The Intellectual and Cultural Worlds of Rubén Darío

Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío (1867-1916) has had a foundational influence on virtually all Spanish-language writers and poets of the twentieth century and beyond. Yet, while he is a household name among Hispano-phone readers, the seminal modernista remains virtually unknown to an English readership. This book examines the writings of Rubén Darío as both poet and chronicler, as he renovates language drawing lessons from ancient mythologies to embrace the ideal of "art for art's sake," all the while opposing United States aggression in the hemisphere along with the pseudo-Bohemian European bourgeoisie in poetry and prose at the cusp of the Great War.

Kathleen T. O'Connor-Bater is Associate Professor of Modern Languages (Spanish/French) at the College at Old Westbury of the State University of New York. She has published a book of translation A Bilingual Anthology of Poems by Rubén Darío (1915). She has previously taught at Houghton College and Princeton University. She earned her PhD from Columbia University with a dissertation in the area of Spanish Cognitive Linguistics; she holds a master's degree in Liberal Studies from Johns Hopkins University.

Preface Acknowledgments 1. Historical Context of Darío's Nicaragua 2. The Life of the Poet According to Himself (and Others) 3. Azul... and the Soul of Modernismo 4. The Hour of the Melody 5. Prosas Profanas y Otros Poemas Buenos Aires, 1896 and 1901 6. The "Complexe de Paris": Hugo, Verlaine, and Darío's Mental Gallicism 7. Mais quelqu'un troubla la fête: Disenchanted by the "Greece of France" 8. Universal Clamor: Darío and Theodore Roosevelt's United States 9. Songs of Life and Hope, 1905 10. Mundial Magazine, 1911-1914 11. With Hugo, Strong: Romanticist Influence in Darío's Modernismo 12. The Weeping Titan Appendix A Appendix B Bibliography Index