Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Wesleyan Poetry in Translation) [Paperback]

Antonio Machado (Author)

Book Description

Series: Wesleyan Poetry in Translation | Publication Date: July 15, 1983

CONTRIBUTORS: Robert Bly.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In Machado there are no gypsies, no bulls, no castanets. His poetry has the still luminosity of a life lived in provincial backwaters in solitude and silence"--New York Times Book Review

Bly "gives Machado with all of his tremendous sensitivity. He captures Machado's subtle sense of humor. He traces his stylistic and poetic experiments aimed at, as Machado put it, 'stitching the inner and the outer worlds together through poetry.' And finally, he sculpts for us the story of Machado's quiet though deeply passionate life. It was a life whose synthesis of joy and loss produced an uncommon blend of optimism and hope." --San Francisco Chronicle Review

Language Notes

Text: English, Spanish --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 187 pages
• Publisher: Wesleyan; Bilingual Spanish-English ed. edition (July 15, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819560812
• ISBN-13: 978-0819560810
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #473,192 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #82 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Italian

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor translation or new creation?, September 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Wesleyan Poetry in Translation) (Paperback)

The charitable view is that Mr. Bly has attempted to translate the feeling of these poems, rather than the sense. The result is completely new poems loosely based on Machado's original.

Sadly, that is not my own view. Initially, in fact, my only thought was simply that the man is a terrible translator. Apparently Mr. Bly is himself a poet, which leads one to think that he has taken some liberties in "improving" on the Spanish original. He also has published translations from a large number of different languages. Perhaps he is a gifted linguist; perhaps (my own suspicion) he learns only enough of each language to make a stab at translation. Certainly THIS collection is a tremendous disappointment, and I am sad that some may come to Machado's excellent poems only in this sadly altered form. My own Spanish is good, but Machado uses many old words, and I had hoped for an expert translation. In this case, however, I will have to make do with a good Spanish only volume of Machado and margin notes made with the help of a dictionary. Maybe Mr. Bly's publisher will consider publishing my home grown version.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Machado ill-served by ubiquitous Bly, May 4, 2000

By 

Jonathan Mayhew (Lawrence, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Wesleyan Poetry in Translation) (Paperback)

Bly deserves credit for introducing Spanish poetry to the American audience back in the 1950s and 1960s. Machado is a wonderful poet. Unfortunately, Bly is not a terribly good translator, and the result is a mismatch.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A sound introduction, July 18, 2008

By 

Tebes "Buchlieber" (Niagara Region, ON) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Wesleyan Poetry in Translation) (Paperback)

Lorca is often the first poet to come to North American minds when asked about Spanish poetry. Lorca's life is more dramatic, his intensity, his homosexuality, his death is by far more dramatic.

Antonio Machado is a big scruffier in image. Widowed before middle-age, Machado never quite recovered from the loss of his wife. He was a wanderer, a tutor, someone who might sit alone and calmly so at a cafe table, the ends of his pants a little worse for wear. He was drawn to philosophy and his poetry has a mystical quality to it. Yet his poems are like the songs of his Spanish youth. He is both outsider and native to the Spain that fills his poetry.

I found this translation to be a good introduction but not exceptional. Like the figure of Machado, the translations were a bit 'scruffy' at times. I recommend Willis Barnstone's larger tome. Reading Bly's renditions, I found the poems quite listless and sometimes dull - many had lost their gleam. In Barnstone's hands, I found the poems took on a deeper life. I am presently studying Spanish and will hopefully be able to read Machado in the original.

This is a good place to begin, but not the English zenith of Machado translations. Lorca has been well-serviced in English. I would like to see the same for Machado.