Selected Poems Ruben Dario

Ruben Dario changed the whole course of Spanish poetry, by converting it to "modernism" and by halting what he called "the mummification of Spanish rhythms." Exotic, erratic, revolutionary, he was a major poet by any standards. This translation, by a man who is himself a poet, brings to English readers the whole range of Dario's verse - from the stinging little poems of Thistles to the dark, tired lines written at the end of his life. Toward the close of the last century, the poetry of the Spanish-speaking world was pallid, feeble, almost a corpse. It needed new life and a new direction. The exotic, erratic, revolutionary poet who changed the course of Spanish poetry and brought it into the mainstream of twentieth-century Modernism was Felix Ruben Garcia Sarmiento (1867-1916) of Nicaragua, who called himself Ruben Dario. Since its original publication in 1965, this edition of Dario's poetry has made English-speaking readers better acquainted with the poet who, as Enrique Anderson Imbert said, "divides literary history into 'before' and 'after.'" The selection of poems is intended to represent the whole range of Dario's verse, from the stinging little poems of Thistles to the dark, brooding lines of Songs of the Argentine and Other Poems. Also included, in the Epilogue, is a transcript of a radio dialogue between two other major poets, Federico Garcia Lorca of Spain and Pablo Neruda of Chile, who celebrate the rich legacy of Ruben Dario.