Julio Herrera y Reissig: Poetry with Pedals

Abstract

In his explanatory notes regarding the solutions he adopted for the translation of two French poems, the Uruguayan poet Julio Herrera y Reissig (1875-1910) defends the use of the “silenced diaeresis”, taking it as the starting point of a large proposition in favor of a new music of the verses. Through the concurrent employment of a series of specific resources, it would enable the promotion of a new music for poetry in Spanish. This essay argues that Herrera y Reissig’s notes on this subject have a tactical function that goes far beyond technical and normative discussions, and may be interpreted as a prescription for and a description of the music of the so-called Modernist Hispanic-American poetry. His notes lead to the perception that the poetic rhythm is not wholly inscribed in the text, but not altogether independent of the text: it is produced historically, in complex constructs, with the intervention of various members of a constantly dynamic community including poets, readers, editors, scholars.