Out of print for almost thirty years, Paul Blackburn's translations of thirty troubador poets is one of the most important texts devoted to this period of literature. This reissue will be welcomed by scholars and students of medieval poetry and casual poetry lovers.
Paul Blackburn (1926-1971) was a lyric poet and one of America's foremost translators of troubadour verse. A contributing editor and distributor of the Black Mountain Review, he published thirteen poetry collections. The winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he taught at the New School and the State University of New York at Cortland. George Economou has published Geoffrey Chaucer (1975) and two other books on medieval literature. He is also a poet and translator.
“Shortly after Proensa was first published by Robert Creeley in
Mallorca in 1953, Paul Blackburn wrote his own best definition of
these songs: ‘To give / and man enough to receive, LOVE, / when he
finds it offered. / To take the sun and the goods of earth, while
it lasts.’ Over sixty years later his voicings of the troubadours
still ring fresh—leaping with joy, sorrowing with duende.” —Richard
Sieburth
“Blackburn’s forgotten translation of Troubadour poets, Proensa, is
a testament to translation as a test of truth...never did strings
plucked at such a distance reverberate so closely.”—Paul Pines, Big
Bridge
“Blackburn has skillfully incorporated musical elements and also
‘high’ diction and syntax...a great translation.”—Stephen Fredman,
Chicago Review
“Spare, modern, and abstract without violating the artistic
intricacy of the original...Proensa is a boon to those who will
never experience the pleasure of studying the troubadours in their
original accents but who now can appreciate their complex beauty in
Paul Blackburn’s dense dynamic re-creations.”—Patricia Harris,
Romance Philology
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