El Nica and Don Antonio

About the Book

The book gathers the work of two eminent writers with a view to making a window on Spain and Latin America as they were at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.  These were two very different writers; but they knew and admired each other's writing.  The Nicaraguan was a little older (born in 1967, while A.M. was born in 1875), and since he got an early start as a writer, his work was available  to Machado.  They belong together partly because they are so very  different--together they give an idea of what was happening in the literary and intellectual worlds of Spain and Latin America.  Included here are "Colloquy of the Centaurs" and "Epistle", two long poems by Darío; and "The Land of Alvargonzalez", by Machado, perhaps his best known work, and his longest in the poetic form.

The translations are from Spanish into English free verse,  which is rather nicely adapted  to this purpose,  being  noticeably not prose, yet not heavily burdened with prosodic enterprises.

The attempt is to offer some good things by these authors, thus encouraging readers to take up the originals, which are very nice, very nice.

About the Author

Edward Loomis, author of HEROIC SPAIN, has been engaged with Spanish and Spanish-American literature and culture during the last seven years, concentrating on Rubén Darío and Antonio Machado, and the poems collected here come out of that effort. The idea of this book is that these poets were leaders in the Hispanic civilization, and were accepted as such. Their work shows some of the strengths of that civilization, decadent as they found it which is successful now partly because of them, and their work lives on as privileged by their talent and dedication.