Rubén Darío: Songs of Life and Hope ed. by Will Derusha, Alberto Acereda (review)

Book Reviews 109 Rube‘n Dario: Songs of Life and Hope. By Will Derusha & Albert0 Acereda (ed.). DurhamLondon: Duke University Press, 2004, p. 262, $21.95. Most critics consider RubCn Dario’s Cantos de vida y esperunzu his most important and mature poetry. In spite of the fact that Dario is one of the few poets who transformed and changed the direction of Spanish verse (he deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Garcilaso, Fray Luis de Lebn, San Juan de la Cruz, Gbngora, Lope, and BCcquer) his works have long resisted complete translation. Derusha and Acereda point out this fact in their excellent introduction to the present bilingual edition, which follows in the footsteps of their Selected Poems o f Rub& Dario (Bucknell University Press, 2001). The introduction gives a literary biography of Dario and an analysis of Cuntos de vida y esperanzu so that readers may understand the cultural and historical context of the writer and his work. Derusha and Acereda maintain that Dario and Hispanic modernism are synonymous. Modernism refers to an approach to life as well as to the art that is its expression. It is a heterogeneous way of thinking and of seeing the artist’s place in the world. The editors warn that one should not separate modernism from modernity for the latter is at the core of modernism’s search. They stress that Dario opens a new path in expressing existential despair in verse. To associate Dario with only “art for art’s sake,” affectation, and artificiality is obviously a mistake. Rather, Dario leads modernist poets in changing the direction of Hispanic culture. The section on “Life and Poetry” follows Dario from birth to death and allows the reader to see how intensely Dario lived. It reveals clearly his constant poverty, his unceasing travels throughout Europe and the Americas, his romantic problems, and his fragile health. Derusha and Acereda highlight his literary influences , especially the Romantic, Parnassian, and Symbolist poets and analyze succinctly his major works, Azul..,,Prosas profanus, and El canto errunte. The editors also address Dario’s supposed lack of political commitment. They state categorically that this is not true. Dario saw himself first as a poet but he felt keenly his hispanidad, and he denounced the United States’ growing imperialism in Latin America. The fundamental theme of the section, however, is Dario’s constant struggle with despair. Derusha and Acereda see Dario’s artistic representation of despair as the signal point of twentieth century poetry. This is also what continues to make his 110 The Latin Americanist Spring 2005 verses relevant to our times. Derusha and Acereda’s section on “Cantos de vida y esperanza : Text and Context” displays an insightful perspective on what they call “a masterful tour de force whose poems exhibit prodigious care as much on the acoustic and formal levels as on the grammatical and lexical” (30). It is well established that Dario uses new rhythms, hiatus, caesura1pauses, hexameters, free verse, and hyperbaton amply in the work. The editors also devote considerable attention to the work’s varied themes: the position of the poet in a world of hostile economic and social structures, Hispanic identity amidst growing foreign cultural expansion, excruciating spiritual anxiety and disillusionment as the poet confronts his mortal existence, Dario’s personal struggle for religious faith, and his always pervasive eroticism. Derusha and Acereda discuss their criteria for reproduction and translation in the final section of the introduction. The Spanish text is from the first edition of Cantos de vida y esperanza, prepared by Juan Ram6n JimCnez and published along with Los cisnes y otros poemas in Madrid in 1905. They stress the pitfalls of translation, especially the temptation to rewrite the original text. They state, however, that they have tried to translate Dario’s poetry “as meticulously as possible.” Above all, they wish to convey to the reader Dm’o’s tone, structure, rhythm and meaning. They have respected the punctuation marks, spaces, indentations, Roman numerals, and antiquated vocabulary found in the 1905 edition. The only changes they have made are errata and Dario’s use of an initial capital letter for each verse. Derusha and Acereda admit to the impossibility...