to think it, Scherazade will blink and bring light.

[miyako73]

you are reading too much wikipedia.

The masterpiece existed so their must be a master. Whether his name was homer or not, we don't know, if we will ignore historical sources.

Saying that there was no "homer" is tantamount to saying Iliad and the odyssey had no original author.

The greeks of today's era believe he existed, and so was herodotus. It seems a mere doubt, to you, is truth. If you question Homer's existence, what is your evidence? Lack of biography? You should read Indian and Chinese classics that are peopled with characters that have no biographies.

Understand my statement properly:

"Duende has many meanings. If translated into English, at least three words can convey its slight meaning. There you go the wordiness.."

That means in spanish, duende is enough, but if translated into english it could be a series of words such as "luck, charm, and spirit" that is still wanting.

[stlukesguild]

What JCamilo is saying is that the "original" Homer for a greater part of Western literary history was completely unknown. Virgil almost certainly never read the "original" but rather a later Alexandrine transcription. Dante and virtually the whole of the Italian Renaissance never read the original Greek Homer but rather Latin translations, although Homer in Greek did survive in the Byzantine Empire. For a work of literature to have any impact it must communicate with an audience and nothing attains the status of a canonical text if it cannot be translated. Gilgamesh and Beowulf would be prime examples. Both texts were written in a language that was already dead by the time they were discovered. If we assume that they cannot be translated, they are virtually worthless texts... having value to only a few rare scholars who can actually read the language... and even then we are talking of scholars whose entire grasp of a given language is based on a highly truncated body of literature. And yet Gilgamesh and Beowulf can and do speak to us... in the hands of a good translator.

Again, translation will never be the same as the "original". I will not say it never will be as good because some translations are brilliant works of literature in their own rite... but they are not and never can be the same as the original. Much of what is lost is cultural... the manner in which a phrase mimics a well-known nursery rhyme, a well-known literary work, a popular saying or phrase taken from popular culture. But these are equally lost in time even to the native speaker. There are references and analogies in Chaucer and Shakespeare that the 21st century reader will be as unaware as if the work were written in an unknown foreign language. For this reason, translation... all literature that is far removed from the culture of the reader and translator is best served with a good amount of critical commentary and notes.

Yet literature amazingly communicates in spite of the limitations of language, the failings of translation, the differences in cultures, etc... Dante, Homer, Virgil, Goethe, Tolstoy, Baudelaire, Tu Fu, Firdawsi, Cervantes, Whitman, Neruda, Borges, etc... continue to be read far beyond their native lands by readers who have no ability at all with the language of the "original". To suggest that only those who can read Homer, Virgil, Tu Fu, or Neruda in the original can really understand or appreciate it... that a work of literature cannot be translated... or (worse of all... an argument worthy of the sophomore classes on political science and how to behave is a politically correct manner) that the very act of translation amounts to a form of cultural colonization is absolutely ridiculous.

I can appreciate Bach's Goldberg Variations played upon the piano... even though the original was written for harpsichord. I can appreciate a marvelous soprano singing an aria from Handel even though it was originally written for a castrato. My Chinese studio mate can appreciate the altarpieces of Titian and Michelangelo even though he lacks a deep understanding of the iconography and the Christian culture that produced these because the essential elements of art aren't found in such petty literal details. By the same token, I can appreciate a good translation of Homer or Goethe or Baudelaire or Firdawsi or Neruda in spite of the realization that no translation is ever going to be the same as the "original".

[JCamilo]

you are reading too much wikipedia.

The masterpiece existed so their must be a master. Whether his name was homer or not, we don't know, if we will ignore historical sources.

Saying that there was no "homer" is tantamount to saying Iliad and the odyssey had no original author.

The greeks of today's era believe he existed, and so was herodotus. It seems a mere doubt, to you, is truth. If you question Homer's existence, what is your evidence? Lack of biography? You should read Indian and Chinese classics that are peopled with characters that have no biographies.

Understand my statement properly:

"Duende has many meanings. If translated into English, at least three words can convey its slight meaning. There you go the wordiness.."

That means in spanish, duende is enough, but if translated into english it could be a series of words such as "luck, charm, and spirit" that is still wanting.

That is amazing.
Lets repeat, the majority of the world that uses the word duende have NO IDEA of Lorca concept. To them, a Duende is a mere gnome. And before you start with the pos-colonial anything, it is ridiculous too see anything in the world as special without seeing what Lorca added it.
And more, your argument does not hold water or you just do not understand spanish of the text from Lorca himself when he clearly declare the definition of Duende was given by Goethe (who speak no spanish), so the argument that the definition that Lorca wanted is not translable is false, as his own definition was a translation from German.

Now, if Stukles who certainly is a reader of Wikipedia could not teach you that it is not Wikipedia who tell anyone if Homer exists or not, but it is a long debatable field and unless it is a farse, any classical teacher would tell you that is true (and no, the Iliad preface I inherited from my greatfather already mentions the question, it is published in 1958 by Classics Jackson in Brazil, and funny, it was the Iliad I read years before Wikipedia existed), but you just made my day - the arguments are so dense but I would never imagine someone using Herodotus as undistupable source of (hi)story in the XXI century. It is very funny.

Now, authors? You can not track the authorship of several works. Nobody knows who wrote the Old Testament, Gilgamesh Epic, Lazarido Tormes, etc. That - surprise - does not make the text to be unexistant as you claimed. The authorship question is rather irrelevant if you are going to discuss the work and its influence, specially if we are dealing with sources who date from oral tradition, where no register is found or it is trustworth. Really, what are those classical teachers doing during their classes? Snoring?

[miyako73]

You are selectively reading my responses.

Here's what lorca wrote about duende:

All through Andalusia, from the rock of Jaén to the snail’s-shell of Cadiz, people constantly talk about the duende and recognise it wherever it appears with a fine instinct. That wonderful singer El Lebrijano, creator of the Debla, said: ‘On days when I sing with duende no one can touch me.’: the old Gypsy dancer La Malena once heard Brailowsky play a fragment of Bach, and exclaimed: ‘Olé! That has duende!’ but was bored by Gluck, Brahms and Milhaud. And Manuel Torre, a man who had more culture in his veins than anyone I’ve known, on hearing Falla play his own Nocturno del Generalife spoke this splendid sentence: ‘All that has dark sounds has duende.’ And there’s no deeper truth than that.
Those dark sounds are the mystery, the roots that cling to the mire that we all know, that we all ignore, but from which comes the very substance of art. ‘Dark sounds’ said the man of the Spanish people, agreeing with Goethe, who in speaking of Paganini hit on a definition of the duende: ‘A mysterious force that everyone feels and no philosopher has explained.’
So, then, the duende is a force not a labour, a struggle not a thought. I heard an old maestro of the guitar say: ‘The duende is not in the throat: the duende surges up, inside, from the soles of the feet.’ Meaning, it’s not a question of skill, but of a style that’s truly alive: meaning, it’s in the veins: meaning, it’s of the most ancient culture of immediate creation.
This ‘mysterious force that everyone feels and no philosopher has explained’ is, in sum, the spirit of the earth, the same duende that scorched Nietzche’s heart as he searched for its outer form on the Rialto Bridge and in Bizet’s music, without finding it, and without seeing that the duende he pursued had leapt from the Greek mysteries to the dancers of Cadiz and the headless Dionysiac scream of Silverio’s siguiriya.
So, then, I don’t want anyone to confuse the duende with the theological demon of doubt at whom Luther, with Bacchic feeling, hurled a pot of ink in Eisenach, nor the Catholic devil, destructive and of low intelligence, who disguised himself as a ***** to enter convents, nor the talking monkey carried by Cervantes’ Malgesi in his comedy of jealousies in the Andalusian woods.

[JCamilo]

Do you understand that I quoted it (not you, so I can not be selection what you said) in spanish? Or wait, you do not understand spanish?

[miyako73]

I'm reposting it in English so you will know that even goethe has no definite explanation for it.

You said:

"And more, your argument does not hold water or you just do not understand spanish of the text from Lorca himself when he clearly declare the definition of Duende was given by Goethe (who speak no spanish), so the argument that the definition that Lorca wanted is not translable is false, as his own definition was a translation from German."

"For god's sake, he quotes Goethe - GERMAN - to explain it."

My response:

Goethe did not talk about duende but the music of Pagannini. Understand the text properly. Lorca used goethe's idea for comparison.

Translation from German? Get a dictionary and look for the meaning of translation.

‘Dark sounds’ said the man of the Spanish people, agreeing with Goethe, who in speaking of Paganini hit on a definition of the duende ' That line does not mean goethe has a definition for duende. You should also note the phrase "hit on a definition of the duende". The articale "a" is important.

[JCamilo]

Sorry, but why are you quoting a translation in englsih to explain something in spanish to me?

[miyako73]

lorca's essay on duende is not a poem. My problem with translation is with poetry.

[JCamilo]

So, you think the meaning of Duende can not be translated from english, unless it is in prose... albeit a poem is not something were straightword meaning is exactly relevant... Interesting...

[miyako73]

Forgive me if my spanish is not right:

"De la profundidad del pecho abierto
a las curvas de las puntas de los dedos,
cantando el aliento final y la nota triste,
yo convulsiono dolorosamente en duende."

Now, translate that into English without using duende as is.

Yes, with prose I can write a pragraph explaining about duende without minding my long verbosity.

[stlukesguild]

Now, if Stukles who certainly is a reader of Wikipedia...

JCamilo... you wound me! :hand: And you never employ Wikipedia? Certainly not to be taken as the last word on anything... but an invaluable tool for rapidly looking up certain basic facts much more rapidly and conveniently than the 39 volume encyclopedia. But truly who, that has read Homer... or Borges, hasn't been exposed to the questions of Homer's authorship? And who that has read Dante hasn't suspected that one of the reasons he places Virgil above Homer in the circle of poets is because he has actually read Virgil in the original... unlike Homer?

[JCamilo]

Well, Wikipedia is just like all enciclopedia, generalizations but basic stuff it is fine (and I noticed there is some cleaning in specific entries, more carefull). The problem is most that articles are not well written, not like our nice french one. But then, democracy destroyed it :D I do use, quick entry to check in variations of expressions in different language and also the name of works. Also, the references in the end or articles can be usefull for a deeper research. But yes, however read Borges knew about it, however read Poe (Who also talks about it), however read Keats and his Champman poem knew it, however knew Camões didnt knew greek knew it... and there goes. And Of course, Dante who would never place anything about his latim and that the idea of Classic is related to Virgil... oh well...
Literature teach us otherswise. With subtle things like the story that Garcia Marquez discovered his "vocation" while reading Kafka, translated by Borges. Or how Alladim became a symbol of 1001 Nights without being even part of it and most likely a creation of Gallant...

[stlukesguild]

Well, Wikipedia is just like all enciclopedia, generalizations but basic stuff it is fine (and I noticed there is some cleaning in specific entries, more carefull). The problem is most that articles are not well written, not like our nice french one.

Yes... some Wikipedia entries are written in a manner far worse than others. At times you come across sentences or paragraphs with information that seems out of place... as if you were reading a high-school student's essay... which you quite well just might be. It is good, however, for access to quick general facts (birth/death dates, lists of works created by an individual and their dates, and other such basic facts). I would avoid it, however, if I were after something a bit more complex... and would never employ it if I were writing a formal paper where I needed to cite my sources... after all, we have no idea who is entering information. The entry on Mozart has been repeatedly locked due to spurious entries by individuals such as one of our beloved LitNet members who is obsessed with Mozartian conspiracy theories. The entries on James Joyce, Picasso, Schoenberg and many other artists, writers, composers who are controversial are continually sabotaged by idiots with little else to do than rant about what they don't understand, and as a result these threads are also frequently locked.

[JCamilo]

Yeah, I think the option of the history of construction of the article is good, sometimes beter than the article itself. Also, sometimes the other language articles (spanish and portuguese are lacking or have more complete and even different information than the english, so they should at least cross and translate it)... but dates, i have found people who died more than once ^_^