Spanish Ballads

By W.S. Merwin

1961

First Published

4.10

Average Rating

125

Number of Pages

3H49M

Audio Length

When W.S. Merwin was a young poet, Ezra Pound advised him to “read the seeds of poetry, not the twigs.” As the ballads of Spain are among those essential seeds, Merwin set out to select and translate a collection of them into English. Few, if any, popular poetic traditions compare to that of the ballads in the culture of Spain. These terse, passionate, and often violent poems have been remembered, repeated, and loved for centuries throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Evolving from the epic song, this unique poetic genre has influenced the drama of the Golden Age, the novel, and lyric verse of the present day. For this volume—long out of print and reissued in the new series Copper Canyon Classics—W.S. Merwin selected representative examples of every kind of from episodic story poems to unusual “wonder-mongering” songs. Grouped by kind and arranged in chronological order, these poems provide an essential key to Spanish culture from the late Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Merwin approached this project humbly and notes in his “My aim was not to produce a series of virtuoso performances but a group of translations which would be faithful and readable, and would get in the way of the originals as little as possible.” W.S. Merwin is the author of over fifty books of poetry, prose, and translation. He has earned nearly every major literary prize, including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He lives in Hawaii.

Avg Rating

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Author

W.S. Merwin

Author · 44 books

William Stanley Merwin was an American poet, credited with over fifty books of poetry, translation and prose. William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation.During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, his writing influence derived from an interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he wrote prolifically and was dedicated to the restoration of the island's rainforests. Merwin received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971 and 2009; the National Book Award for Poetry in 2005,and the Tanning Prize—one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets—as well as the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. In 2010, the Library of Congress named him the 17th United States Poet Laureate.