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Luso-Hispanic Recordings at the Library of Congress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Georgette M. Dorn*
Affiliation:
Library of Congress
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Extract

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The Library of Congress began to gather contemporary Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian literature recorded on magnetic tape, when the Uruguayan poet Emilio Oribe passed through Washington in 1942. He recorded a then recently written poem entitled “Oda al cielo de la nueva Atlántida” dedicated to Archibald MacLeish, the poet who was Librarian of Congress from 1939 to 1944. A year later Andrés Eloy Blanco of Venezuela recorded “Píntame angelitos negros” and six other compositions. Around 1944 the Library set out to formulate a program to record North American poets reading selections from their own works. The Library's Hispanic Foundation (now called the Hispanic Division) decided to assemble a similar Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape, heeding the words of Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature: “Poetry hushed and inert in books fades away and dies. The air not the printed word is its natural home. Recordings serve it well.”

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Copyright
Copyright © 1979 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

Originally presented at the Seventh National Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, 2–5 November 1977, Houston, Texas.

References

Notes

1. Francisco Aguilera, “Iberian and Latin American Poetry on Records,” Library of Congress Quarterly Journal 14, no. 2 (Feb. 1957).

2. Conversation with Francisco Aguilera and Graciela Palau de Nemes, University of Maryland, at the Library of Congress, 28 February 1968.

3. See Voces de poetas y prosistas ibéricos y latinoamericanos en el Archivo de Literature Hispánica en Cinta Magnética de la Fundación Hispánica (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1960).

4. Francisco Aguilera and Georgette M. Dorn, The Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape: A Descriptive Guide (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1974); on sale by the Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, stock number 3013—0006.

5. Aguilera and Dorn, The Archive, p. x.

6. These can be obtained from the Music Division, Recorded Sound Section, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540, for $6.50 each, plus $.50 for postage. There is no postage charge on orders for three or more records. All orders must be prepaid in checks or money orders. Tape or cassette copies of the recordings may also be purchased in accordance with an agreement worked out with the initial authors who recorded for the archive in 1942–44. After ten orders have been filled for each author, written permission must be obtained from the author or his literary executor, before additional orders can be filled. Tapes or cassettes may only be sold to nonprofit institutions and individuals who under no circumstances will use the materials for commercial purposes. Persons wishing to purchase copies of the tapes may obtain a cost estimate from Georgette M. Dorn, Specialist in Hispanic Culture, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540. The division also maintains a current file of author's addresses which will be furnished upon request.

7. Aguilera and Dorn, The Archive, p. x.