After the Classics

This selection of the verse of Valencian poet Vicent Andres Estelles (1924-1993) is accompanied by a translation into English from the original Catalan. The format of an innovative dialogue with classical authors — a cornerstone of Estellesian expression — constitutes an ingenious invocation and parodic commentary on the output and ethos of the Latin poets Horace, Ovid, Virgil and Catullus, the medieval patriarch of Valencian letters Ausiàs March and the Renaissance Castilian poet, Garcilaso de la Vega. For Estellés, Octavian Rome provides a parallel to the Franco dictatorship and the historical framework surrounding these writers affords the neophyte an opportunity for ideological denunciation, creative wit and lyrical grace as well as righteous anger at the oppressive pettiness of life under autocracy. The translators have attempted to bring to an Anglophone readership the wealth of achievement of this writer who, despite the severity of fascist repression, sang and celebrated the experience of his own community through its own oppressed language.