THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE
AN ACADEMIC GUIDE to GOETHE'S "PROMETHEUS"
and NERUDA'S "PUEDO ESCRIBIR"
in TRANSLATION
This is the most well known and widely dispersed physical-print English translation of "Puedo escribir." To many researchers who are restricted to the English language, this would arguably be the prime text from which to work. It has been professionally published through Penguin, Chronicle Books, Jonathan Cape Ltd., and Random House; etc. Image taken from the University of North Carolina website.
This version, produced by translator "A.N. Other," is an online translation I found on the website allpoetry.com. Although the translation is quite good, it would definitely not be widely recommended for student use due to its lack of reliability (and also the translator's self-publication without any sort of editorial supervision).
This is an image of the original manuscript for "Puedo escribir." A manuscript may be one of the most valuable resources an academic can have in her research, as it is something to refer back to while trying to find the best translation for her studies.
This is the most well known and widely dispersed physical-print English translation of "Puedo escribir." To many researchers who are restricted to the English language, this would arguably be the prime text from which to work. It has been professionally published through Penguin, Chronicle Books, Jonathan Cape Ltd., and Random House; etc. Image taken from the University of North Carolina website.
Puedo escribir/Poema 20
SELECTED VERSIONS OF THE POEM
Because Neruda's "Puedo escribir," from Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair (Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada), was published just under a century ago, there are few professionally edited and published English translations from which to select. In fact, the primary (if not only) translation on the market (per Amazon, Google Books, and Barnes and Noble) seems to be W.S. Merwin's, which I have included below. However, it seems that since the internet has become widely accessible, amateur translators have also lent their voices to the discourse. Although amateur translations posted online are not always "wrong," they are often unreliable (as one neither knows how much of the foreign language the translator speaks nor if they might have changed the meaning, intentionally or unintentionally, to the point where the words in the translation have minimal relation to those in the original poem) and it is crucial that a researcher keep this in mind.
Click the image in the slideshow to see the entire photograph.