Canto General is Pablo Neruda's tenth book of poems. It was first published in Mexico in 1950, by Talleres Gráficos de la Nación. Neruda began to compose it in 1938.
"Canto General" ("General Song") consists of 15 sections, 231 poems, and more than 15,000 lines. This work attempts to be a history or encyclopedia of the entire American Western Hemisphere, or New World, from a Hispanic American perspective.
The XV Cantos
First Canto. A Lamp on Earth.
Second Canto. The Heights of Macchu Picchu
Third Canto. The Conquistadors
Fourth Canto. The Liberators
Fifth Canto. The Sand Betrayed
Sixth Canto. America, I Do Not Invoke Your Name in Vain
Seventh Canto. Canto General of Chile
Eighth Canto. The Earth’s Name is Juan
Ninth Canto. Let the Woodcutter Awaken
Tenth Canto. The Fugitive
Eleventh Canto. The Flower of Punitaqui
Twelfth Canto. The Rivers of Song
Thirteenth Canto. New Year’s Chorale for the Country in Darkness
Fourteenth Canto. The Great Ocean
Fifteenth Canto. I Am
The Heights of Macchu Picchu
"'The Heights of Macchu Picchu" (Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu) is Canto II of the Canto General. The twelve poems that comprise this section of the epic work have been translated into English regularly since even before its initial publication in Spanish in 1950, beginning with a 1948 translation by Hoffman Reynolds Hays[1] in The Tiger's Eye, a journal of arts and literature published out of New York from 1947–1949, and followed closely by a translation by Waldeen[2] in 1950 in a pamphlet called Let the Rail Splitter Awake and Other Poems for a Marxist publishing house in New York. The first mass-marketed commercial publication of the piece did not come until 1966 with Nathanial Tarn's translation, followed by John Felstiner's translation alongside a book on the translation process, Translating Neruda in 1980. Following that is Jack Schmitt's full translation of Canto General—the first to appear in English—in 1993. In recent years there have been several partial or full new translations: Stephen Kessler in 2001 for a photo/journey book on the ancient ruins (Machu Picchu edited by Barry Brukoff) and Mark Eisner's re-translation of seven of the twelve poems (Cantos I, IV, VI, VIII, X, XI, and XII) for an anthology celebrating the centennial of Neruda's birth in 2004, The Essential Neruda.
Chronological bibliography
“Heights of Macchu Picchu,” Trans. by H. R. Hays. The Tiger’s Eye, 1.5, (1948). New York: Tiger’s Eye Publishing Co., 1947–1949. (112–122)
Let the Rail Splitter Awake and Other Poems, 1950. Trans. Waldeen. Note by Samuel Sillen. New York: Masses & Mainstream.
“Summits of Macchu Picchu,” Trans. by Ángel Flores, in Whit Burnett, ed., 105 Greatest Living Authors Present the World's Best Stories, Humor, Drama, Biography, History, Essays, Poetry New York: Dial Press, 1950. (356–367)
The Heights of Macchu Picchu, 1966. Trans. Nathanial Tarn. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; London: Jonathan Cape Ltd.
The Heights of Macchu Picchu, trans. by Hower Zimmon, et al. Iowa City: Seamark Press, 1971.
“The Heights of Macchu Picchu,” trans. Tom Raworth, in E. Cariacciolo-Tejo, ed., The Penguin Book of Latin American Verse Baltimore: Penguin, 1971.
“Heights of Macchu Picchu,” trans. John Felstiner, in John Felstiner, Translating Neruda: The Way to Macchu Picchu Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980.
The Heights of Macchu Picchu, trans. David Young. Baldon, Oregon: Songs Before Zero Press, 1986.
Machu Picchu, trans. Stephen Kessler. Boston: Bullfinch Press, 2001.
several poems from "The Heights of Macchu Picchu", trans. Mark Eisner in "The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems". San Francisco: City Lights, 2004.
The Heights of Macchu Picchu, trans. by Tomás Q. Morín, Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press, 2015.
Musical versions
The "Canto General" has been set to music by several musicians.
The best-known musical setting is by Mikis Theodorakis, a composer and politician from Greece. He completed four movements in 1973, recording these the following year. In 1975 and 1981, he expanded the work to seven and thirteen movements, respectively, recording the complete "oratorio" live in Munich in 1981. Vocals, in Spanish, on the incomplete 1974 recording are by Maria Farantouri and Petros Pandis.
Canto General (1988 album), live recording from St. Paul, Minnesota (USA), first recording of the complete oratorio in the United States, conducted by Mikis Theodorakis and Stefan Sköld, soloists Mary Preus and Petros Pandis, produced by Patricia Porter and recorded by Ralph Karsten, from the July 27, 1986 performance in the O'Shaughnessy Auditorium of the College of St. Catherine (13 movements)
Swedish composer Allan Pettersson's "12th Symphony" (1974) uses the 3rd section ("Los muertos de la plaza (28 de enero de 1946. Santiago de Chile") of the 5th Canto ("La arena traicionada"), in Swedish translation, as its literary basis.
"Canto General" (1974), by Dutch composer Peter Schat (1935–2003).
