Selected Writings

by Rubén Darío, Ilan Stavans (Introduction), Andrew Hurley (Translator)

Born in Nicaragua, Rubén Darío is known as the consummate leader of the Modernista movement, an esthetic trend that swept the Americas from Mexico to Argentina at the end of the nineteenth century. Seeking a language and a style that would distinguish the newly emergent nations from the old imperial power of Spain, Darío’s writing offered a refreshingly new vision of the world—an artistic sensibility at once cosmopolitan and connected to the rhythms of nature. The first part of this collection presents Darío’s most significant poems in a bilingual format and organized thematically in the way Darío himself envisioned them. The second part is devoted to Darío’s prose, including short stories, fables, profiles, travel writing, reportage, opinion pieces, and letters. A sweeping biographical introduction by distinguished critic Ilan Stavans places Darío in historical and artistic context, not only in Latin America but in world literature.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, Spanish Literature, Literature, Short Stories, Essays

738 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Nicaraguan poet Félix Rubén García Sarmiento initiated and epitomizes Spanish literary modernism. Dario is in all possibility the poet who has had the greatest and most lasting influence in twentieth century Spanish literature. He has been praised as the prince of Castilian letters.

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my soul, celestial nightingales made a sound
that I could hear echoing on shore like a cry.
I turned to look and saw it was an illusion
that my ancient heart had let go and forgotten.
Then, fixed on the infinite azure of the sky,
to erase all the old bitterness in the breeze,
one day I covered my ears like Achilles.
*
The mist from the northern realms fills us with such great sadness.
Our roses wither and rot, the palms we cared for are dry.
Hardly any illusions are left to nourish and bless
our heads, since we’re but paupers with poor souls
until we die.
*
No pain’s greater than the pain of being aware.

[Hon Lady Selene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

What a profoundly beautiful experience this has been and how bloody right Borges was in singing this man's praises, I join him in this endeavour.

Wow.

What beautiful poetry.

What an adventure to embark on.... Ruben Dario is no minimalistic poet, he will fill your mind with images of wonder, with eagles, jewels and Classical times, with beautiful women of history Cybele, Salome, the Queen of Sheba, Leda, Europe, Cleopatra.

A writer that shows his reader what is infinite cobalt, Ruben's poems are the point where the light of day is mixed with nights that are dark and wintry. Beautiful.

From 'Autumn Song in Spring':

Plural ha sido la celeste / historia de mi corazon.
The celestial history of my heart / is best told in plural.

Poems of particular interest: Revelations (an ode to Pan), Pegasus, Eheu (an ode to one's self), In the Land of Allegories (sensual).

Metempsychosis:

I was a soldier who slept in the bed
of Cleopatra the Queen. Her whiteness,
her starry and omnipotent gaze.
This was all.

Gaze and whiteness, and O, that bed
in which lay radiant her whiteness!
O, omnipotent marble and rose!
This was all.

Her spine lay across my arm; and I,
a freedman, made her forget Antony.
(O bed and gaze and whiteness!)
This was all.

I, Rufus Gallus, was a soldier, and my blood
was Gallic, and the Imperial Cow
gave me a reckless moment of her caprice.
This was all.

Why in that spasm did not the tendons
of my fingers of bronze slowly squeeze
the neck of the white Queen in mockery?
This was all.

I was carried to Egypt. The chain
bore on my backbone. One day I was eaten
by dogs. My name, Rufus Gallus.
This was all.

[Shareni]

terminándolo un día antes del aniversario luctuoso de Dario, como final anticipado.
vivan las coincidencias.

[Daniela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have no idea how many times I have read this. Favorite book since childhood.

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite, gorgeous and beautiful writing that makes living worth it

[imeda · Rating 4 out of 5]

"in truth, i live on poetry. my dreams have a solomonic magnificence. i love beauty, power, grace, money, luxury, kisses, and music. i am naught but a man of art. i am good for nothing else. i believe in God, and i am attracted to mystery. i am befuddled by daydreams and death; i have read many philosophers yet i know not a word of philosophy. i do espouse a certain epicureanism, of my own sort: let the soul and body enjoy as much as possible on earth, and do everything possible to continue that enjoyment in the next life. which is to say that je vois la vie en rose."

this genuinely had some of the most beautiful writing that i've read in a very long time. there were so many lines that i highlighted and marked because they just stuck out to me. rubén darío's writing is absolutely gorgeous—it's genuinely just beautiful. his writing is so dimensional and unique and it all feels very intentional. i had such a good time reading this collection and seeing all of these different pieces. it was just such a good read and i definitely recommend it. it looks a little intimidating because it's such a large book, but it is so worth it. and it's not a very difficult read either. it's fairly quick, but meaningful at the same time.

i wonder how his writing would read in the original spanish and what nuances are lost in the translation, but unfortunately, i do not speak a word of spanish and must settle with the english translation. still, i think his poetry holds up even through translation. one of my absolute favourites was called war which is too long for me to copy paste into this review, but it felt so striking and it just stuck out to me.

i'm not particularly a poetry person. i like it! i definitely do! but i almost always prefer prose over poetry. even when it comes to writing, i've never found myself to be very good at poetry because i am completely incapable of ever being succinct and i love to use more words than ever necessary, but i really enjoyed this. i found a lot of the poems to be very compelling and i just wanted to tear them out and tape them onto my wall.

it's not a collection of banger after bangers. there are some that i felt fall flat, but i feel like that's inevitable with any type of collection. i just think that overwhelmingly, i enjoyed the writing in this. i think i would really like to read through it more in the future and make more notes because i feel like i could read this several times over and still be enchanted by the beauty of the writing.

idk this sounds so pretentious i just really enjoyed it.

[Jota · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

Recuerdo haber estudiado a Rubén Dario en el instituto. Su lírica estética y de sentidos en un principio no me llamaba la atención, siendo que me resultaba algo superficial, sin embargo, habiendo ahora leído el libro, he encontrado cosas que me han gustado mucho.
Para empezar, su estilo vanguardista y único me parece de lo más rescatable del libro. Apenas estoy empezando a leer poesía, pero me resulta muy atractivo como juega e innova con todas las posibilidades que la poética puede tener, experimentado con formas nuevas y distintas. Menciono sobre todo a el poema "los motivos del lobo", que me dejó impresionado por su narrativa única, relatando en verso e incluyendo diálogos, muy sólidos y bastante profundos, quizás no es del todo original, pero me ha resultado muy interesante.

Estoy seguro que ese yo de instituto juzgó mal, hay cosas que sigo pensando de ese entonces, pero ahora lo veo con mejores ojos, inspirándome incluso y animándome a tratar de experimentar con más estilos y no sólo quedarme en lo tradicional, ya que por narrativa aportan mucho más a la poesía y ayudan a expandir sus horizontes.

[Kassandraa · Rating 2 out of 5]

The poems are beautiful. The translations aren't. This is not the edition to read

[hh · Rating 3 out of 5]

dario is certainly dated, but he reads well for all that. i liked his work better than hart crane's, which is originally written in english. the translations in this volume seem to be pretty solid, although i didn't like the punctuation alterations in the poetry.

dario has symbols and themes that he rides: nymphs, swans, roses, etc. his political poems are moving. his prose pieces start to sound repetitive, but are interesting nonetheless. i like "the death of the empress of china" and "tale of the sea" in particular. he has a morbid, romantic, erotic imagination that thrives on fairy tales and the gothic.

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not the same book i had...but i can't find it on here. Mine was spanish on the left and english on the right.

[Tiffany Friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

cool

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't get through all of this, but I read as much as I could before going off to El Salvador for 2 weeks.

[Ana Jazmín Castro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Las expresiones del gran Dario.

[Cherie · Rating 3 out of 5]

B Interesting poems; the translators of my edition weren't very good.