Ruben Dario in English: Life and Works of Ruben Dario

Ruben Dario in English: Life and Works of Ruben Dario: The life and works of Ruben Dario are now available in English. Rubén Darío

Dario´s Life and Works

Life and Works of Rubén Darío

I am Rolando Tellez,  language teacher, translator, and writer.

If I ask you who are the most famous writers in the English-speaking world, you would say William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe.

On the same question applied to Spanish-speaking world, the answer is Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, who wrote Don Quixote, Rubén Darío, Gabriel García Marquéz, José Martí. But Darío is unique because he started a comprehensive literary movement that influenced so many writers in the Spanish-speaking world. You know that writing shapes our thinking. Our mind and consciousness is based on the language we use; hence, the importance of reading my book to understand Latin American thinking.

We mark the centenary of the death of our great Nicaraguan poet next year. Ruben Dario reinvigorated the Spanish language on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. This is the first book about Darío's works and his life in English, published by International Güegüense Books. The purpose of the book—titled Ruben Dario and Centenary of his Death—is to help foreigners understand the complex thought of Darío, since most books about Darío are written in Spanish. Knowing Darío means learning about the main source that has motivated many famous Latin American and Spanish writers.

Darío was a writer who assimilated contemporary, medieval, and ancient European literary currents. This allowed him to enter literary circles in Spain and Paris, France, understanding the issues faced by intellectuals at the end of nineteenth century. At that time, there were many controversies including protests and reform to new literature being created in Europe. In addition, Darío helped Latin American writers to be known outside their country, and he published about the European literary trends and development in the Americas. He was just 21 when he published his first successful book, Azul (Azure) in Chile.

Modernista writers rebelled against society, leading usually a bohemian life. Some other writers were more concerned with the fall of Spain. Renovation of the language took place at the end of the century, paying attention to French trends. Great French (Parnassians, Symbolists, and ancient) writers and even US poets, had set new trends, and Ruben Dario processed the literary productions of these writers, generating originally some poetry and prose strongly influenced by the French. The main concern of Moderninsta writers is to seek beauty, including classic, exotic, cosmopolitan, and mythological aspects.

Through his works, Darío disclosed European novel and innovative literary works in Latin America. It was said that Darío thought in French, but he wrote in Spanish. In spite of criticism against Ruben Darío for the influence of foreign cultures, finally Darío made the Spanish language more flexible, including new linguistic shifts and borrowed words from different languages. However, he had to fight many battles against right-wing linguistically conservative writers. Likewise, he fought against nationalism and provincialism particularly in Latin America.   

Darío was a cosmopolitan poet knowledgeable of different cultures on the planet. He was a polyglot, who met and interacted with great authors in America and Europe. Being the indisputable leader of Modernismo, a literary movement that basically started with his book titled Azul (Azure) and ended with his masterpiece Songs of Life and Hope, Darío managed to influence not only his contemporaries, but also later generations of writers in Spain & Latin America. He only lived 49 years.

Later, Octavio Paz of Mexico, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel García Marquez of Colombia, Nobel Prize winners in literature, just like many other famous writers studied Darío´s writings. There have been several thousand publications and academic articles on Darío´s writings, which still are being compiled, since the poet lived and wrote in many different countries. He was a globetrotter with a very lucid mind, even before he passed away.  

Originally Darío was criticized unjustly. Later studies of its works proved that the poet opened a linguistic horizon for Latin American literature. Also, he was the first one to start working on a Latin American identity in the face of imperial powers, that is, Great Britain and the US. As a true poet and free thinker, Darío did not follow socialistic doctrines to create his poetry; however, he criticized the materialism in which the human race was falling, as a result of the technological progress.

Poet Rubén Darío referred to old castles, pagodas, perfumed gardens, ivory, pearls, precious stones, nymphs, muses, gods, and many symbolic animals (swans, butterflies, centaurs, elephants, camels, wolf, etc.) with their particular meanings. For Modernista writers, the intimate or subjective world of the poet is very important, and they show frustration or sadness in a their world or socio-political context.

Sensitivities are shown through their homesickness, anguish, along with preferences for autumn, twilight, eroticism, existential despair, decadentism, etc. Rubén Darío and his followers are experts on the use of musicality, that is, rhythm, meter, alliteration, with an extensive beautiful vocabulary. There is a great variety of verses, particularly Alexadrine verse, the 11 syllable verse, as well as the use of free verse.  Since I translated some poems and stanzas of poems in my book, I focused on meaning and musicality, that is, rhythm.

On the other hand, Darío portrayed the fall of the Spanish empire (España Contemporánea), Darío forecast the destiny of Latin America, saying ¨our naive America with its Indian blood, This America still prays to Christ and still speaks Spanish.¨

Darío was born in a remote part of the world; he put his own name in the absence of his biological mother; and he was never supported by a family. Nevertheless, he managed to shine like a star in the Spanish-speaking world because of his rich literary production. Like the hero José Martí in Cuba, Rubén Darío should be promoted as a role model among young Nicaraguans.

After Darío died, Doctor Debayle took out and measured Darío´s brain. However, Andres Murillo, his brother-in-law, took and run away with the brain. It is said that the deteriorated brain was recovered and it is where Darío is buried at the Cathedral of León, Nicaragua.

Modernismo led by Rubén Darío left a legacy for artistic concerns and creative freedom. In 1892, Darío made many Spanish writers follow his steps. He became a real master in shaping the language in Spain, influencing even people who were engaged in theater. 

Here are some explanations about RD´s poems.

The boy, a prodigy, could read at the age of three. He attended a Jesuit-run school and began writing verse at 12. He was able to describe his experiences lived as a child with his foster parents. He described the city and his trips to other farms, travelling on ox-drawn carts in the tropics. Although his real name was Félix Rubén García Sarmiento, he began to sign as Rubén Darío since he was 14. As an adult, he remembered his pure life as a child in this poem.

Far Away       

Ox whose steaming clouds of breath I saw as a boy

Under the Nicaraguan hot burning sun

On the rich plantation filled with tropical harmonies

Woodland dove, of the woods that sang

With the sound of the wind

Of axes, birds, and wild bulls

Receive greetings all of you

Since you are the very same stuff of life…

Darío published his first poem in a Rivas newspaper called Termómetro. This poem was some sort of elegy dedicated to a friend who had just lost his father.

Your father passed away, right?

You´re right, when you´re crying.

But get this over

There´s eternal life

Where there´s no strife

And good guys will rest

On one bed of lilies

Immortal ones there live

Having fun and happiness

Listening to the harmony

Of heavenly lyres

As a child, he wrote sweet verses; as a teenager, he wrote sad poems; as a young man, his poems were colorful and musical; and as an adult, his poems were more philosophical. When he was 19, he realized the girl he was blindly in love since he was a child, had already had sexual relations with another man. Then, his verses show all the pain of a broken-heart.

As a young boy with an innocent heart,

With all my love, once I told her

Listen, the first kiss I gave you

Remember such nice day?

She bitterly started crying.

And I told her. ¨It´s true love!¨

Not knowing that my treacherous angel

Was crying because of shame and pain.

Darío as a humanist is a role model, standing for high educational and cultural ideals, including social values. Darío created beauty by using the language. Here is one of his popular poems.

The Wolf's Reasons

That good man with a heart pure as a lily

A cherub's soul, a celestial tongue

Diminutive, sweet Francis of Assisi

Met with a creature bloodthirsty and grim

Bestial, fearsome, thieving, and ravaging

Nothing of pity or remorse in him.

The Wolf of Gubbio, the terrible wolf

Rabid, had ruined calm countryside

Ferociously slaughtered whole flocks by itself

Devoured rams and ewe lambs, even shepherds

Causing much carnage, much wastage of goods…

His character in this poem, Francis of Assisi, negotiated successfully with the enemy of the town, the wolf. But people breached the agreement, facing the consequences when the wild animal was acting freely according to its nature.

In the face of the Spanish defeat, Rubén evoked optimism, through his poem

Greetings from an Optimist

Renowned, productive clans, abundant blood of Hispania

Fraternal spirits, luminous souls, hail!

For the moment is coming when new hymns are to be sung

By a glorious language.

An immense rumbling fills the atmosphere

Magical waves of life will soon be reborn

Forgetfulness is retreating, disappointed death is retreating

A new kingdom is proclaimed, a happy Sibyl is dreaming

And in Pandora´s box, from which so many misfortunes emerged

We suddenly find, talismanic, pure, laughing

And just as divine Virgil might have described her in his verses

The divine queen of light, of high Hope!...

The tone of the poem is courteous, but strongly defensive, expecting to get a fraternal and equal relationship with the United States.

Greeting the US Eagle

Welcome, magical Eagle! With strong and huge wings

You cast your great shadow throughout the South.

In your talons, ringed in the most brilliant red,

You bring in full glory, the color of endless hope,

In your beak, the olive branch of a fertile ground for peace.

Welcome, oh magical Eagle, loved so much by Walt Whitman.

He would have praised you at this Olympic event,

Bearing the noble and magnificent symbol you are

From the throne of Jupiter to the great continent up North…

On the other hand, he was very familiar with esoteric traditions as can be seen in the following poem.

Reincarnations

First I was a bed of coral

Then a beautiful gem

Then green and hanging ivy on a stem

Then I was an apple

A lily growing in the fields

A young girl's lips as she yields

A skylark singing in the morning

And now I am like a palm

In Jehovah's light, a soul or a psalm

That is sung to the wind.

Although he was a Catholic, sometimes he expressed his uncertainty about God—in some poems—when his beloved son died. Darío silently suffered from this death. In his religious despair, he was a believer, skeptic, pagan, and a Christian, Catholic, occultist, and even theosophical.

To Phocas: The Peasant

….

It takes long to bear this pain

This terrible world of grieving and ghosts

My little son, dream while protected by angels and saints

Cause in life, you will be poisoned

Dream, my little son, and as an adult

Forgive me, for bringing you to this fateful world

I wish I could have a world of azure and fresh roses

But you are the chrysalis of my saddened soul

I wish I could see you winning, as deserved

Renewing the glow of my demolished will.

This second edition includes the poem dedicated to a Chilean Mapuche Indian, Caupolicán, who fought against the Spanish conquistadors. Araucano Indians used the word `Toqui´ to refer to the head of State or military chief, and Caupolicán had killed the Spanish army chief Don Pedro de Valdivia. Caupolicán is the symbol of Indian resistance in Chile, becoming the Toqui in fighting the Spanish soldiers.

Caupolicán

The old race told about an amazing Indian warrior

A huge tree trunk on the shoulders of a champion

Rugged and wild hero, whose beast-like anatomy

would beat Hercules or Samson

His hair was like a helmet, and his chest like a shield.

A lancer in the woods, an all-hunting Nimrod

A warrior of Arauco region who could

hamstring a bull, or strangle a lion

He sauntered, carrying such heavy trunk.

Daybreak, noon, gloomy afternoon, and cold dusk

Witnessed the tree trunk on the shoulders of the Titan.

“The Toqui, the Toqui!” cried his moved Indian people.

He marched and he marched, he marched.

At dawn, “Enough hast thou wandered!”

And just before he died, the great Indian Lord,

Caupolicán, raised his proud forehead.

Darío was a globetrotter.

The Wandering Song                      

A singer goes all over the world

Impassioned or thoughtful

On a little train or a white train

By the gulls or through the grain

A singer walks into wars and peace

Into civil wars, trench wars, trade wars

A singer has to go to places

A poet moves in the world

On the ridge spine of the elephant

Into the narrows of the Hellespont

On a palanquin, in gemmy silks

He crosses glaciers in the Alps

On a cloud backed and glinting jet

Into Buddhist and bright Tibet

In a car into St. Lucia

On a dark train through Galicia

Over the pampas and the plains

On American colts

He goes by river on a canoe

Or props himself in the banging prow

Of a pelagic freighter

Or he simply rides an escalator

He brings his nose to archipelagoes

And carts his ears into Tangiers

On a dromedary across the sands

By jiggling boats, he visits lands

He goes to the tundra's edge

On an expeditious sledge

And far from the equator's flora

He thrills to the boreal aurora

The singer strolls through hissing crops

Across the furrows and by the cows

He enters his London on a bus

His Jerusalem on an ass

He goes with mailbags to be enjoyed

To open doors to eternal things

To salve the sores of human beings

Is why he sings.

His rhetoric and ornamentation gave way to melancholy poems full of shadows and blending, self-probing, doubts, the hermetic seclusion of the inner subjective world.

Ite, missa est

I adore a somnolent woman with Eloísa´s soul

Virgin like snow and deep like an ocean

Her spirit is my dear host taken in the mass

Dancing to the beat of a sweet lyre in the twilight

Inviting eyes, prophetic countenance

Shows her frequently-visited sacred altar

Her soft smile is seen in Mona Lisa;

Her lips are so unique to be kissed…

Worldly Verses was written by Darío in Argentina (1893-1898). Darío revealed a vital mysterious tendency in this book. He associated with authors representing Romantic Agony, death and evil. These are the major axes in the universe and nature to understand their esthetic doctrine.

 

Exchange between Federico García Lorca and Pablo Neruda.

L…We will name the poet of America and Spain: Rubén...

N.:  Darío. Why? ladies...

L.:   and gentlemen...

N.: Where is he? in Buenos Aires, at Rubén Darío plaza?

L.:  Where is the statue of Rubén Darío?

N.:  He loved going to parks. Where´s the Rubén Darío´s park?

L.:  Where´s the flower shop where Darío used to buy roses?

N.: Where are Rubén Darío´s apples?

L.:  Where´s Darío´s cut hand?

N.:  Where´s the resin accent, Darío´s swan?

L.:   Rubén Darío sleeps in Nicaragua, under a wild marble lion statue….

N.:   Federico García Lorca, Spanish, and I, Chilean,… We are here tonight under the shadow of a big poet that sang better we…

L.:  Pablo Neruda, Chilean, and l, Spanish, we speak the same language spoken by the great Nicaraguan poet, who was Argentinean, Chilean, Spanish, Rubén Darío.

N.: & L.: Let´s have a toast to honor him in his glory.

If you want to learn more about Rubén Darío and many more important poems, get my book Rubén Darío & Centenary of his Death at the main bookstores in Nicaragua & San José, Costa Rica.

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