Alturas De Macchu Picchu

Long poem inspired by the author's journey to a ruined Inca city, Macchu Picchu, high in the Andes, symbolic not only of his physical journey but also of his spiritual adventure.

What goes into the translating of a poem? Usually that process gets forgotten once the new poem stands intact in translation. Yet a verse translation derives from historical, biographical, and philosophical research, interpretive analysis of the original poem, and continuous linguistic and prosodic choices that parallel those the poet made. Taking as a text Pablo Neruda's brilliant prophetic sequence Alturas de Macchu Picchu (1945), the author here re-creates the entire process of translation, from his first encounter with the poem to the last shaping of a phrase that may never come right in English. This many-faceted book forms an essay on the theory and practice of literary translation, a study of Neruda's career through 1945, and an interpretation of his major poem, all of which lead to a striking new poem in English, Heights of Macchu Picchu, printed along with the original Spanish. This genesis of a verse translation also includes little-known biographical data, hitherto untranslated poems and prose from the years 1920 to 1945, and new translations of key poems from Neruda's Residence on Earth and Spain in My Heart.

Pablo Neruda is the world's most beloved poet, and Alturas de Macchu Picchu one of his greatest poetic achievements.

The Canto General, thought by many of Neruda’s most prominent critics to be the poet’s masterpiece, is the stunning epic of an entire continent and its people.

Pablo Neruda was without doubt one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century but his work is extremely uneven. There is a view that there are two Nerudas, an early Romantic visionary and a later Marxist populist, who denied his earlier poetic self. By focussing on the poet's apprenticeship, and by looking closely at how Neruda created his poetic persona within his poems, this Companion tries to establish what should survive of his massive output. By seeing his early work as self exploration through metaphor and sound, as well as through varieties of love and direct experience, the Companion outlines a unity behind all the work, based on voice and a public self. Neruda's debt to reading and books is studied in depth and the change in poetics re-examined by concentrating on the early work up to Residencia en la tierra I and II and why he wanted to become a poet. Debate about quality and representativity is grounded in his Romantic thinking, sensibility and sincerity. Unlike a Borges or a Paz who accompanied their creative work with analytical essays, Neruda distilled all his experiences into his poems, which remainhis true biography. Jason Wilson is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies, University College London.

Neruda's masterpiece epic poem about the history of a continent and its people.