Trilce (Wesleyan Poetry) (Paperback)

by Cesar. Vallejo (Author) "Who's making all that racket, and not even leaving testation to the islands beginning to appear..." (more)
Key Phrases: heraldos negros, Meo Zilio, Venus de Milo, The Second of November

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
It is unfortunate that Eshleman's excellent translation of this extremely complex work appears just two months after Rebecca Seiferle's translation (Sheep Meadow Press). Eshleman has been translating Vallejo for over 30 years, and his edition of the Peruvian poet's Complete Posthumous Poetry won the National Book Award in 1979. From the first poem onward, it's apparent that these versions are more colloquial than Seiferle's, and that they capture the spirit if not the precise literal meaning of the poems, with the translator even making up English words to parallel undocumented words in the original. This is a poet's translation: rhythmical, with words often chosen for their sounds as well as their meanings. In extensive endnotes, Eshleman justifies his choice of words and balances his selections against the varied opinions of Spanish scholars. The translations in this bilingual volume are based on the original 1922 publication (with attempts to correct some obvious misprints), rather than the revised (1930) edition, which has become the standard in the Spanish-speaking world. Thus, this edition also presents "a newly established Spanish text," and is destined to become a classic.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
This year has produced two translations of Vallejo's least accessible poetic work (the other was translated by Rebecca Seiferle, LJ 6/15/92). For the difference between them, consider that the same line by the great Peruvian author could yield both "The impeacocked sun/ descends and excites hooves/ toward the coldest" (Seiferle) and "The razzed/ sun sets and scrambles the skulls/ even of the coldest." Unlike Seiferle, Eshleman includes 27 pages of lexical notes, and he shares more about his personal philosophy of translation. If, for example, Vallejo deliberately misspells a word, then Eshleman deliberately misspells an equivalent English word. A Vallejo neologism is rendered by an Eshleman neologism. Published the same year as The Wasteland , these 77 poems exhibit a "carnivorous lyricism" that cannot afford to be further obscured in translation. Yet Eshleman concedes that to translate Trilce is to leap into a void and that in modern times it is almost impossible to pinpoint the idiomatic variations of the Spanish spoken in the part of Peru where Vallejo grew up. Because of his confident and honest commentary, an excellent bibliography, and a Vallejo chronology, Eshleman's is the better investment, but his translations are only slightly more successful than Seiferle's.
- Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll., Cumberland, Md.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Wesleyan; 1st edition (October 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819564214
• ISBN-13: 978-0819564214
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
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• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,330,407 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)