Poetry
Poesías
Not translated into English
José María Heredia · 1825
Synopsis
The first collection of José María Heredia, published in New York in 1825 by a young Cuban banished from his island. It contains his long poems, before the ruins of the temple of Cholula, in a storm, facing Niagara Falls, in the sun, and sonnets to Cato, to Riego, to Napoleon. Liberty, oppression, the nature of the New World and nostalgia for Cuba are its subjects; the ode to Niagara appears in it for the first time.
Context
The New York edition carries a preface in English presenting the volume as an aid to North Americans learning Spanish. As early as 1827, William Cullen Bryant translated the verses on the falls and the poem of the storm: these are, according to the Research Starters encyclopaedia, the first Latin American verses published in English. Heredia himself brought out at Toluca, in 1832, a second edition enlarged with a few poems, translations and a verse dissertation on immortality. A critical edition of his complete poems, by Tilmann Altenberg, appeared in Madrid in 2020.
Who it is for
Poems in Spanish, of neoclassical style; no French translation of the collection, only a few poems in English.
Prizes and reception
The collection is well received in America and Western Europe, and its longest poems are quickly translated into English.