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This edition published in 2010 by Anvil Press Poetry Ltd Neptune House 70 Royal Hill London SE10 8RF www.anvilpresspoetry.com First published by Penguin Books in 1960 This edition copyright © Herederos de Federico García Lorca 2010 ISBN 978 0 85646 388 4 This book is published with financial assistance from Arts Council England A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Spanish-language poems, prose and other material by Federico García Lorca copyright © Herederos de Federico García Lorca. English-language adaptations of all Spanish-language material by Federico García Lorca copyright © Herederos de Federico García Lorca and Heirs of J. L. Gili. Preface and notes by Peter Jay copyright © Peter Jay All moral rights of Herederos de Federico García Lorca, Heirs of J. L. Gili and Peter Jay are hereby asserted All rights reserved. For information please contact lorca@artslaw.co.uk or William Peter Kosmas, Esq., 8 Franklin Square, London W14 9UU, England Designed and set in Monotype Bembo by Anvil Printed and bound in Great Britain by Hobbs the Printers Ltd
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PREFACE THIS book was first published in the old Penguin Poets series of foreign texts with ‘plain prose’ translations, whose general editor was J. M. Cohen, himself a distinguished scholar and translator. The series was intended to ‘make a fair selection of the world’s finest poetry available to readers who could not, but for the translations at the foot of each page, approach it without dictionaries and a slow plodding from line to line.’ These editions, he wrote, were ‘not intended only for those with a command of languages. They should appeal also to the adventurous who, for sheer love of poetry, will attack a poem in a tongue almost unknown to them, guided only by their previous reading and some Latin or French.’ Joan Gili’s deep knowledge and love of Spanish poetry and Lorca’s work shine through his introduction and the sensitive yet unassuming renderings of his chosen poems and telling extracts from the plays. His addition of Lorca’s lecture on the duende is an inspired bonus; it is one of the great essays on the spirit of poetry. For many of my generation their first encounter with Lorca was through this book and a better introduction is hard to imagine. Many translations of Lorca’s poems must owe their existence to it. For example, Ted Hughes said in his Paris Review interview (1995) that he had discovered the work of Lorca through this book.An interesting article by the Spanish poet and translator Jordi Doce (‘The Marriage of Words’, Centre for Ted Hughes Studies, April 2004) traces the roots of Hughes’ version of Blood Wedding,premiered in London in 1996, back to his reading of the Penguin book and demonstrates that Blood Wedding and Gili’s version of Lorca’s essay on the duende ‘were united early on in his imagination’. The book was retired by its first publisher after many years in print and was replaced in 1997 by Christopher Maurer’s excellent bilingual Selected Poems with verse translations. But

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This edition published in 2010

by Anvil Press Poetry Ltd Neptune House 70 Royal Hill London SE10 8RF

www.anvilpresspoetry.com First published by Penguin Books in 1960

This edition copyright © Herederos de Federico García Lorca 2010

ISBN 978 0 85646 388 4

This book is published with financial assistance from Arts Council England

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Spanish-language poems, prose and other material by

Federico García Lorca copyright © Herederos de Federico García Lorca.

English-language adaptations of all Spanish-language material by Federico García Lorca copyright © Herederos de Federico García Lorca and Heirs of J. L. Gili. Preface and notes by Peter Jay copyright © Peter Jay

All moral rights of Herederos de Federico García Lorca,

Heirs of J. L. Gili and Peter Jay are hereby asserted

All rights reserved. For information please contact lorca@artslaw.co.uk or William Peter Kosmas, Esq.,

8 Franklin Square, London W14 9UU, England

Designed and set in Monotype Bembo by Anvil

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Hobbs the Printers Ltd

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