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Miguel Gonzalez-Gerth, an esteemed translator, poet, editor, and
professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin, has been
publishing his original English and Spanish poetry since 1946. Born
in Mexico City in 1926, Gonzalez-Gerth moved to the United States
in 1940 and made it his permanent home. He received his B.A. from
the University of Texas in 1950 and a PhD from Princeton in 1973,
and taught at UT for over thirty years.
Editor David Colon has compiled a selection of Gonzalez-Gerth's
poems that demonstrate the range of interests, themes, and styles
that span more than a century of a life dedicated to Hispanic
literature studies. The poems in this collection are arranged
chronologically, exhibiting "the different phases of a poet's life
as well as different historical moments and literary traditions."
Many of the poems appear with side-by-side translation,
demonstrating not only the creativity born of a unique cultural
perspective, but the profound understanding and commitment to the
process of translation, taking a poem through its original written
language, rethinking the words, allusions, connotations, and
presenting it in a different language and tradition.
"He has two guiding principles as a translator of poetry: to keep
the languages distinct, and to approach the act of reproduction as
an art form itself. In the end, the translation must work on the
terms of its own language. It is more important for it to be a
successful poem than a faithful copy," writes Colon in the
introduction. "Between Day and Night" provides a record of
Gonzalez-Gerth's achievement as a poet and translator, a writer who
stays true to the languages and poetic styles of Latin America and
Anglo-America, and "work s] with essentially two minds."
Ruben Dario (1867-1916), the undisputed standard-bearer of the
Modernist movement in Hispanic letters, was born in Nicaragua. In
1886 he went to Chile, where he published Azul (1888), his first
important book of poems and stories. Later he lived for extended
periods in Argentina, Spain, and France, and in these countries
produced his best work: compelling poems of beauty, style, and
dignity, especially Cantos de vida y esperanza (1905). The
perfection of form, exotic essences, and rich ornamentation of his
earlier work give way in his most mature poems to self-probings and
doubts, the anguish so characteristic of twentieth-century
literature. But the hedonistic note, the quenchless appetite for
life, dominating Azul and Prosas profanas (1896) never die out, and
are magnificently present in El poema del otono (1910). Dario has
had a tremendous impact on Hispanic literature. He is one of the
best examples of the poet who is true to his art as determined by
his innermost impulses. His poetry has fertilized a whole
generation of writers in Spanish America and in Spain, and even now
his influence continues to be felt.
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