Edición Instituto Cervantes at FAS - Harvard University
Estudios del Observatorio/Observatorio Studies. 081-11/2022EN (Trad.)
Abstract: Peruvian poet César Vallejo’s second collection of poems, entitled Trilce, appeared off the presses of the Typographic Workshop of the Lima Penitentiary in October 1922. The book’s centenary is therefore a good occasion to reflect on one of the most revolutionary and transcendent works in the history of Spanish language poetry, and –it must be said– of poetry worldwide. This issue of the Observatory Studies, therefore, pays tribute to Trilce by reviewing some of the most interesting points of its genesis, providing a new hypothesis about its title and demonstrating the formal complexity of this collection of poems as well as its literary richness. At the same time, this study also locates Vallejo’s important work within his life experiences and in the context of the international avant-garde, thus further exposing the continued relevance of Vallejo’s Trilce in the panorama of contemporary poetry, including in the English-speaking world. Indeed, this study ends with a compilation of the translations that have been made of this work into English.
Keywords: Trilce, César Vallejo, Peruvian poetry, avant-garde, Latin American literature, language revolution, translation.