Book Description

Regarded by many as the finest poet of twentieth-century Spain, Antonio Machado y Ruiz (1875-1939) is not well known outside the Spanish-speaking world. This volume will introduce him to Anglo-American readers, enabling them to experience at first hand the subtle nuances of his verse. Some two hundred fifty poems in Spanish, drawn from Machado's entire oeuvre, are accompanied on facing pages by sensitive and beautifully fluent translations which render the originals accessible to the mind and the ear.

Mr. Trueblood annotates the individual poems, placing them in context and illuminating their allusions and undertones. In addition, he provides a substantial biographical and critical Introduction. This gives an overview of Machado's life, as a poet and teacher and wide-ranging commentator on cultural, political, and social affairs. (Forced into exile at the end of the Civil War, he crossed the Pyrenees on foot and died a month later.) The Introduction also discusses the qualities of Machado's predominantly quiet and reflective verse, as well as the development of the thought of this major poet.

Customer Reviews (2)

Antonio Machado-Selected Poems
I bought this collection of Machado's poems after enjoying "Last Night I Had a Dream" from a different anthology.This edition has both the Spanish and the English translation on facing pages, and knowing very little Spanish, I had to read them in English.Machado's poems are achingly beautiful when he writes of his native Castile in Spain; I can't judge how good the translation is to the original, but the poems are certainly beautiful in English.Selections from his proverbs require quite a bit of reflection, and here I felt at a distinct loss at not being able to read the Spanish.This collection contains poems from throughout his career, so the reader can see where his feelings changed or remained constant over time.

Pain and peace
Machado was perhaps the most "poetic" among all the poets from Spain's "Generation of 98" movement. His are simple poems of love, the countryside, clouds, mountains, rivers, about the absence of Leonor, his beloved wife, who died early. This is the Spain which suffers in silence, without the tormented and exhalted screams of other poets, like Leon Felipe. The small towns and cities where Machado spent most of his life come alive in his easy, lucid verses. As said before, the absence of Leonor covers his poetry with the longing of persons, places and things long gone. Not experimental, urban, or visionary poetry: only the intelligent reflections of the poet on his surroundings, past and present. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
CONTRIBUTORS: Robert Bly. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

"Making things well is more important than making them"
Antonio Machado is in my mind the greatest European poet of the 20th century.Machado was at least as great as his better-known countryman, Federico García Lorca, and yet he is seldom read outside of Spain.Partly, this is because he hasn't had any great translators.The best translations far and away are Alan Trueblood and Willis Barnstone's, even though both of these often verge on the bland.Robert Bly's selection in "Times Alone" falls a long way short of either.

Bly is definitely a competent linguist, but he doesn't really give a sense that he FEELS Machado's poetry.I don't think anybody can even begin to translate a poet competently until he basically steps inside that poet.If Bly does have a feeling for Machado -- if he sees something close to what Machado saw -- he doesn't do a very good job of reproducing it in his translations.You CAN come close to reproducing the feel of an original poem.Bly doesn't.

In "Times Alone", Machado comes out sounding more like a wordy modern American poet (like his translator, in fact) instead of the self-effacing poet who despised all forms of rhetoric, verbal or otherwise.For instance, take a look at what Bly did to "Soria fría, Soria pura," one of Machado's most beautiful poems.Bly translates the magnificent opening line as "Cold Soria, intense Soria.""Intense" just doesn't do it for me like "pura".Or how about this line: "galgos flacos y agudos / que pululan / por las sórdidas callejas"?In Bly's version, this is "starving greyhounds who breed abundantly in the filthy alleys," which isn't inaccurate, but it doesn't really work in this particular poem, which is a sparse description of a dead old town up in the western Aragonese hills, dreaming silently under the deep moonlight.Plus, when you're reading along and suddenly you come to the blunt Anglo-Saxon word "courthouse" in place of the elegant Castilian "audiencia", whatever feeling of mystery and serenity Bly does manage to salvage just goes poof.

Bly's English is wordy and rhetorical.You need to have something in common with the poet you're translating if you're going to be a great translator, and Bly is unlike Machado, who spurned rhetoric.("I would leave my poetry as the soldier leaves his sword," he said, "famed for the hand that brandished it, not for the craft that forged it.")Some examples of Bly's characteristic wordiness:"miniature green meadows" for "verdes pradillos";"washed out" for "árida";"these gardens with private lemons" for "estos jardines de limonar" (where exactly did 'private' come from?).

Overall, Bly fails to replicate the stunning simplicity of Machado's poetry.That said, his introduction and notes are very valuable.They're this book's only saving grace.3 stars.

simply the best translation
After reading this translation of the great poet Antonio Machado I was changed.I feel that Robert Bly's translations were prefect and captured the essence of the poem by carrying over the emotions only the europeans know into each word.The poems are tender and carry many meanings as you read them over and over.It's the best translation yet by the master Robert Bly.

Machado ill-served by ubiquitous Bly
Bly deserves credit for introducing Spanish poetry to the American audience back in the 1950s and 1960s. Machado is a wonderful poet. Unfortunately, Bly is not a terribly good translator, and the result is amismatch.

Poor translation or new creation?
The charitable view is that Mr. Bly has attempted to translate the feeling of these poems, rather than the sense.The result is completely new poems loosely based on Machado's original.

Sadly, that is not my own view.Initially, in fact, my only thought was simply that the man is a terribletranslator.Apparently Mr. Bly is himself a poet, which leads one to thinkthat he has taken some liberties in "improving" on the Spanishoriginal.He also has published translations from a large number ofdifferent languages.Perhaps he is a gifted linguist; perhaps (my ownsuspicion) he learns only enough of each language to make a stab attranslation. Certainly THIS collection is a tremendous disappointment,and I am sad that some may come to Machado's excellent poems only in thissadly altered form.My own Spanish is good, but Machado uses many oldwords, and I had hoped for an expert translation.In this case, however, Iwill have to make do with a good Spanish only volume of Machado and marginnotes made with the help of a dictionary.Maybe Mr. Bly's publisher willconsider publishing my home grown version.

Beautiful, deeply moving poetry
Machado is one of Spain's greatest poets, and this collection includes some of his finest work.But amazon.com should get his name right: on most of the title bars, it's spelled MacHado, as if he were a Scot.He wasn't. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

la cumbre poetica de A. Machado
"Campos de Castilla se considera la obra cumbre de Antonio Machado. Publicada en 1912, poco antes de morir su esposa Leonor, y ampliada sucesivas veces con nuevos poemas, expone las meditaciones del hombre sobre lo "eterno humano": domina en la obra lo que se denominan "cuadros costumbristas", cuadros de paisajes y de gentes, meditaciones sobre la soledad, lo adusto del paisaje, el pasado efímero y la muerte.

El paisaje aparece recogido unas veces de forma objetiva, sin artificios -A orillas del Duero-, y a veces lo descubrimos con una intención oculta bajo las descripciones de Castilla, que nos sugieren la preocupación del poeta sobre temas tales como la patria o la soledad... El mañana efímero, Una España joven... temas propios de la Generación del 98, a la que no pertenecía "de facto", pero de la que declarará: "Mi relación con aquellos hombres [...] es la de un discípulo con sus maestros..."

El poema se divide en dos partes temáticas bien definidas; la primera parte (versos 1-25) se caracteriza por la ausencia de verbos predicativos, se trata entonces de un grupo de versos de verbo nominativo y que se caracterizan por ser puramente descriptivos, en este caso la esencia de Castilla; en la segunda parte (versos 26-52) tenemos ya verbos predicativos y entonces la descripción pura del paisaje pasa a la narrativa, interpelando incluso a los elementos del paisaje (versos 31-32).

Las descripciones paisajísticas comienzan de lo general a lo particular, con la "Primavera soriana" del párrafo primero; continuamos con "¡Campillo amarillento... Pradera ..." del párrafo segundo; "... de tierra dura y fría/donde apuntan centenos y trigales...); (y otra vez roca y roca). Y continuamos con dos interpelaciones a Castilla que acentúan el clímax descriptivo final de la primera parte.

En la segunda parte, caracterizada por el elemento narrativo, comenzamos de nuevo con una descripción que comienza por lo general para finalizar con lo particular: verso 26 "Era una tarde, cuando el campo huía/ del sol..."; del cielo el porta pasa a describir los cerros verso 35 "Entre cerros de plomo y de ceniza..."; de ahí al puenteversos 38-39 "iba. a embestir los ocho tajamares / del puente el padre río"; y de ahí a los ríos que surcan la tierra de Castilla verso 40 "que surca de Castilla el yermo frío".

extractado de "realidad literaria". Antonio Machado es una excelente lectura poetica, se los recomiendo animosamente.

Para disfrutar de un conjunto de extraordinaria poesia sensible y espiritual, escrita por maestros de la literatura hispana, vea: Pulpito y Poesia: Recursos poeticos para la predicacion, la ensenanza y la devocion espiritual ... Read more

Book Description
In January 1939, Antonio Machado would cross the border from Spain to France accompanied by his mother, traveling, as was his custom, with only the essentials. He died three weeks later in the small French town of Collioure, his appalling state a warning sign of his impending passing. Machado was sixty-four. Ian Gibson, internationally renowned Hispanist, has dedicated years of research and work to give us Machado's life story -a passionate journey through the private life, philosophy and work of a man who is considered today one of the most read and loved Spanish poets of all times.

Description in Spanish: Antonio Machado procedía de una familia sevillana intelectual con hondas raíces republicanas. Madrileño a partir de los 8 años, sin olvidar nunca su infancia en la capital andaluza, su paso por la Institución Libre de Enseñanza lo marcó indeleblemente y el París finisecular le hizo el regalo inestimable de la poesía simbolista.

En enero de 1939, cercano el final, Machado cruzó la frontera con su madre en condiciones deplorables. Murió tres semanas después, a los 64 años, en el pequeño pueblo francés de Collioure. Ligero, como siempre, de equipaje. Hoy es uno de los poetas españoles más leídos y amados de todos los tiempos. Ésta es su historia.

Ian Gibson lleva años trabajando e investigando sobre la vida de Antonio Machado. Por fin, fruto de esa ingente labor, salen a la luz todos los detalles y todo lo que no se ha contado nunca sobre el gran escritor español de la Generación del 98. Un apasionante recorrido por su vida íntima, sus obras, sus amigos, sus enemigos, su ideología… Imprescindible su lectura para comprender un poco mejor la España de esos tiempos. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Ligero de Equipaje
Extraordinaria investigacion sobre uno de mis poetas preferidos, la vida de Antonio machado se expone objetivamente, con rigor de una investigacion cientifica en una etapa sumamente compleja pero interesante, que sin lugar a dudas explica la vida reciente de este Pais maravilloso en distintos ambitos, desde lo socieconomico, hasta lo cultural. ... Read more

Book Description
Antonio Machado¡¯s poetry is the fruit of a profound reflection on the human being ¨Dthoughts, feelings and core worries. With sublime lyrical language, the selected poems contained in this book reveal the beating heart of a man who lived his life intensely and whose poetry bears witness to his passing. A complete study of the work, the author and his time as well as some explanatory notes to assist in the complete understanding of the work, are included here.

Description in Spanish: La poes¨ªa de Antonio Machado es el resultado de una reflexi¨®n sobre el ser humano, sus sentimientos y sus preocupaciones esenciales, expresada a trav¨¦s de la mejor forma l¨ªrica.

En los poemas que se seleccionan en este libro se revela, pues, el coraz¨®n de un hombre que viv¨® intensamente todo cuanto ocurri¨® a su alrededor; de esta experiencia, naci¨® su poes¨ªa.

Este volumen incluye un completo estudio sobre la obra, el autor y su tiempo, incluyendo adem¨¢s notas aclaratorias que ayudan a seguir y comprender perfectamente el sentido de la obra. ... Read more

Book Description

With an insightful introduction by Thomas Moore, this volume presents the wisdom and philosophy of one of Spain's most important poets. Born in 1875, Machado, along with Juan Ramon Jimenez and Miquel de Unamuno, formed the famed "generation of 1898," which ushered in a new Spanish poetics. In this series of brief poems, Machado utilizes traditional Spanish verse forms to create a wide-ranging collection.

"Machado, in these Sappho-like fragments, takes us down not only the road less traveled but the road not seen, where transformation and transfiguration come not from self-made millions but from changing 'love into theology'"-Thomas Rain Crowe

Book Description

Customer Reviews (4)

Six Masters of the Spanish Sonnet
This book is more than I expected. Excellent biographical information and literary context for the six authors. Relates the work of six great Spanish poets of different epochs. The translations are very helpful for someone who knows some Spanish. I would have preferred more literal and less poetic translatons. Even a fine poet like Barnstone must take liberties with the original when he turns a Spanish sonnet into an English sonnet. This book is invaluable to the amateur and, I would assume, to the professional as well.

Masterful Translations of Spanish Sonnets
The sonnet form was introduced to Spain from Sicily in the fifteenth century through the writing of El Marqués de Santillana (1398-1458), a poet who wrote Petrarchan sonnets in Spanish. During the Renaissance, the Italian sonnet made its way to most of the countries of Western Europe. In England, Edmund Spenser changed the Petrarchan rhyming form of 'abba abba cdecde' to 'abab bcbc cdcd ee,' and William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets with the form 'abab cdcd efef gg.' As Willis Barnstone says in the introduction to his book, 'Six Masters of the Spanish Sonnet,' 'the Spanish sonnet, a literary vagabond in courtly dress, began in the court of the Sicilian Frederic II, went up to England, and finally, seven centuries after its Italian birth, with its picaresque wits and form intact, dropped down just above the Antarctic Circle to appear in the poems of the Argentine Anglophile [his maternal grandmother was English] Borges.' Professor Barnstone goes on to present a thorough history of the evolution of the Spanish sonnet and a colorful biography of six Spanish language poets who used the form. His writing is informed by his long friendship with Jorge Luis Borges. Barnstone offers here a sampling of 112 Spanish sonnets by these six masters, placed side by side along with his own magnificent translations.

Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645) is described as a 'monstruo de la naturaleza' [monster of nature] because of his prodigious outpouring of writing. 'Like Swift, Dostoyevski, and Kafka, he is one of the most tormented spirits and visionaries of world literature ['El Buscón' (The Swindler), 1626, is his masterpiece] and also one of the funniest writers ever to pick up a sharp, merciless pen.' Though Quevedo's sonnets are at times scatological and darkly satirical, they are also humorous and hopeful.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648/51-1695) was a Mexican discalced Carmelite nun who is considered by some religious scholars to be the first female theologian of the Americas. Although I was familiar with her love poems and her articulate defense of a woman's right to write in 'Response to Sor Filotea,' I had not read her sonnets in translation before. As he does with all six sonneteers, Barnstone faithfully maintains Sor Juana's rhyming, meter, and cadence in his translations of her sonnets. His analysis encompasses her writing and her life, including some critique of Octavio Paz's definitive biography, 'Sor Juana, or The Traps of Faith.'

Antonio Machada (1875-1939) recalls the landscape of his native Sevilla in his sonnets. In, 'El amor y la sierra' (Love and the Sierra), he writes, 'Calabaga por agria serranía / una tarde, entre roca cenicienta. (He was galloping over harsh sierra ground, / one afternoon, amid the ashen rock).' Barnstone calls Machado 'the Wang Wei of Spain' because 'he uses the condition of external nature to express his passion.' As Petrarch had his Laura, Machado had his Guiomar (Pilar de Valderrama). In 'Dream Below the Sun,' he writes, 'Your poet / thinks of you. Distance / is of lemon and violet, / the fields still green. / Come with me, Guiomar. / The sierra will absorb us. / The day is wearing out / from oak to oak.'

Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) was a Spanish poet and playwright who was affected by Luis de Góngorra and gongorismo. His 'Gypsy Ballads' was 'the most popular book of poetry in the Spanish language in his time.' Barnstone states that 'his closest attachment, his passion, was the painter Salvador Dalí,' with whom he carried on a six year love affair. Luis Buñuel castigated him for his Andalusianism; indeed, Lorca felt that Buñuel's satiric and surrealist film 'Un chien andalu' mocked him. After traveling to New York and Havana, Lorca became 'the playwright of Spain' with his brilliant 'Bodas de Sangre' (Blood Wedding). His 'Sonnets of Dark Love,' unpublished during his lifetime, were probably written to Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, an engineering student. Barnstone believes that 'dark love' is an allusion to San Juan de la Cruz's 'dark night of the soul.'

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) of Argentina considered himself a poet, though he was a master at prose.According to Barnstone, because of the blindness that afflicted Borges in midlife, 'he could compose and polish a sonnet while waiting for a bus or walking down the street' and then later dictate it from memory. 'Borges's speech authenticated his writing, his writing authenticated his speech. To have heard him was to read him. To have read him was to have heard him.' In 'Un ciego' (A Blindman), he says, 'No sé cuál es la cara que me mira / Cuando miro la cara del espejo; / No sé qué anciano acecha en su reflejo / Con silenciosa y ya cansada ira. (I do not know what face looks back at me / When I look at the mirrored face, nor know / What aged man conspires in the glow / Of the glass, silent and with tired fury.)'

Miguel Hernández (1910-1942), a poor goatherd and pastor from the province of Alicante in Spain, wrote his best poetry while imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War. 'In the prisons, Hernández became,' in Barnstone's opinion, 'the consummate poet of light, darkness, soul, time, and death.' One of his poems, 'Llegó con tres heridas' (He came with three wounds), is a popular song, recorded by Joan Baez on her 'Gracias a La Vida' album.

'Six Masters of the Spanish Sonnet' is recommended to all who love this poetic form and want to know more about the lives of these remarkable poets. A good index and list of references are included for further study.

The Cream of Spanish Sonets
The translation is marvelous: I read them all before in Spanish.And the Selection? Amazingly good ! Congratulations to the translator! It`s not an easy feat to translate Garcìa Lorca or Sor Juana Inès de la Cruz...eoither The Master: Quevedo...or Machado ( the name is ANTONIO, NOT ANTONIA ) The person who selected the poems is really knowing... If you want to read and enjoy the very best of Spanish written sonets...This Book is a Poetic "Bible " Don`t miss it !

A Delightfull Collection of Written Art
For those who already know the various authors of this book individually,words will be in excess to describe the treasures contained therein. Thefive Spanish already classical authors and Jorge Luis Borges closing thegroup with honors are a guarantee of high quality and deep touchingentertainment. Tasting the fluent and sincere social verb of Quevedo, orabsorbing in silence the sweet and perfect mysticism of Juana Inés would besufficient to recommend this book. But we find much more, Machado, GarcíaLorca and Miguel Hernández, marked by the horrors of the Spanish Civil War,found in their sensibility, the way to transform hate and blood into thepurest and most powerful poetry. About Borges, well, what can one say abouta man of his talents, his well known depth is something you will findeasily linked to his enormous sensibility and human solidarity.Definitively, this multiple anthology is a treasure to keep forever. ... Read more

Book Description
Antonio Machado was born in Seville in 1885 and died in southern France early in 1939, escaping from the Nationalist advance in the Spanish Civil War. He is increasingly recognized as one of the four greatest Spanish-language poets of the twentieth century, but lack of adequate translations has limited his appreciation in the English-speaking world. Here a native Spanish and a native English speaker set out to remedy this deficiency. The beauty of his landscape, fused with its sadness as his young wife's resting pace gave Machado his distinctive voice: intimate, elegiac, at once detached and involved, most characteristically expressed in 'Campos de Castilla' (1917), from which many of the poems here selected are taken.

The language of his poetry is spare, relying strongly on nouns and adjectives, asserting more than describing, equally anti-baroque and against the 'excesses of modern cosmetics' (Self Portrait). His father had been a collector of folklore, and Machado saw the romance (ballad) tradition as lying at the heart of the authentic Spanish poetic tradition. English cannot recreate the assonance on which he relied, but this translation captures the essential rhythm as well as the poignancy of the original. ... Read more