Intertexts

R e v i e w s Ruben Dario, Son^s of Life and Hope/Cantos de vida yesperanza. Ed. and Trans. Will Derusha and Alberto Acereda. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004. 262 pp. As Will Derusha and Alberto Acereda elaborate in their extensive introduc¬ tion to this book, the poetry of Nicaraguan Ruben Dario (1867-1916) pres¬ ents, in asingle package, all of the most nettlesome problems that can con¬ front the translator. On one hand, Dario’s fundamental importance to Latin American letters, and his impact on poetry in Spanish, demands atranslation thatisaccessibletoanyonewiththeremotestinterestinLatinAmericancul¬ ture. Such potential readers should include, ideally, those who know litde Spanish,havelittleexperiencewithmodernistapoetry,andarenotsteeped in the political and cultural conflicts of the era. On the other hand, Dario s intense engagement with linguistic invention, literary history, and contem¬ porary conflict are precisely what makes his poetry so intimidating to so many.DerushaandAceredahaveachievedoutstandingsuccessatgrappling withthesedifficultiestoproduceatranslationofDario’smostrespected work that is highly readable yet far from simplistic or transparent. The volume is Dario’s compendium of fifty-nine poems, all written aroundtheturnofthelastcentury,originallypublishedin1905.Itisdivid¬ ed into three parts very unequal in length, comprising poems also extreme y variedinlength,tone,style,andtheme.Together,thepoemsnotonlygivea strong sense of Dario’s prodigious talents at crafting innovative verse, but alsoadoptperspectivesthatrangefromsweepingpronouncementsonthe world around him to profound explorations of ahighly troubled soul and mind.Thetranslatorspresentthesepoemsinabilingualeditionwiththe authoritativeversionsoftheSpanishoriginalsandtheirtranslationonfacing pages.OneofthemoreremarkableaspectsofDerushaandAcereda’swor isthattheysucceedinconveyingboththebreadthofthepoet’srangean theintensityofhisfeelingandjudgmentwithoutseemingcontriveor ridiculous. , , . Thisisnoteasilymanaged.Asthetranslatorsareaware,Darfosstye anderuditionareatoddswithpresent-daytastesandinterests.Eventhe mostsympatheticreaderscanfindDarfotobe,bytoday’sstandards,meo dramatic,pedantic,orevenmaudlin.Derushaand Aceredasolvethisprob¬ lembyrefusingto“adapt”Dario’ssingularsensibilities,whicharesooften specifictohistimeandplace.Instead,theytranslatemanyofDario’speculi¬ aritiesdirectly:hislearnedvocabulary,hisabstrusereferencestoartisticand mythologicaltraditions,andhishyperboleareallrenderedfaithfullyand Intertexts, Vol. 9, No. 2©2005 Texas Tech University Press 1 7 4 I N T E R T E X T S with no apology, yet with aclarity that allows for seamless and natural read¬ ing. The success of this translation, however, really is owing to two strategies that could only be realized by craftsmen who are deeply appreciative of the elements and techniques of poetry. One of these strategies is the translation of Dario’s wonderful, often experimental, rhythmic patterns. In their intro¬ duction, the translators explain these patterns at length, elucidating the essential differences between rhythmic structures in Spanish and English and revealing how, in translating Dario, they relied on English rhythms that pro¬ duce analogous effects rather than trying to reproduce Darfo’s effects. The other key strategy is the translators’ willingness to mine modern English usage to express ideas and emotions from the original Spanish that, to less adept wordsmiths, would seem impossible to render without being precious, dated, or contrived. One lovely, if almost too obvious, example is the title of the last poem in the volume, “Lo fatal,” which expresses the agony of living uncertainly in the face of the certainty of death. The title, which in Spanish is aword play encapsulating both the theme and emotion of the poem, is ren¬ dered expertly as “What Gets You.” To quote Derusha and Acereda regard¬ ing their own efforts, their translation “is not an attempt to rewrite Darfo in English but rather to suggest in English as best we can what and how Dario wrote in Spanish” (3). The poems themselves range from captivating and charming, to clever and provocative, to puzzling and overwhelming. Part of Dario’s immense success—it is probably hard to capture just how adored he was by literati of the time or how derided by his later detractors—owes to the enormity of his personality and his boldness in expressing that personality. In that respect he is comparable to Walt Whitman, except that his presence is even stronger and his intellectual reach even greater. Ahallmark of the modernista poets, of whom Darfo was the undisputed leader, was their profession of artistic “sincerity” and their fierce defense of poetry as avibrant and invaluable form of expression to be simultaneously enshrined and tested. Accordingly, Dario’s poem “Cyrano in Spain,” honoring the first production of Cyrano de Bergerac in Madrid, is both apaean to the play and acelebration of the poetic arts. At the same time, the poem gauges the limits of language’s abili¬ ty to express the ineffable: Art is the glorious victor. It is Art...