Inspired by fresca's inclusion of the English translation of this very famous poem by San Juan de la Cruz, I went looking for the original and found this musical setting of the poem "En una noche oscura":
It took me a while to track down who is singing the arrangement of the poem in Spanish in this video. It turns out to be Amancio Prada, who has set many poems to music from Rosalia de Castro (in Galician), Lorca and San Juan. He first recorded San Juan's poetry in 1977. Here is the text of the poem in the original Spanish. One thing to notice is the that poetic voice (the "I") is feminine (el alma, the soul) and not masculine (San Juan).
Carlos Saura directed a film called La noche oscura in 1989, which is centered on one event in his life: as part of the Reform movement of the Carmelites, following the lead of Santa Teresa of Avila, San Juan was imprisoned by the Inquisition in Toledo and subjected to torture. It was during his confinement that he composed this poem. Saura says that the film is about the act of creation. Apparently, it was appreciated by a few, but not a success. I'll have to see if I can find it in Netflix.
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2 comments:
Wonderful!!!
Thank you for posting this! I am going to add the link to my post.
It's funny how Star Trek and fanfic is leading me back to Christian writers I loved in the past. Or not so funny, as they are often dealing with the same stuff--pain and longing and being lost and looking for comfort and wondering what's this all about, anyway? And then making up stories, songs, poems, and philosophy about it. Same as it ever was.
P.S. I love the new blogroll on blogger! I'm glad you have it too--seeing the titles makes me much more likely to check out a blog I don't normally read.
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