Dario's poem "A Roosevelt"

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My oldest is a student at the University of Pennsylvania.

In Spanish class they are reading Dario's poem "A Roosevelt"

There are lines refering to "Hugo says to Grant..."

Is this Victor Hugo and Ulysses S Grant?

We are not asking everyone to do her homework for her but some steering in the right direction would be just dandy.

Clellie, Wednesday, 31 March 2004 12:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, according to Google, they were both friends of Dom Pedro II, the Emperor of Brazil. Also this, from the New York Review of Books:

"At the outset of the Franco-Prussian War in July 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant sent William I of Prussia a message which the French, on seeing a copy, interpreted as expressing a position of benevolent neutrality. In December, after the ignominious collapse of the French armies, Victor Hugo bitterly accused Grant of helping the Prussians triumph over the very ideals that had once united France and the United States"

So the two certainly had some correspondence.

accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 1 April 2004 10:26 (twenty-two years ago)

thirteen years pass...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/travel/nicaragua-dario-poet.html

a beautiful little homage to ruben dario

probably one of my favourites by him is azul. will sound very stereotypical/cliche to modern readers though i think

his use of diction in poetry is something that is impossible to be translated, unfortunately

like sinfonía en gris mayor

El mar como un vasto cristal azogado
refleja la lámina de un cielo de zinc;
lejanas bandadas de pájaros manchan
el fondo bruñido de pálido gris.

El sol como un vidrio redondo y opaco
con paso de enfermo camina al cenit;
el viento marino descansa en la sombra
teniendo de almohada su negro clarín.

Las ondas que mueven su vientre de plomo
debajo del muelle parecen gemir.
Sentado en un cable, fumando su pipa,
está un marinero pensando en las playas
de un vago, lejano, brumoso país.

Es viejo ese lobo. Tostaron su cara
los rayos de fuego del sol del Brasil;
los recios tifones del mar de la China
le han visto bebiendo su frasco de gin.

La espuma impregnada de yodo y salitre
ha tiempo conoce su roja nariz,
sus crespos cabellos, sus bíceps de atleta,
su gorra de lona, su blusa de dril.

En medio del humo que forma el tabaco
ve el viejo el lejano, brumoso país,
adonde una tarde caliente y dorada
tendidas las velas partió el bergantín…

La siesta del trópico. El lobo se aduerme.
Ya todo lo envuelve la gama del gris.
Parece que un suave y enorme esfumino
del curvo horizonte borrara el confín.

La siesta del trópico. La vieja cigarra
ensaya su ronca guitarra senil,
y el grillo preludia un solo monótono
en la única cuerda que está en su violín.

i n f i n i t y (∞), Tuesday, 28 November 2017 22:23 (eight years ago)


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