The Golden Age: Poems of the Spanish Renaissance

by Edith Grossman (Translator)

Return to the distant, glittering world of the Spanish Renaissance with forty great poems in a remarkable new translation.

"Nothing is harder…than to render a classic in contemporary idiom yet retain its sense of time and space….Edith Grossman delivers."—Carlos Fuentes, New York Times Book Review

The Spanish Renaissance—a period of glory that endured from the late fifteenth century through the seventeenth century—comes to life in its greatest poems, rendered with passionate fervor and a stylistic brilliance. Edith Grossman includes in this beautiful, collection-worthy volume facing-page Spanish, a historical introduction, and biographies of the Jorge Manrique (not translated since Longfellow); Garcilaso de la Vega, a soldier and courtier who wrote love poetry; Fray Luis de Leon, a converso Jew; San Juan de la Cruz, whose poems are the finest exemplars of Christian mysticism; Luis de Góngora, the great sensualist; Lope de Vega, the great rival to Cervantes; Francisco de Quevado, the ultimate Baroque poet; and Sor Juana, the nun whose haunting poetry embodied the voice of Mexico. 10 illustrations.

Genres: Poetry, Spain

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Edith Marion Grossman was an American literary translator. Known for her work translating Latin American and Spanish literature to English, she translated the works of Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, Mayra Montero, Augusto Monterroso, Jaime Manrique, Julián Ríos, Álvaro Mutis, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. She was a recipient of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and the 2022 Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation.

Reviews

[Antigone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully bound, titled, textured. The content is simple; primarily on faith and mortality, as one might expect from poetry written during the time of the Inquisition.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grossman’s anthology is the perfect introduction to Golden Age writers. She includes choice selections of verse from all the big names -- Garcilaso de la Vega, Fray Luis de Leon, St. John of the Cross, Gongora, Lope de Vega, and Quevedo -- as well as two writers who are just outside the timeframe of the Golden Age (but very much a welcome addition to the anthology): Jorge Manrique and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. I was especially glad for Grossman’s translation of Manrique’s Coplas because I had been having trouble tracking down any translation other than Longfellow’s 19th century version online. All the Sor Juana sonnets appear in Grossman’s translations of her work, Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz: Selected Works, which I am reading now and also recommend along with her translation of Gongora’s The Solitudes. Each writer in this anthology is given a brief (two-page) introduction with biographies and highlights of their work, while the poems are presented side-by-side in dual language format.

I only had a few minor criticisms. The biggest was that there were so few selections. The anthology is less than 200 pages (and half of those pages are the original Spanish language poems, so really we are getting less than 100 pages of verse). I realize the difficult task of creating these translations, so I guess I can't fault Grossman too much there. I also thought the Billy Collins introduction added little to the collection other than his name on the jacket. This was clearly meant to be a popular edition for casual English readers. I guess my ideal book would have had a bit more of a scholarly angle (more footnotes, more translations, more detailed introductions to the writers, etc.). However, the anthology works for what it is, and makes a nice springboard for readers interested in diving deeper into these writers' lives and works.