Review: [untitled]

Author(s): Agnes Gullón

Reviewed work(s):
Recent Poetry of Spain. A Bilingual Anthology by Louis Hammer ; Sara Schyfter
Source: Hispanic Review, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 509-511
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/473952
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 Reviews 509

Not everyone will condone Garcia-Posada's daring with the texts; but one
has to applaud his attempts to bring, through a careful manipulation of
data, order and clarity to textual complexity. He has prepared a valuable
edition, whose extensive contents and editorial rigor make it a valuable
reference tool, and whose usefulness is likely to outlast the binding of this
portly volume.
C. BRIAN MORRIS
University of California, Los Angeles

Recent Poetry of Spain. A Bilingual Anthology. Ed. and Trans. Louis

Hammer and Sara Schyfter. Old Chatham, NY: Sachem, 1983. xxii
+339 pages.
Two dozen poets are represented in this thoughtfully composed an-
thology which is prefaced by an introduction (unsigned) and four pages
"On Translation" by Louis Hammer. There are approximately six to ten
poems per poet, and the format is bilingual: originals on the left, trans-
lations on the right. The ample margins and space between poems makes
reading them comfortable, no matter how one chooses-singly or in line-
by-line comparison. The compact "Biographical Sketches and Bibliogra-
phies" (pp. 334-39) supply a paragraph about each author's life and a list
of his or her main books.
In the "Introduction" it is explained that the anthology begins "with
Miguel Hernandez, whose poems on the war, along with those of Rafael
Alberti, mark the return to the human in the poetic discourse of a war-
torn nation" (p. xiv). Earlier avant-garde experimental works are consid-
ered dated. Together with the political-as-moral tendency visible in Her-
nandez, there was "a parallel poetry of lyrical and personal quality"
(p. xv) written by Rosales, Panero, Vivanco, Morales and Bleiberg. Post-
war Spanish religious voices are represented next, by Otero, Hidalgo and
Rosales. After them and clustered thematically under a "hard, nearly
confessional look at the world and oneself along with awareness of the
growing isolation of the poet" (p. xvii) are Gonzalez, Valente, Gil de Biedma,
Sahagun, Rodriguez and Figuera Aymerich. This generation, write the
editors, constitutes a "rich and diverse group of poets . . . close to the
events and tone of daily life and daily speech while achieving a kind of
transcendent vision" (p. xvii). Younger members included are Brines,
Grande and Rodriguez. The "novisimos," decisively marked by the mass
media, are: Vazquez Montalban, Gimferrer, Carnero, Colinas, and Canelo.
They reject social and intimist poetry, displaying much non-Spanish in-
fluence and techniques drawn from film and television.
510 Reviews HR, 53 (1985)

The literary-historical ordering of the authors chosen is complemented

by Hammer's reflections on translation. Not surprisingly, given the artistic
challenge of producing this volume, he muses on the subject of what makes
a translation faithful:
When I quote from you I take your discourseinto mine.... Quotationis a kind
of hearing,a hearinginsideof speaking,an interpenetrationof hearingand speaking.
I hear the other's words becomingmine.... In quoting I confirmthe other's words
in a way that isn't open to him, for he is the originator. (p. xix)
Thus "originator" (poet) offers "listener" (translator) the nuances of his
speech, and "There is no nuance that the translator doesn't aim to reveal"
(p. xx). The Steinerian "gestures of concealment" are part of what travels
from left to right page; in the encoded target text we discover not just
what has been lost, but what has been gained: the hidden, the nuances
revealed in the decoding-developing process. Intralingual as well as in-
terlingual translation (that is, understanding) occurs, for there is "a forced
encounter with the ambiguities, concealments and evasions of the poem
in order to achieve a new word-harmony on the original ground" (p. xx).
Is a "parallel or accompanying energy" (p. xxii) palpable in the trans-
lations presented? On the whole, yes, in gratifying amounts. Scrutiny being
impossible-a single poem could occasion pages of commentary and the
book contains 181 poems-I shall refer mainly to titles, sometimes indi-
cating parenthetically salient artistic features of the translations. This
does not properly account for why those features are salient, which is also
important (translator's skill? linguistic differences which made that par-
ticular area easier to polish? original poem's greater clarity in that area?
sufficient recapturing of the original's energy so that re-creativity ensued?)
I note the questions as issues applicable to each individual poem more
than as matters to be resolved in the abstract, and hope in so doing to
avoid the dangerous blandness of overall praise, which though sincere,
would say little about a translation's specific value. To stay in the repre-
sentative mode, let us examine one poet from each group.
Of the ten poems by Miguel Hernandez, the following contain artistic
energy: "A Carnivorous Knife" (especially the closure); "Elegy" (stresses,
repetition, tone); "The Train of the Wounded" (quiet, measured verse evokes
the original's majesty); "After Love" (the conciseness is even more striking
in English). Certain images show translation as interpretation; an example
from "Canci6n del esposo soldado" is: "Mujer, mujer, te quiero cercado
por las balas, / ansiado por el plomo." The lines are rendered as: "Woman,
woman, surrounded by bullets, desired by lead, / I love you."
The versions of five poems by German Bleiberg also show instances of
the almost inevitable interpretation of the translator who achieves word
harmony. In "Nuestros amigos, los sueiios," "entre deseo y replica torva"
 Reviews 511

turns into "between desire and stern double," thus introducing personi-
fication where the poet used allusiveness to suggest the other in the self.
"I Thought Every Day" creates an unexpected fragility in exactly the same
way as the original.
Eleven short poems by Blas de Otero are included. A rather hard one
to work with, "Igual que vosotros" could be improved, I think, perhaps by
shifting the words around a bit more to get the obsessed, stressed sound
of the Spanish. Certain interpretations seem a bit off, such as in "Cuerpo
de mujer," in which "suena" is translated as "ringing," which disturbs
the unpeopled landscape. And "Man" is unrhymed in English (being a
sonnet, structure is less modifiable), but the rhythms are well done. The
magnificent "Crecida" comes out unscathed, as does the famous "A la
inmensa mayoria," whereas "Gallarta" is the typically untranslatable
poem: a work so enmeshed not only in the source language but also its
literary tradition, topography and names, that even a careful facsimile
cannot catch it. "Biotz-Begietan" comes across wonderfully, as does "The
1937 Howitzer" and "What's Inevitable."
Notable among the Jose Angel Valente selections are: "Night Falls"
(immediate creation of the original's space and fluidity); "Outside the
Walls" (easy conversational sound); "Like Neighboring Rivers" (line end-
ings contrast well with poem's ending); "With Different Words" (boldness
and humor more pronounced). Only "The Pitcher" and "The Bridge" seem
slightly awkward or unfinished. "Picasso-Guernica-Picasso: 1973" switches
alliterative patterns while maintaining the same power in the second
stanza:

No el sol, sino la palida Not the sun, but the pale

bombillaelectrica del frio electric bulb full of a cold
horrorque hizo nacer horror that caused the coagulated
el gris coaguladode Guernica. gray of Guernicato be born.
(p. 196) (p. 197)

The six sensuously generous, cyclonic poems of Pedro Gimferrer, a

"novisimo," are distinctly contemporary and energetic in both languages,
with an almost uncanny closeness in English, probably because the poet
writes of America and uses many visual impressions from mass media
screens.
Hammer and Schyfter's selected Recent Poetry of Spain testifies that
Lorca's statement in 1934 holds true even now: "today the most lovely
poetry in Europe is being written in Spain."
AGNESGULL6N
Temple University