The Dog and the Fever
A Perambulatory Novella
Translated by William Carlos Williams , Raquel Hélène Williams
Edited by Jonathan Cohen
Sales Date: 2018-06-05
First full publication of translation and commentary by famed American modernist
The legendary modernist poet William Carlos Williams described this seventeenth-century book as "far more 'modern' than ever Hemingway or even Gertie ever thought of being" and "hot as hell besides." Williams translated this Spanish novella, originally published in 1625, with the help of Raquel Hélène Williams, his Puerto Rican mother. Williams recalled that its biting satire targeting the corruption of the court, the church, and society and driven by comic double entendre made them laugh out loud and amused them tremendously as they worked on the translation. In Williams's hands, the novella becomes a daring modernist experiment with the poetry of prose and the American idiom. This edition includes Williams's as-yet unpublished running commentary on the narrative, and an illuminating introduction from editor Jonathan Cohen that contextualizes the work in Williams's canon.
Hardcover is un-jacketed.
Acknowledgments
Foreword—Paul Mariani
Introduction—Jonathan Cohen
Preface by the Translator
Introduction by the Author
The Dog and the Fever
Notes
Williams on the Novella
PEDRO ESPINOSA (1578 – 1650) was a Golden Age Spanish poet and fiction writer whose works include a famed 1605 anthology of contemporary poets called Las flores de poetas ilustres de España ("Flowers of Spain's Illustrious Poets"). WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS (1883 – 1963) is widely recognized as one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century and as an influential founder of literary modernism. In addition to poetry, he authored works of fiction, criticism, drama, and translation. Among his most celebrated books are Spring and All, In the American Grain, Paterson, and Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems for which he posthumously received the Pulitzer Prize. All told, Williams published some twenty books of poetry as well as seventeen books of prose. JONATHAN COHEN is an award-winning translator of Latin American poetry and scholar of inter-American literature. He is the compiler and editor of William Carlos Williams's By Word of Mouth: Poems from the Spanish, 1916 – 1959 and editor of the centennial edition of his Al Que Quiere!, both published by New Directions.
"England never knew that Golden Age Spain invented the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European drama, poetry, and novel. Jonathan Cohen clarifies the entangled wonders in William Carlos Williams's translation of the seventeenth-century Spanish novel, The Dog and the Fever, by Pedro Espinosa, whose outrageous dog's tale recalls Miguel de Cervantes's earlier masterpiece, The Dialogue of the Dogs. Williams's vital English version mirrors Espinosa's unsurpassed dog novel related by an eloquently talkative canine."
~Willis Barnstone, author of ABC of Translation
"We owe Jonathan Cohen a debt of thanks for bringing to the center of our attention this unexpectedly modern seventeenth century whirlwind of imagistic language. The accomplished, proto-surreal, avant-garde experimentalism is helped along by William Carlos Williams's keen eye and sympathetic ear, and Cohen's sensitive editing."
~Edith Grossman, author of Why Translations Matters
"Anything that William Carlos Williams put his hand to is more than worth reading, and Pedro Espinosa's The Dog and the Fever is no exception. The text, with its tumble of aphorisms and proverbs, reads like proto-dada or -surrealism, and when we realize that Williams did the translation project with his elderly mother, Raquel Elena Hoheb, it takes on the importance of a family project. (Their labor gave birth to another extraordinary Williams book, Yes, Mrs. Williams!, that also deserves our attention.) Jonathan Cohen, a poet and noted translator, who has already gathered Williams' translations in By Word of Mouth: Poems from the Spanish 1916-1959 and prepared a new edition of Williams' breakthrough book, Al Que Quiere!, has done Williams readers a great service in blowing the dust off this translation and sprucing it up for a new century."
~Bill Zavatsky
"England never knew that Golden Age Spain invented the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European drama, poetry, and novel. Jonathan Cohen clarifies the entangled wonders in William Carlos Williams's translation of the seventeenth-century Spanish novel, The Dog and the Fever, by Pedro Espinosa, whose outrageous dog's tale recalls Miguel de Cervantes's earlier masterpiece, The Dialogue of the Dogs. Williams's vital English version mirrors Espinosa's unsurpassed dog novel related by an eloquently talkative canine."
~Willis Barnstone, author of ABC of Translation
"This 'dredges of language' novella as Williams wanted it published, with his 'running commentary' on both the work and his translation: Williams reveling in America's modernist future as he reclaimed his (and therefore its) Spanish literary heritage."
~Julio Marzán
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