The bilingual edition of Versión celeste, by Juan Larrea, a mirroring collection of poetry

Abstract

Juan Larrea (1895-1980), a poet in the orbit of the ‘Generación del 27’ without really being one, despite the admiration of Cernuda and the interest of Guillén, still retains his aura as the ‘father of Surrealism’ in Spain - a word that Bodini had coined for him. However, his bilingual collection of poems Versión Celeste, published in 1970, is the only one published in Spain. This date is late in relation to a body of poetic work that can be broadly placed between 1919 and 1932, when the choice of French as the language of poetry was confirmed. Our aim is to examine the ups and downs of this long-running publication, leading to a reflection on the poet's relationship with language and translation, through the ‘strangeness’ of the poetic language. To this end, the reflections offered by the translations, which come from different circumstances, are fertile avenues.