Synopses & Reviews
A revised edition of this major writer's complete poetical work"And I who was walking
with the earth at my waist,
saw two snowy eagles
and a naked girl.
The one was the other
and the girl was neither."
--from "Qasida of the Dark Doves"
Federico García Lorca is the greatest poet of twentieth-century Spain and one of the world's most influential modernist writers. Christopher Maurer, a leading Lorca scholar and editor, has substantially revised FSG's earlier edition of the collected poems of this charismatic and complicated figure, who--as Maurer says in his illuminating Introduction--"spoke unforgettably of all that most interests us: the otherness of nature, the demons of personal identity and artistic creation, sex, childhood, and death."
Federico García Lorca, born in Granada in 1898, is widely seen as Spain's greatest modern poet. Among his best-known books are The Divan at Tamarit, Poet in New York, and The Gypsy Ballads. He was murdered by Franco's soldiers in 1936.
Christopher Maurer, the editor of García Lorca's Selected Verse, Poet in New York, and other works, is the author of numerous books and articles on Spanish poetry. He is head of the Department of Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
This newly revised magnum opus offers us the entire poetic achievement of the most beloved poet of 20th-century Spainand one of the world's most influential modernist writers.
For this monumental collection, Maurer, a leading Lorca scholar and editor, has assembled new and substantially reworked translations by twelve poets and translators from a range of scholarly backgrounds and creative traditions. This Collected Poems is therefore as thorough as it is accessible, featuring a fully bilingual format (with Spanish and English texts on facing pages throughout) as well as an index of titles and first lines. Also, the seminal volume Poet in New York is included in its entirety. This is the most comprehensive English edition of the world-class poet who, as Maurer writes in his illuminating Introduction, "spoke unforgettably of all that most interests us: the otherness of nature, the demons of personal identity and artistic creation, sex, childhood, and death."
"Meticulously and yet unobtrusively edited . . . After 900-plus pages of unremitting brilliance, Lorca emerges as positively visionary."Rafael Campo, The Washington Post
With new and substantially revised translations by twelve poets and translators, plus the inclusion of the complete Poet in New York, this volume is one of the masterworks from the art of translation and world literature. Maurer has devoted decades of his life to García Lorca, and his commitment to bringing the poets work to English audiences has paid off. To have García Lorcas work presented in its entirety is breathtaking, essential, and shows us how the 20th centurys greatest poets survived darkness through the eternal power of poetry.”Ray González, The Bloomsbury Review
"Compliments and salutations are . . . due to the eminent Lorca scholar Christopher Maurer for bringing out this year, some 66 years after the poet's gruesome assassination near his home in Granada, the first almost complete bilingual edition of the Lorca corpus, with many previously uncollected and unpublished poems translated here for the first time. The volume is 'almost complete' due to the fact that the editor has thankfully given us only a brief selection from Lorca's first collection, The Book of Poems, the poet's lengthiest book and easily the worst, plain and simple . . . Twelve translators have participated in this estimable effort, and in general I found the versions to be not only accurate but also attentive to the quality of the poem as a poem in English . . . Professor Maurer's splendid edition is all the more treasured because we can finally take the measure of the poet."Alexander Coleman, The New Criterion
"Meticulously and yet unobtrusively edited by Christopher Maurer . . . After 900-plus pages of unremitting brilliance, Lorca emerges as positively visionary. Through the sheer power of his imaginative genius, in lucid translations of his poems that are as intelligent as they are intuitive, we witness how the poet transcended his mostly self-imposed limitations and in the process not only expanded the scope of lyric poetry but also entirely redefined the elegy."Rafael Campo, The Washington Post
"The definitive collection in English of one of the cardinal poets of the 20th century. Though it is his playsBlood Wedding, The House of Bernarda Albathat have gained drastically in currency, it is the poetry that remains astonishing."The Buffalo News
"If you read this rich, powerful, and mystery-driven volume of Collected Poems, you will repeatedly encounter Lorca's duende, his daemonic genius . . . One of the greatest poets of all time."Allen Josephs, Newsday (on the previous edition)
"[The translations are] both ingenious and accurate, setting a very high standard for translation of verse from Spanish."Michael Wood, The New York Review of Books (on the previous edition)
Review
“[The translations are] both ingenious and accurate, setting a very high standard for translation of verse from Spanish.” —Michael Wood, The New York Review of Books
Synopsis
Federico Garcia Lorca was the greatest poet of twentieth-century Spain and one of the world's most influential modernist writers. Christopher Maurer, a leading Lorca scholar and editor, has substantially revised FSG's earlier edition of the collected poems of this charismatic and complicated figure, who as Maurer says in his illuminating Introduction "spoke unforgettably of all that most interests us: the otherness of nature, the demons of personal identity and artistic creation, sex, childhood, and death."
Synopsis
A revised edition of this major writer's complete poetical work
And I who was walking
with the earth at my waist,
saw two snowy eagles
and a naked girl.
The one was the other
and the girl was neither.
-from "Qasida of the Dark Doves"
Federico Garc a Lorca is the greatest poet of twentieth-century Spain and one of the world's most influential modernist writers. Christopher Maurer, a leading Garc a Lorca scholar and editor, has substantially revised FSG's earlier edition of the collected poems of this charismatic and complicated figure, who-as Maurer says in his illuminating introduction-"spoke unforgettably of all that most interests us: the otherness of nature, the demons of personal identity and artistic creation, sex, childhood, and death."
Synopsis
A revised edition of this major writer's complete poetical work.
"And I who was walking
with the earth at my waist,
saw two snowy eagles
and a naked girl.
The one was the other
and the girl was neither."
from "Qasida of the Dark Doves"
Federico García Lorca is the greatest poet of twentieth-century Spain and one of the world's most influential modernist writers. Christopher Maurer, a leading Lorca scholar and editor, has substantially revised FSG's earlier edition of the collected poems of this charismatic and complicated figure, who as Maurer says in his illuminating Introduction "spoke unforgettably of all that most interests us: the otherness of nature, the demons of personal identity and artistic creation, sex, childhood, and death."
Synopsis
A revised edition of this major writer's complete poetical work"And I who was walking
with the earth at my waist,
saw two snowy eagles
and a naked girl.
The one was the other
and the girl was neither."
--from "Qasida of the Dark Doves"
Federico García Lorca is the greatest poet of twentieth-century Spain and one of the world's most influential modernist writers. Christopher Maurer, a leading Lorca scholar and editor, has substantially revised FSG's earlier edition of the collected poems of this charismatic and complicated figure, who--as Maurer says in his illuminating Introduction--"spoke unforgettably of all that most interests us: the otherness of nature, the demons of personal identity and artistic creation, sex, childhood, and death."
About the Author
Federico García Lorca was born in 1898 in Fuente Vaqueros, a few miles outside Granada in the province of Andalusia, southern Spain. From an early age he was fascinated by Spain's mixed heritage, adapting its ancient folk songs, ballads, lullabies, and flamenco music into poems and plays. By the age of thirty, he had published five books of poems, culminating in 1928 with
Gypsy Ballads, which brought him far-reaching fame. In 1929-30 he studied in New York City, where he wrote the poems—among his most socially engaging and compelling—that were to be published posthumously (and famously) as
Poet in New York. Upon returning to Spain he devoted much of his attention to theater, "the poetry which rises from the page . . . and becomes human." In 1936, at the outset of the Spanish Civil War, he was shot to death by anti-Republican rebels in Franco's army, and his books were banned and destroyed.
Christopher Maurer, the editor of García Lorca's Selected Verse, Poet in New York, and other works, is the author of numerous books and articles on Spanish poetry. He is head of the Department of Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction, by Christopher Maurer
From BOOK OF POEMS
(Translated by Catherine Brown)
POEM OF THE DEEP SONG
(Translated by Cola Franzen, Christopher Maurer, and Robert Nasatir)
SUITES
(Translated by Jerome Rothenberg)
Appendix to SUITES
SONGS, 1921-1924
(Translated by Alan S. Trueblood)
THE GYPSY BALLADS, 1924-1927
(Translated by Will Kirkland and Christopher Maurer)
ODES
(Translated by William Bryant Logan, Greg Simon, and Steven F. White)
POET IN NEW YORK
(Translated by Greg Simon and Steven F. White)
TRIP TO THE MOON
(Translated by Greg Simon and Steven F. White)
"Childhood and Death"
Poems from EARTH AND MOON
(Translated by Greg Simon and Steven F. White)
THE TAMARIT DIVAN
(Translated by Catherine Brown)
SIX GALICIAN POEMS
(Translated by Catherine Brown)
LAMENT FOR IGNACIO SÁNCHEZ MEJÍAS
(Translated by Galway Kinnell)
[SONNETS OF DARK LOVE]
(Translated by Angela Jaffray)
OTHER SONNETS, 1923-1936
(Translated by Christopher Maurer)
UNCOLLECTED POEMS
ard(Translated by Christopher Maurer)
Notes to the Poems, by Christopher Maurer
Bibliography
The Translators
Index of Titles and First Lines
Índice de títulos y primeros versos