Product Description
Jorge Luis Borges es un caso especial en el marco de la literatura latinoamericana. Y no solo por escapar su narrativa a los parametros del realismo magico o al pintoresquismo que a menudo se espera de un autor de esa procedencia. Libros como El Aleph o Ficciones parecen mas bien antecedentes de un relato fantastico que se nutre de la realidad para hacer verosimil el juego que el nos propone. Por otra parte, el polemico Borges personaje a veces eclipso o pospuso al Borges escritor. Su poesia es casi una metafisica dotada de ritmo. Sus eruditos ensayos reflejan una mirada personal e ironica, y echan luz nueva a lo ya transitado. Este es un necesario recorrido por la vida y obra de un autor ya ineludible a nivel universal. ... Read more

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El libro de los seres imaginarios es una de los obras mas singulares y fascinantes de Borges que refleja todas sus inquietudes y su maestria formal. Ignoramos el sentido del dragon, como ignoramos el sentido del universo, pero algo hay en su imagen que concuerda con la imaginacion de los hombres, asevera Jorge Luis Borges en El Libro de los seres imaginarios, que traza un extraordinario catalogo de ciento dieciseis seres fantasticos que han poblado la mitologia y la religion desde la noche de los tiempos. Algunos, como golem, la esfinge y el centauro, son hijos de la metafisica o la literatura: otros, como los gnomos y las hadas, son fruto de la invencion humana. Al hilo de las evocaciones de los clasicos, las revelaciones de los misticos y los suenos de escritores y poetas, Borges da vida a viejos relatos olvidados y demuestra que, pese a la disparidad de la procedencia y las formas de esos seres extranos , todos proceden del mismo imaginario humano, de deseos y temores parecidos. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Best Book In The World
I love this book and have probably read it about 15 times in the course of a long life.In his introduction Borges mentions "the pleasure of useless erudition" so I must be that I am particularly sensitive to this pleasure.But it is really a book for everybody.It's such an odd subject I would have at first thought it might have a small audience but I have turned lots of friends on to it and they like it too.None of can adequately express just what it is that makes this book so enchanting, and how reading it takes us pleasurably miles away from the world of telephones, anger, bank statements, and cellphones.

Seres fantásticos de todos los tiempos.
Jorge Luis Borges, reconocido autor de primerísima pluma, alcanza con este libro a presentarnos con algunos de los personajes imaginarios que conoció y conoce la humanidad.

Nos trae seres de distintas culturas a través de distintos tiempos de una manera breve, más descriptiva que biográfica.

Este libro es para tenerlo en la mesa de noche donde da mejor paso al camino imaginario.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Please Reprint This Amazing Book!
I can really only comment on two poems in this book because my Spanish is not very good.The two poems I speak of are I and II of "Two Enlgish Poems" and they are two of my favorite poems.They read almost likewedding vows only they are those of a dark poet to an unknown (probably nota single person.) If you can check this book out of a library, then do byall means and run on your way.Better yet, wait for a Borges fall nightand stroll under the wet moonlight.Just don't miss it.

Sacred poet's book
Jorge Luis Borges build up himself a Literary Man, he readed all books that worth to be readen, but Borges did not build up a Poet, his destiny was tobecome a poet, and he honour this destiny, Obra Poetica is a Boook of books -in the same way that El Cantar de los Cantares, really means-, and Borges Th Poet of poets.Obra Poetica holds the treasure of magic, of sadness,and often the gold of joy, this book teach what a Poet should be (verbigratia what a Man should be).A reader must deserve the privilege of piering into this book. (Spanish version) Jorge Luis Borges se erigió a si mismo como un hombre de letras, leyó asi mismo todos los libros que merecen ser leidos; pero lo que Borges no hizo fue erigirse poeta; su destino fue, ser un poeta y Borges honró ese destino.Obra Poética es el Libro de libros -a la manera del Cantar de los Cantares- y Borges el Poeta de poetas.Obra Poética encierra el tesoro de la magia, el tesoro de la tristeza y a menudo el oro de la dicha, este libro enseña lo que un poeta debe ser (verbigracia lo que un Hombre debe ser):El lector debe merecer el privilegio de asomarse a este libro. ... Read more

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A selection of poems by the Argentinian writer, Jorge Luis Borges from the period of 1923-1967. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent
This is an excellent collection of poetry by the great Jorge Luis Borges.This bilingual edition was prepared with Borges' assistance and the translations were produced by an unusually distinguished group of poets and translators. There are many fine outstanding poems included. Given the difficulty of translation from a language with many more natural rhymes than English, the results are impressive.Many of Borges' familiar devices - libraries, labyrinths, mirrors, tigers, knife fighting - are featured.Some of his favorite themes of determinism, the nature of time, mortality, and identity occur in these poems.Much of this poetry involves conscious attempts to give events of Argentine history, particularly events involving his ancestors, a mythic quality.A wonderful collection of work. ... Read more

Product Description
At the age of seventy, after a gap of twenty years, Jorge Luis Borges returned to writing short stories. In Brodie’s Report, he returned also to the style of his earlier years with its brutal realism, nightmares, and bloodshed. Many of these stories, including "Unworthy" and "The Other Duel," are set in the macho Argentinean underworld, and even the rivalries between artists are suffused with suppressed violence. Throughout, opposing themes of fate and free will, loyalty and betrayal, time and memory flicker in the recesses of these compelling stories, among the best Borges ever wrote. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (6)

Excellent, but not quite perfect
This collection of Spanish sonnets is an excellent book. The selections are in general difficult to argue with. I only question whether it makes sense to place Borges (who was, in truth, more innovative as a prose-writer than as a poet) in the same category of merit as geniuses like Quevedo and Lorca. The fact that Barnstone personally knew Borges quite well makes this seem a little suspicious to me. Nonetheless, the sonnets included by Borges are quite well-crafted and fully deserve to be read and re-read.

As for the actual quality of the translations, it seems rather uneven. Barnstone, like other verse-translators who are also poets, faces the Sisyphean task of trying to bend and mould his own voice and verve to fit those of the poet he is translating. The fact that the six poets represented in this volume have very different voices renders the translations particularly vulnerable to comparison.

Unfortunately, the six poets in translation end up sounding a little too similar to each other. What's more, they all sound a little like Barnstone. Quevedo suffers particularly badly in this regard. Here, by way of an example, is one of Quevedo's sonnets followed by Barnstone's translation.


Enseña Cómo Todas Las Cosas Avisan de la Muerte

Miré los muros de la patria mía,
si un tiempo fuertes, ya desmoronados,
de la carrera de la edad cansados,
por quien caduca ya su valentía.
Salíme al campo; vi que el sol bebía
los arroyos del hielo desatados,
y del monte quejosos los ganados,
que con sombras hurtó su luz al día.
Entré en mi casa; vi que, amancillada,
de anciana habitación era despojos;
mi báculo, más corvo y menos fuerte.
Vencida de la edad sentí mi espada,
y no hallé cosa en que poner los ojos
que no fuese recuerdo de la muerte.


He Shows How All Things Warn of Death

I gazed upon my country's tottering walls,
one day grandiose, now rubble on the ground,
worn out by vicious time, only renowned
for weakness in a land where courage fails.
I went into the fields. I saw the sun
drinking the springs just melted from the ice,
and cattle moaning as the forests climb
against the thinning day, now overrun
with shade. I went into my house. I saw
my old room yellowed with with the sickening breath
of age, my cane flimsier than before.
I felt my sword coffined in rust, and walked
about, and everything I looked at bore
a warning of the wasted gaze of death.


First of all, props to Barnstone for knowing that, in Renaissance Spanish, "monte" meant not only "hill" but also "forest." If you know Spanish, you'll notice the great liberties and compromises of image and diction that Barnstone has taken. There's nothing particularly wrong or unusual about this in a poetic, non-literal translation. It's to be expected. However, much of it does not sound at all like Quevedo or, for that matter, *any* Baroque Spanish poet.The half-dozen half-rhymes, though common in modern English poetry, sound peculiar here in a poem supposed to represent classical forms.

Even more jarring, though, is the enjambment of lines 8 and 9. The 9th line traditionally marks the *volta* or "turning point" of the classical European sonnet. In Quevedo's original, the first 8 lines discuss the speaker's experience outdoors, whereas the last 6 discuss his experience upon entering his own home. The "overrun/with shade" does violence to this classical balance to force a rhyme in a way that Quevedo would have found weird, if not in outright poor taste. Likewise, enjambments that split phrasal verbs such as "walked/about" in lines 12-13 are also peculiarly modern and not in keeping with the classical baroque aesthetic, particularly not in a poem with a theme, tone and music as solemn as this one's.

"I saw/ my old room yellowed with the sickening breath/ of age" seems egregious, even in a poetic translation. The original literally reads "I saw that it was despoiled, the remnants of an aged room." Though "anciana" can mean "elderly" and usually describes a person, the main metaphor is not anthropomorphic, but rather a suggestion of ancient, abandoned ruins. I can't shake the feeling that the image of sickness and pallor was employed simply to force the rhyme "breath" to go with the "death" of the final line.

Speaking of the final lines, "about, and everything I looked at bore/ a warning of the wasted gaze of death" is not only slightly incomprehensible, but also un-Baroque. The original Spanish reads "and I did not find a thing to rest my eyes upon/ that was not a reminder of death." The double negative lending force to a positive statement (a rhetorical figure also known by the two-dollar word "litotes,") balanced neatly over two whole lines, is what gives this poem's conclusion a kind of epigrammatic resonance. Barnstone's version, marred as the penultimate line is by the enjambed "about," quickly degenerates into phrase-making with a "warning" and a "wasted gaze." This poem, though a fine work by Barnstone, doesn't sound like Quevedo at all. It sounds like Barnstone's idea of how *he* would have written it. In my view, this renders it unsuccessful.

That said, Barnstone does do a much better job with the later poets: Borges, Lorca, Hernandez and Machado, whose modern aesthetic and tones are a little closer to those of his original poetry. Even though he uses the same stylistic tricks to find rhymes (such as odd enjambments and peculiar paraphrases) they seem less offensive in the modern poets because they are less foreign to their aesthetic. I found myself coming upon passages by Lorca and Hernandez that seemed as perfect as a translation could be, like the following four lines by Lorca from "Night of Sleepless love"

Climbing the night, we two in the full moon,
I wept and you were laughing. Your disdain
became a god, and my resentments soon
were morning doves and moments in a chain...

This passage is paced very differently from the original Spanish. Nonetheless, it still sounds plausibly like Lorca.

Borges in particular fares spectacularly well in Barnstone's versions, probably because Borges collaborated in their revision! In fact, I'd go so far as to say that there is no better translator of Borges' poetry than Barnstone. He has a unique ear for Borges' oddities and idiosyncratic shifts of thought. Even when he deviates from Borges' text, he still manages to sound like Borges.

In conclusion:

Buy this book for (mostly) excellent renderings of Lorca, Hernandez, Machado and Borges. If it's translations of Quevedo and Sor Juana Ines De la Cruz you're after, be prepared for a much more uneven, and occasionally jarring, performance.

Six masters of the Spanish sonnet
It was in new condition and the poetry is in Spanish with English translation.Worth reading, especially the comments by the author who is very knowledgeable with the subject.

Six Masters of the Spanish Sonnet
This book is more than I expected. Excellent biographical information and literary context for the six authors. Relates the work of six great Spanish poets of different epochs. The translations are very helpful for someone who knows some Spanish. I would have preferred more literal and less poetic translations.(See Sor Juana de la Cruz, "En perseguirme, Mundo, que interesas? ...") Even a fine poet like Barnstone must take liberties with the original when he turns a Spanish sonnet into an English sonnet. This book is invaluable to the amateur and, I would assume, to the professional as well.

Masterful Translations of Spanish Sonnets
The sonnet form was introduced to Spain from Sicily in the fifteenth century through the writing of El Marqués de Santillana (1398-1458), a poet who wrote Petrarchan sonnets in Spanish. During the Renaissance, the Italian sonnet made its way to most of the countries of Western Europe. In England, Edmund Spenser changed the Petrarchan rhyming form of 'abba abba cdecde' to 'abab bcbc cdcd ee,' and William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets with the form 'abab cdcd efef gg.' As Willis Barnstone says in the introduction to his book, 'Six Masters of the Spanish Sonnet,' 'the Spanish sonnet, a literary vagabond in courtly dress, began in the court of the Sicilian Frederic II, went up to England, and finally, seven centuries after its Italian birth, with its picaresque wits and form intact, dropped down just above the Antarctic Circle to appear in the poems of the Argentine Anglophile [his maternal grandmother was English] Borges.' Professor Barnstone goes on to present a thorough history of the evolution of the Spanish sonnet and a colorful biography of six Spanish language poets who used the form. His writing is informed by his long friendship with Jorge Luis Borges. Barnstone offers here a sampling of 112 Spanish sonnets by these six masters, placed side by side along with his own magnificent translations.

Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645) is described as a 'monstruo de la naturaleza' [monster of nature] because of his prodigious outpouring of writing. 'Like Swift, Dostoyevski, and Kafka, he is one of the most tormented spirits and visionaries of world literature ['El Buscón' (The Swindler), 1626, is his masterpiece] and also one of the funniest writers ever to pick up a sharp, merciless pen.' Though Quevedo's sonnets are at times scatological and darkly satirical, they are also humorous and hopeful.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648/51-1695) was a Mexican discalced Carmelite nun who is considered by some religious scholars to be the first female theologian of the Americas. Although I was familiar with her love poems and her articulate defense of a woman's right to write in 'Response to Sor Filotea,' I had not read her sonnets in translation before. As he does with all six sonneteers, Barnstone faithfully maintains Sor Juana's rhyming, meter, and cadence in his translations of her sonnets. His analysis encompasses her writing and her life, including some critique of Octavio Paz's definitive biography, 'Sor Juana, or The Traps of Faith.'

Antonio Machada (1875-1939) recalls the landscape of his native Sevilla in his sonnets. In, 'El amor y la sierra' (Love and the Sierra), he writes, 'Calabaga por agria serranía / una tarde, entre roca cenicienta. (He was galloping over harsh sierra ground, / one afternoon, amid the ashen rock).' Barnstone calls Machado 'the Wang Wei of Spain' because 'he uses the condition of external nature to express his passion.' As Petrarch had his Laura, Machado had his Guiomar (Pilar de Valderrama). In 'Dream Below the Sun,' he writes, 'Your poet / thinks of you. Distance / is of lemon and violet, / the fields still green. / Come with me, Guiomar. / The sierra will absorb us. / The day is wearing out / from oak to oak.'

Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) was a Spanish poet and playwright who was affected by Luis de Góngorra and gongorismo. His 'Gypsy Ballads' was 'the most popular book of poetry in the Spanish language in his time.' Barnstone states that 'his closest attachment, his passion, was the painter Salvador Dalí,' with whom he carried on a six year love affair. Luis Buñuel castigated him for his Andalusianism; indeed, Lorca felt that Buñuel's satiric and surrealist film 'Un chien andalu' mocked him. After traveling to New York and Havana, Lorca became 'the playwright of Spain' with his brilliant 'Bodas de Sangre' (Blood Wedding). His 'Sonnets of Dark Love,' unpublished during his lifetime, were probably written to Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, an engineering student. Barnstone believes that 'dark love' is an allusion to San Juan de la Cruz's 'dark night of the soul.'

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) of Argentina considered himself a poet, though he was a master at prose.According to Barnstone, because of the blindness that afflicted Borges in midlife, 'he could compose and polish a sonnet while waiting for a bus or walking down the street' and then later dictate it from memory. 'Borges's speech authenticated his writing, his writing authenticated his speech. To have heard him was to read him. To have read him was to have heard him.' In 'Un ciego' (A Blindman), he says, 'No sé cuál es la cara que me mira / Cuando miro la cara del espejo; / No sé qué anciano acecha en su reflejo / Con silenciosa y ya cansada ira. (I do not know what face looks back at me / When I look at the mirrored face, nor know / What aged man conspires in the glow / Of the glass, silent and with tired fury.)'

Miguel Hernández (1910-1942), a poor goatherd and pastor from the province of Alicante in Spain, wrote his best poetry while imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War. 'In the prisons, Hernández became,' in Barnstone's opinion, 'the consummate poet of light, darkness, soul, time, and death.' One of his poems, 'Llegó con tres heridas' (He came with three wounds), is a popular song, recorded by Joan Baez on her 'Gracias a La Vida' album.

'Six Masters of the Spanish Sonnet' is recommended to all who love this poetic form and want to know more about the lives of these remarkable poets. A good index and list of references are included for further study.

The Cream of Spanish Sonets
The translation is marvelous: I read them all before in Spanish.And the Selection? Amazingly good ! Congratulations to the translator! It`s not an easy feat to translate Garcìa Lorca or Sor Juana Inès de la Cruz...eoither The Master: Quevedo...or Machado ( the name is ANTONIO, NOT ANTONIA ) The person who selected the poems is really knowing... If you want to read and enjoy the very best of Spanish written sonets...This Book is a Poetic "Bible " Don`t miss it ! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent introduction to Borges
This collection is an excellent introduction to Borges, and clearly shows how he revolutionized the short story and became the pater familias of a new genre classification.

"The Aleph"--Like most of his stories, this one is brief but packs a lot of information into its short length. (For those who don't read outside of SF, imagine a J.G. Ballard condensed novel with more connections and a higher sense of the fantastic. Hmm, that was a worthless description. It is hard to find a match for Borges in the genre, because he was always succinct, and could never have survived in the dog-eat-dog world of pay by word.) The gimmick is simple--the aleph is to space what eternity is to time--but the method by which the author discovers it is unusual. I like Borges because his approach to a fantastic concept is unlike any found in the genre. Genre writing seems to emphasize the gimmick, in mainstream writing it is simply one part of the landscape against which the characters are placed. Only in Borges do all elements seem equal, similar in concept to his own aleph, to return in a style similar to Borges himself.

"Streetcorner Man"--A first-person tale of one night in the barrio, when the ones who talk big get their comeuppance by the quiet ones. OK, but I like my stories to have a little something more.

"The Approach to aI-Mu'tasim"--A review of a fictional book which reads, again, like a condensed novel, only in this case it truly is one. The literary device is ingenious, allowing Borges to comment on literary criticism at the same time he is creating literature.

"The Circular Ruins"--One of Borges' favorite subjects is the concept of infinity, another is creation. Here he bends the two together in a story that is also a metaphor for the process of setting and achieving goals.

"Death and the Compass"--A logic problem to a mystery story, almost like Poe. Poe, though, would have stretched it out to twice its length.

"The Life of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (1829-1874)"--I did not quite follow this one. At one point I thought that maybe Cruz was going to be killing his own father, but instead he goes to the aid of himself?

"The Two Kings and Their Two Labyrinths"--A fable, or a sermon, that addresses what is a labyrinth. Highly appropriate subject for a Borges collection.

"The Dead Man"--A gaucho story. Think of it as a Louis L'amour story with Argentines and Brazilians instead of Mexicans and Texans. Okay, but it's still a western at heart.

"The Other Death"--This is what I look for in Borges: a fantastical study of memory and history, reality and dream. Pedro did not act like a hero in the battle... or did he?

"Ibn Hakkan al-Bokhari, Dead in His Labyrinth"--Another great story of mazes and mystery. Borges has an unusual way of framing his tales, usually with an objective third person narrator, that shortens the stories tremendously. I guess he did not get paid by the word.

"The Man On the Threshold"--Another mystery, but not quite as fantastic as the others. Some Of these stories are morality or revenge plays, that do not require much speculation.

"The Challenge"--A rehash of some of the gaucho themes, certainly my last favorite of his tropes. What I find interesting is the references to other stories flirt makes this seem like a reference article instead of a story.

"The Captive"--A short short about a boy captured as a young child by natives. Borges here formulates a question about the nature of memory.

"Borges and Myself"--Here, as in "Isidore Cruz" above, Borges talks about the nature of identity. When you look at how others perceive you and realize that that is not how you perceive yourself is a crisis of identity (as in here), or how people might perceive a younger version of you. I often look at my current life and wonder. There is no way that Glen circa. 1980 could have ever dreamed of becoming the Glen of 1998. Thoughts and hopes and goals are all so mutable. The funny thing is that I will reread these words 10 or more years from now and be struck by the same strangeness.

"The Maker"--A discussion of what it means to go blind, nominally about Homer, but also about Borges' own condition. I had not realized that Borges had gone blind before his death.

"The Intruder"--Borges says that his mother, who he dictated this story to, hated it, and I can see why. It's not something I would recommend to any woman, as it is quite misogynstic. However, it is an incredible story, and a fairly straightforward one for Borges, about friendship and brotherhood.

"The Immortals"--A science fiction tale, strangely incongruous here. Well done, but it seems much more dated than almost everything else in this collection (stories from 1933 to 1969).

"The Meeting"--Clever little tale about people and weapons. Almost a trick story, because the title refers to something other than what you expect.

"Pedro Salvadores"--Short short about dictatorships and living "underground" (actually, both literally and figuratively). Borges had a real knack for the short short, never an easy thing to write.

"Rosendo's Tale"--To come almost entirely full circle, this tale is a sequel or antidote to the second story, "Streetcorner Man." The gaucho here is more realistic, not so macho, and I find myself appreciating this more because of having seen the Hemingway-ish earlier story.

Finally, there is an autobiographical essay at the end, for those of us who wonder how Borges evolved (as Borges himself does in "Borges and Myself"). ... Read more