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La Avellaneda's Sonnet to Washington1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
In The year 1864, the Cuban-born poet Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, visited New York, Philadelphia, Niagara Falls, Mount Vernon, and other points of interest in the United States. The impressions she received at that time were crystallized in two poems: “A Washington” (soneto), “A vista del Niágara” (silva)
There are pertinent notes to be revealed in connection with the writing of the sonnet to Washington. The version composed in 1864 was not the poet’s first dedicatory poem to George Washington. La Avellaneda’s first composition on the subject (written long before she had the opportunity to visit the United States) appeared in her earliest collection of verse in 1841.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1948
References
1 Through the courtesy of Dr. Julio Villoldo, Bibliotecario de la Academia Nacional de Artes y Letras de Cuba, the author of this article has had access to rare volumes containing the works of la Avellaneda. It was also through the instrumentality of the same Cuban scholar that certain notes (listed below) were received from the late D. Francisco González del Valle concerning a reprint of la Avellaneda’s sonnet.
2 The following announcement of la Avellaneda’s visit appeared in Leslie’s, Frank Illustrated News Paper, (New York, July 2, 1864), 227 Google Scholar: “Señora de Avellaneda, a Cuban poetess of celebrity, is at present in this city. She has won a distinguished name in contemporary Spanish literature by her lyric and dramatic poetry, and by her romances, especially the historical one ‘Guatemotzin,’ the heroic defender of Mexican Independence against Hernando Cortez.”
3 See Avellaneda, Gertrudis Gómez de, Obras literarias, I (Madrid, 1869), 77, 371 Google Scholar. Also Obras de la Avellaneda, Edición del Centenario, I, Poesías líricas (Habana, 1914), 75, 366 Google Scholar. (It will be recalled that an earlier poem dedicated to Niágara was written by the Cuban poet Heredia, to whose work la Avellaneda refers in her own composition. See Heredia, José Maria, Poesias completas … II (la Habana, 1941), 226.)Google Scholar
4 Poesías de la señorita doña Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda (Madrid, 1841)Google Scholar.
5 Ensayos de literatura cubana (Madrid, 1922), 210.Google Scholar
6 “Tabla de variantes en las poesías líricas de la Avellaneda,” in Apéndice I in Obras de la Avellaneda, VI, Miscelánea (Habana, 1914-), [281]-474.Google Scholar
7 Fitzmauríc-Kelly, James, Historia de la literatura española…. Segunda edición, corregida (Madrid, MCMXVI), 307 Google Scholar; tercera edición, corregida (Madrid, MCMXXI), 314. [In the third edition the spelling is Christina (sic) Rossetti.]
8 Op. cit. (See note 6, this article), 284.
9 La Avellaneda’s incomparable letters to Cepeda were published posthumously. See Autobiografía y cartas de la ilustre poetisa Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda con un prólogo y una necrología por D. Lorenzo Cruz de Fuentes… in Obras de la Avellaneda, VI (Habana, 1914-), 103–281. (This is the second edition [“Corregida y aumentada”] [Madrid, 1914] Cruz de Fuentes publish the first edition under the title La Avellaneda … [Huelva, 1907]).
10 According to the reprint of the 1841 version in Obras de la Avellaneda … VI (Habana, 1914-), 361.Google Scholar
11 Obras de la Avellaneda … I (Habana, 1914), 75.Google Scholar
12 A footnote marked “(1)” reads as follows: “Lo escribió su autora el año 1841, y lo refundió—tal como está aquí—mucho tiempo después, al visitar la tumba del héroe americano.” [This note was reprinted from the 1869 edition of the poem.]
13 La Avellaneda omitted the early form of the sonnet “A Washington” from her carefully revised and completed works published in 1869. (See note 3, this article).
14 All three editions are bibliographical rarities. That of 1852 is a reprint in Mexico of the 1850 edition: POESIAS/ DE/ LA EXCMA. SRA./ DOÑA GERTRUDIS GOMEZ DE AVELLANEDA/ DE SABATER./ Méjico./ Imprenta de Juan R. Navarro, Calle de Chiquis, núm. 6./ 1852./ 4°. xxiv-311, más tres hojas de índice y un retrato. (This is the bibliography given by Mori, Cotarelo y in La Avellaneda y sus obras … [Madrid, 1930], 393 ffGoogle Scholar). [Any reader who has seen a copy of this edition, or who knows where one may be located, will kindly notify the writer of this article, care of THE AMERICAS].
15 Two reprints (one of the old sonnet, one of the new) have come into our hands. (The originals are to be found in the Garcia Collection, State University of Texas, Austin, Texas).
16 Around the exquisitely designed title page are printed the departments into which the magazine is divided: (reading clockwise) LITERATURA./ HISTORIA./ CIENCIAS./ VARIEDADES./ ARTES./ RELIGION./ At the instance of Dr. Julio Villoldo of Cuba, the reference was sent to the writer in 1941 by the late Dr. Francisco González del Valle, la Habana, Cuba. Except for capitalization, punctuation, and spacing, the reprint of “A Washington” {soneto) corresponds in form to that copied in this article. (See note 10, above.)
17 Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Biografía, bibliografía e iconografía, incluyendo muchas cartas, inéditas o publicadas, escritas por la gran poetisa o dirigidas a ella, y sus memorias por Domingo Figarola-Caneda, notas ordenadas y publicadas por Doña Emilia Boxhorn (Madrid, 1929), 96.
18 Other poems in the group reprinted from la Avellaneda’s work are: “A Cuba,” “Las dos luces,” “Imitando una oda de Safo,” “A Dios,” “Al nombre de Jesús.” These are followed by short biographical and critical notes. Bárcena’s first paragraph of comments (page 114) deserves our attention:
La Señora de Avellaneda, hija y gloria de Cuba, raya entre los poetas castellanos de más aliento en nuestro siglo; y,-no bastándole la lira, invadió y dominó también las provincias del teatro y de la novela. Nueva Corina, excitó la admiración de las muchedumbres; se ganó el aprecio y el respeto de los sabios y poderosos; fué ídolo de sus parciales y blanco de los celos de sus émulos; estuvo a punto de ingresar en la Real Academia Española, cuyas puertas le cerró únicamente su sexo; fué solemnísimamente coronada por el Liceo de la Habana; y, después de tantos triunfos, su luminoso espíritu y su gran corazón descubrieron y sintieron la vanidad de la gloria humana, y se convirtieron por completo a las esperanzas y aspiraciones de lo verdadero y eterno.
19 Op. cit., 115.
20 Mexican/ and/ South American/ Poems/ (Spanish and English)./ Translated by/ Ernest S. Green,/ and/ Miss H. von Lowenfels,/ Late Teacher of Spanish, French and German in the Urban/ Academy, San Francisco./ San Diego, Cal.:/ Dodge and Burbeck,/ Booksellers and Stationers./ 1892./ See pp. [388–389].
The Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California, and the Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles, California, have each one copy of this rare book. That owned by the latter library is No. 6049.
21 This passage was evidently baffling to the translator. The reference to el Sena (standing for Seine) can refer to a Department of France or to the River Seine. In either case la Avallaneda intended, so it seems, to refer to France in a poetic (though to be sure obscure) sense. El coloso, meaning colossus or great man, could be no other than Napoleon; for was he not the Colossus of France?
22 Pan-American Poems/ An Anthology/ Compiled by/ Agnes Blake Poor/ (typographical adornment)/ Boston/ The Gorham Press/ MCMXVIII/. See p. 50.
23 Again the second quatrain of the early sonnet offers difficulty to the translator. (See note 21, above). Perhaps a free prose translation may clear up the obscure points and reveal to the reader what la Avellaneda had in mind:
Whereas Napoleon (“el coloso del Sena”) left as a memorial wherever he trod footprints bathed in blood, thy glory, Washington, like a bright star, will shine forever unobscured by cloud or shadow …
24 “This English interpretation of la Avellaneda’s later sonnet written in 1864 at Mount Vernon is humbly dedicated to my friends in Cuba … [members of the Academia Nacional de Artes y Letras] in commemoration of the date: February twenty-second, ninteen hundred forty-two.” Signed by Edith L. Kelly, Los Angeles, California.