The Golden Age: Poems of the Spanish Renaissance

Return to the distant, glittering world of the Spanish Renaissance with forty great poems in a remarkable new translation.

"Nothing is harder…than to render a classic in contemporary idiom yet retain its sense of time and space….Edith Grossman delivers."—Carlos Fuentes, New York Times Book Review

The Spanish Renaissance—a period of glory that endured from the late fifteenth century through the seventeenth century—comes to life in its greatest poems, rendered with passionate fervor and a stylistic brilliance. Edith Grossman includes in this beautiful, collection-worthy volume facing-page Spanish, a historical introduction, and biographies of the poets: Jorge Manrique (not translated since Longfellow); Garcilaso de la Vega, a soldier and courtier who wrote love poetry; Fray Luis de Leon, a converso Jew; San Juan de la Cruz, whose poems are the finest exemplars of Christian mysticism; Luis de Góngora, the great sensualist; Lope de Vega, the great rival to Cervantes; Francisco de Quevado, the ultimate Baroque poet; and Sor Juana, the nun whose haunting poetry embodied the voice of Mexico. 10 illustrations.