Scales: Melographed by Cesar Vallejo

by Cesar Vallejo, Joseph Mulligan (Editor), Joseph Mulligan (Translator)

Overview

The first complete English translation of a Latin American avant-garde masterpiece

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780819577238
Publisher:	Wesleyan University Press
Publication date:	09/05/2017
Edition description:	Bilingual Spanish-English ed.
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

CÉSAR VALLEJO (1892–1938) was born in the Peruvian Andes and, after publishing some of the most radical Latin American poetry of the twentieth century, moved to Europe, where he diversified his writing practice to encompass theater, fiction, and reportage. As an outspoken alternative to the European avant-garde, Vallejo stands as one of the most authentic and multifaceted creators to write in the Castilian language. JOSEPH MULLIGAN is a translator and scholar whose work has focused primarily on twentieth-century Latin American vanguardismo. He is the translator of Against Professional Secrets by César Vallejo (2001) and Gustavo Faverón’s novel The Antiquarian (2014), and his translations of Jorge Eduardo Eielson’s poems appeared in Asymmetries: Anthology of Peruvian Poetry (2015). His translations of Sahrawi poetry appeared in Poems for the Millennium, vol. 4: The University of California Book of North African Poetry (2013). He is editor and principal translator of Selected Writings of César Vallejo (2015). Currently, he is a PhD candidate in the Romance Studies Department of Duke University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction ix

This Edition xxi

Scales

Cuneiforms

Northwestern Wall 5

Antarctic Wall 7

East Wall 9

Doublewide Wall 10

Windowsill 12

Western Wall 13

Wind Choir

Beyond Life and Death 17

The Release 23

The Only Child 32

The Caynas 37

Mirtho 45

Wax 50

Escalas

Cuneiformes

Muro noroeste 65

Muro antártico 67

Muro este 69

Muro dobleancho 70

Alféizar 72

Muro occidental 73

Coro de vientos

Más allá de la vida y la muerte 77

Liberación 83

El unigénito 92

Los caynas 97

Mirtho 105

Cera 110

Appendix

"The Gravest Moment of My Life," Andrés Echevarría 123

From Trilce

II "Time Time" 132

XVIII "Oh the four walls of the cell" 133

XX "Flush with the beaten froth bulwarked" 134

XLI "Death on its kness is spilling" 135

L "Cerberus four times" 136

LVIII "In the cell, in the solid" 137

LXI "Tonight I get down from my horse" 139

Letter to La Reforma [August 12, 1920] 141

Letter to Óscar Imaña [October 26, 1920] 142

"Poet Vallejo Jailed in Trujillo"

Gastón Roger 143

Letter to Gastón Roger [December 29, 1920] 144

"Poet Vallejo Imprisoned"

Víctor Raúl Haya de La Torre 145

Petition of Universidad de Trujillo Students 146

Petition of Trujillo Journalists 148

Letter to Óscar Imaña [February 12, 1921] 150

"Imprisonment of César Vallejo in Trujillo Jail" 151

Notes 153

Selected Bibliography 161

Index 165

What People are Saying About This

Ernesto Livon-Grosman

“Scales is key to understanding Vallejo’s work. This extraordinary text is presented here in an excellent translation. The scholarship is impeccable and the documents that comprise the appendix provide in-depth understanding of the historical period in which Vallejo wrote.”

Gustavo Faverón Patriau

“Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and Vallejo’s Trilce and Scales were written at the same time. Just as the Austrian philosopher was advancing his famous judgment on the benefits of silence beyond the limits of language (‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’) the Peruvian was writing beyond the boundaries of that which cannot be spoken. There, he invented a language radically private and yet overwhelmingly apt to transmit the pathos of human tragedy and comedy to anyone determined to understand it. This is, as it were, a Wittgensteinian paradox: a private language that we all can share. Vallejo may well be the least known literary giant of the twentieth century, and the work of Joseph Mulligan, systematic in the view its gives us into the Peruvian writer’s mind, may be one of the most significant contributions of a translator-critic in recent years: good news for the English language.”

Pierre Joris

“The publication of Scales demonstrates Vallejo’s stature as that of one of a handful of masters of twentieth century Latin American literature. This translation is excellent. Mulligan’s involvement with Vallejo has been intense and intelligent, and the contextual materials are illuminating.”

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/17/2017
This first complete English translation of Vallejo’s inventive prose work gives readers the context necessary to appreciate Vallejo’s text in relation to its volatile and singular historical moment. Written in part from Trujillo Central Jail and published in 1923, shortly after the well-known Trilce, the work considers innovation in language as a catalyst for social justice. Mulligan’s deft translation highlights the modernist impulse toward plain language as well as lingering surrealist, symbolist, and Romantic influences: “And, in the diffused glow of the screen, I seemed to see on both sides of the agitated boy, two feeling forms come to life, softly rise up above his lover boy head, then blur with the high window, withdraw, and unravel in a telescopic flutter of eyelashes.” Readers sense the influence of other texts and other voices in the background through the care that Mulligan has taken in his translations. This adeptly curated, expertly framed bilingual edition is furnished with an appendix of supplementary texts, including relevant excerpts from Trilce, selected correspondence, and various documents associated with Vallejo’s imprisonment, making the volume suitable for scholars and newcomers alike. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

“This first complete English translation of Vallejo’s inventive prose work gives readers the context necessary to appreciate Vallejo’s text in relation to its volatile and singular historical moment.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From the Publisher