The Solitudes

A towering figure of the Renaissance, Luis de Góngora pioneered poetic forms so radically different from the dominant aesthetic of his time that he was derided as "the Prince of Darkness." The Solitudes, his magnum opus, is an intoxicatingly lush novel-in-verse that follows the wanderings of a shipwrecked man who has been spurned by his lover. Wrenched from civilization and its attendant madness, the desolate hero is transported into a natural world that is at once menacing and sublime. In this stunning edition Edith Grossman captures the breathtaking beauty of a work that represents one of the high points of poetic achievement in any language.