Abstract: This translation and study of “The Wounded Deer” (El ciervo herido), a stanzaic poem composed by the Argentinian author Leopoldo Marechal (d. 1970), examines the work within the framework of his aesthetic theory as well as the spiritual and literary traditions on which the poem draws. Our analysis holds that Marechal’s understanding of the artist no less than his strongly Catholic (and mystical) aesthetics informs his poetic meditation on creative action as it lies embedded in human experience. We argue, in other words, that the complexity and subtlety of the poet’s thought owe to the philosophical, mystical, and aesthetic preoccupations that animate his poem and work overall. At the same time, and more simply, the translation is intended to give modern readers access to the imaginative world of this extraordinary Argentinian poet and novelist. In making “The Wounded Deer” available for the first time in Spanish with an accompanying English translation and literary analysis, the present contribution hopes as well to stimulate interest in a poet whose works, unfortunately, remain little known in the English-speaking world.
Picech et al. (Mon,) studied this question.