Customer Reviews

Selected Writings of Juan Ramon Jimenez

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The possibility of judging the success of a translation hinges on having the original texts side by side the translated ones. Furthermore, in poetry translations that success depends greatly on whether or not the translator is a poet in both languages, otherwise the poetic essence of the texts will not be captured in either language. Unfortunately, no indication of the background of Mr. Hays is given in the back cover, but it is clear that in his English version that he misses the music, the rythm and the fine pictorial elements of the writings of the Spanish master, which are present in the Spanish, whether verse of prose. The selection of the works of Juan Ramón is excellent, and a tribute to the literary knowledge of Mr. Hays, but here again, since these texts have not appeared together in Spanish or in English, his literary wisdom would have been confirmed by a bilingual text, and thus would have been a much better introduction of Jimenez to the American public. Because of these serious lacks, the present work misses its mark almost completely though it leaves the door open for a bilingual text.
Angel Medina