The Modern Spanish Sonnet

A hundred modern Spanish, Catalan and Galician sonnets, with lively translations into English sonnets and critical commentaries. A general introduction to the genre is followed by summaries of the historical and literary backgrounds and of the problems facing the translator of sonnets.

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The fine tradition of the Spanish sonnet, developed during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the subject of Rutherford’s The Spanish Golden Age Sonnet (2016), has been extended and developed during the subsequent centuries. This book presents one hundred of the best sonnets of the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including sonnets written in the Catalan and Galician languages, together with their translations into modern English sonnets and a critical commentary on each. There is a general introduction to the genre, followed by summaries of the historical and literary backgrounds and a discussion of the problems facing the translator of sonnets. The life and works of each poet are summarised and a select bibliography of further reading concludes the volume. The translations bring these sonnets to new life in the modern English language, and they can be read both as interesting and lively poems in their own right and as leads into the originals.