Toward the close of the last century, the poetry of the Spanish-speaking world was pallid, feeble, almost a corpse. It needed new life and a new direction. The exotic, erratic, revolutionary poet who changed the course of Spanish poetry and brought it into the mainstream of twentieth-century Modernism was F矇lix Rub矇n Garc穩a Sarmiento (1867-1916) of Nicaragua, who called himself Rub矇n Dar穩o.
Since its original publication in 1965, this edition of Dar穩o's poetry has made English-speaking readers better acquainted with the poet who, as Enrique Anderson Imbert said, "divides literary history into 'before' and 'after.'" The selection of poems is intended to represent the whole range of Dar穩o's verse, from the stinging little poems of Thistles to the dark, brooding lines of Songs of the Argentine and Other Poems. Also included, in the Epilogue, is a transcript of a radio dialogue between two other major poets, Federico Garc穩a Lorca of Spain and Pablo Neruda of Chile, who celebrate the rich legacy of Rub矇n Dar穩o.
