Rubén Darío

Rubén Darío (1867–1916) was a Nicaraguan poet, born near León, and the founder and leading voice of modernismo, the movement that renewed Spanish-language verse at the turn of the twentieth century.

He drew on French Parnassian and Symbolist models and gave Spanish poetry a new range of metres and a new musical delicacy, from Azul (1888) and Prosas profanas (1896) to Cantos de vida y esperanza (1905). He died in León in 1916; these translations were published the same year.