Poetry
La cautiva
Not translated into English
Esteban Echeverría · 1837
Opening lines
Era la tarde, y la hora
En que el sol la cresta dora
De los Andes.—El Desierto
Inconmensurable, abierto,
Y misterioso a sus pies
It was evening, and the hour
When the sun gilds the crest
Of the Andes. The Desert,
Immeasurable, open
And mysterious at their feet
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from es.wikisource.org
Synopsis
Indians have swooped down on frontier settlements, burned the ranchos and carried off the women and children. Brián, a wounded soldier, is a prisoner in their camp, where María, his wife, is also a captive, and the two try to escape, according to Biografías y Vidas. According to Maritza Montaño's reading, they wander in the desert in search of water and food; at night, in the tall grass, she defends him against a tiger, and the next day the burning of the plain forces her to lead him to a watercourse.
Context
The poem appeared in 1837 in the collection Rimas, according to Britannica and Biografías y Vidas, and some of its cantos were read the same year at Marcos Sastre's Literary Salon. It has more than two thousand one hundred lines, divided into nine parts and an epilogue. Biografías y Vidas judges that its interest lies less in the quality of the verse than in the depiction of the Argentine desert, in local themes, encampments, raids and captives, and in the Spanish spoken in the country. Britannica links this choice to the project of the author, back from France, to found a national literature faithful to the realities of the country.
Who it is for
A long narrative poem in Spanish, divided into nine parts; no known French translation.
Prizes and reception
For Britannica, one of the best-known works of nineteenth-century Latin American literature.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.