New answers tagged poetry
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What is the significance of the 'one word' in Gabriela Mistral's poem Una palabra
It seems to me that the "word" is a bad swear word.
The speaker in the poem says
If I did spit it out, it would scorch the grass,
drain the lamb of blood, make birds fall from the sky.
...
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Reference to Novalis in Ghérasim Luca's poem "La Poésie Pratique"
This poem is filled with wordplay, which I (not being a native French speaker) probably can't disentangle completely. I think I've figured out a lot of it, though. I'm going to make this community ...
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Accepted
How does the first stanza of Robert Burns's "For a' that and a' that" translate into modern English?
The difficult word is “that” at the start of the second line, which is a pronoun meaning “the thing which” or (in this case) “the person who”, not a conjugation introducing a relative clause. In ...
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Who was Captain Hastel?
For easier searchability, let me start by saying that the poem "Арліная крыніца" (1947) was translated in your collection as "The Eagle Well-Spring". Its author, Аляксей Зарыцкі, ...
- 76.7k
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Who was Blanca Subercaseaux, to whom Gabriela Mistral dedicated the poem Encargo a Blanca?
Blanca Subercaseaux Errázuriz was a Chilean writer and artist, who also used the pseudonym "Carmen Valle" (at least one of Mistral's poems - "Bendiciones" - is dedicated to "...
- 18.9k
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Who is Veronica in Gabriela Mistral's poem La huella?
Yes, the reference here is almost certainly to Saint Veronica. In Catholic tradition she was a woman who encountered Christ on his way to Calvary, and offered him her veil so that he could mop his ...
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What does the word "well" mean in the last line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73?
As E. A. Abbott noted in A Shakespearian Grammar, more specifically in entry "420. Transposition of Adverbs",
The Elizabethan authors allowed themselves great licence in this respect.
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What does the word "well" mean in the last line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73?
My interpretation is that "well" is indeed an adverb modifying "love". This makes grammatical sense, as it's fine for an adverb modifying a transitive verb to come after the object ...
- 76.7k
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What is the "Royal Air" in Dickinson's poem 788 (Publication – is the Auction)?
Dickinson’s use of dashes rather than conventional punctuation creates ambiguities of parsing. The question parses the third verse as:
Thought belong to him who gave it. Then, to him who bear its ...
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Who are Catalina and Teresa in Gabriela Mistral's poem Vieja?
Gabriela Mistral did not only write poetry. She also wrote prose, and two of her works revealed her admiration for the Catholic Saints, Santa Catalina de Siena and Santa Teresa de Avila - or in ...
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Why is the translation of cilicio as lash justified?
Real Academia Española (RAE)
m. Faja de cerdas o de cadenillas de hierro con puntas, ceñida al cuerpo junto a la carne, que para mortificación usan algunas personas.= Spiked metal belt worn at the ...
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6
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Accepted
What style/Form is the Stranger's Poem in, from The Magnus Archives?
TLDR: The form of this poem is a "Pindaric ode" (sometimes called an "irregular ode" and occasionally called a "Cowleyan ode") like Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of ...
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Who or what are the Pelayos in Gabriela Mistral's poem Ronda de los metales?
Don Pelayo (Pelagius in English), the Visigoth king of Asturias who initiated the Reconquista, is a very notable name in Spanish history, as described in M.A. Golding's answer. It was the first name ...
- 18.9k
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Who or what are the Pelayos in Gabriela Mistral's poem Ronda de los metales?
The Islamic armies of Arabs and Moors conquered most of Spain in 711 and later years.
Pelagius (Spanish: Pelayo;1 c. 685 – 737) was a Hispano-Visigoth nobleman who founded the Kingdom of Asturias in ...
- 977
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Is Gabriela Mistral referring to a specific historical use of asbestos in South America?
The first translation provided is not very effective. I find that Le Guin's translation is much closer to the sense of the original, which I would render rather freely as "who lifts up their ...
- 18.9k
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What sort of love and epiphany are meant in Mistral's Dos ángeles?
My short answer: the poem is about human love.
In more detail, “Dos Angeles” (”Two Angels”) is found in Mistral’s third book, Tala (“Fellling” or “Cutting down”, sometimes also rendered as “Clear cut”)...
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What does "living walls of jet" mean in Donne's "The Flea"?
"Jet" is not in C. T. Onions's A Shakespeare Glossary, W. W. Skeat's A glossary of Tudor and Stuart words, Especially from the Dramatists (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914) or A Table ...
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Why Agamemnon? (Gabriela Mistral: Ronda de los colores)
Gabriela Mistral was very familiar with classical works of Greek literature. Apart from the Bible, she said that she found most inspiration from Shakespeare, Calderón [often called "the ...
- 18.9k
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Accepted
Why did Mistral choose these animals to compare with the sun in her poem "Dos Himnos"?
I think that the most convincing interpretation of this poem that I have seen is given by Oscar Hahn in an article in the November 2024 issue of the literary magazine Altazor.
Hahn writes:
En el ...
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Why Agamemnon? (Gabriela Mistral: Ronda de los colores)
In Greek myth, Agamemnon was the Anax, the overlord of all the Greek kings. So he was a great king, or a high king, or a king of kings.
The Greek word anax comes from the earlier word wanax, and ...
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Why Agamemnon? (Gabriela Mistral: Ronda de los colores)
In the Iliad, Agamemnon was in charge of the Greek forces. The point is not that he is admirable or any other virtue. It's that he is in command. Consequently, everyone would get out of his way.
&...
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Gabriela Mistral's La pajita
Both this poem "La pajita", and "La rata" asked about in a separate question, are found in the same section of Tenura, namely in "Jugarretas". This is a word that is hard ...
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Does anybody know good English translations of Goethe's poems from German?
Introduction
An earlier version of the question (which has since been rephrased) asked for the translations “that are considered most definitive”. But this is a mirage: you shouldn’t expect to find a ...
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What are the thousands of worlds in Mistral's Meciendo?
The thousands of worlds could be be planets in our solar system, plus asteroids, plus moons, plus comets. By the time she was writing thousands of asteroids and comets were known in addition to the ...
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