Poetry
Nieve
Not translated into English
Julián del Casal · 1892
Opening lines
Noche de primavera. Solitario,
Como rosa amarilla en manto negro,
Destácase ya el disco de la luna
En la negrura azul del firmamento,
A spring night. Solitary,
Like a yellow rose on a black mantle,
The disc of the moon already stands out
Against the blue blackness of the firmament,
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from archive.org
Synopsis
Julián del Casal's second collection, in five sections: Bocetos antiguos, Mi museo ideal, Cromos españoles, Marfiles viejos and La gruta del ensueño. Several sonnets arise there from paintings by Gustave Moreau, others from distant lands, Japan above all, following the French fashion for Japonisme. Marcela Zanin reads in it the museum, the gallery and the dream, the places of modernist aesthetics, beneath a deep pessimism.
Context
Nieve follows Hojas al viento by two years and precedes Bustos y rimas, which his friend Enrique Hernández Miyares completed after his death, in 1893. The year of the book is also that of the meeting with Darío. He is counted among the precursors of modernist expression in Latin America, nourished by French poetry. Zanin stresses the book's division into sections that are strongly marked and meaningful.
Who it is for
Poems in Spanish, not translated; it helps to have in mind a few paintings by Gustave Moreau.
Prizes and reception
No prize. Rubén Darío, whom he met in Havana in 1892, dedicated his poem El clavicordio de la abuela to him.