Customer Reviews

Introduction to Spanish Poetry: A Dual-Language Book (Dover Dual Language Spanish)

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I bought the book in order to use it to help me learn Spanish better. I teach adult immigrants, most of whom are Spanish speaking, to speak English. I recently decided that this book could be used to help the adult students learn English as well. The book has two very enjoyable applications: 1. I learn Spanish better. 2. The adult students learn English better and we are all learning while we are having great fun. Lope de Vega's "Various Effects of Love" keeps us all laughing. The truth that he speaks is the truth that we have all experienced. Read it. Enjoy it.

I bought mine a few years ago during my first inklings of interest in Spanish poetry. I'm glad I did. Key poets are represented by a short biography (in English) and one or two poems in Spanish with English literal prose on the facing page. Simple! Perfect!

The book goes from El Cid to early modern poets like Alexiandre, Alberti and Cernuda. I gather it is a shorter version of a longer book by Florit, but there is no reason not to get this one. This will get you started and help you decide which poets are worth investigating. A wonderful little book!

I have an extremely high standard for books, no matter the genre. I happen to enjoy reading and writing poetry, and learning language (I am learning conversational Spanish currently)so I decided to buy this one, especially knowing it was from Dover, which I have always believed to have reprinted and published only good books.

I adored this book ever since I read the first poem in here, Cantar de Mio Cid. it really builds on your vocabulary, and helps you grasp the meaning on the words as actual "poetry" and not just as some words in a technical writing.

Among my favorites are: A una estrella (To a star) by Jose de Espronceda, Libro de buen amor (Book of good love) by Juan Ruiz, Castilla (Castile) by Miguel de Unamuno, and Muertes (Deaths) by Pedro Salinas.
This book is not only wonderful for an intermediate beginner like me, but also to advanced learners/speakers to learn both Spanish and English.

A brilliant collection of poetry. This book is a must buy for anybody interested in the Spanish language.

Although published way back in 1965, this book is understandably still a very good seller. There are several excellent reasons for its continued popularity. It is not a heavy book; it is well set out; the brief biographies of the poets are informative without being critical; the translations are both deft and accurate. Of course, they do miss something of the poetry in the original, although even in this aspect, the poems when read aloud in English do come across with reasonable impact. The best way to illustrate a difference in approach is to compare a few lines from "The Bells" by the superb Rosalia with my own version in A Salute To Spanish Poetry: 100 Masterpieces from Spain & Latin America rendered into English verse. Florit's opening stanza is: "I love them, I hear them, / just as I hear the sound of the wind, / the babbling of the fountain / or the bleating of a lamb." I have: "I hear them, I love them / as I hear the rumor of the wind, / the murmur of the fountain / or the bellow of a lamb." My version is actually closer to the Spanish. Rosalia's actual word for instance is "rumor" which means exactly the same in English and is certainly far more poetic than "sound".

This is a great little anthology of Spanish poetry with side-by-side English translation. Each author receives a great historical introduction before their work. My one criticism is the small size of this anthology. Most poets only have one poem featured in the book. It's hard to get a feel for a poet's style (and thereby be inspired to read their wider work) without sampling a few poems. Overall, very well-done, though. Translations are great.