Poetry
Cristo y la mujer de Sichar
Not translated into English
Gaspar Octavio Hernández · 1918
Synopsis
The poem starts from the encounter, reported in the Gospel of John, between Christ and a Samaritan woman who has come to draw water at the well of Sychar, and of whom he asks a drink. Unlike other poems of its time on the figure of Christ, it does not confine itself to the salvation of the soul and opens onto the justice owed to men on earth. The poet seeks new metrical combinations there, with internal and final rhymes.
Context
Sources differ on the date: according to Panamá América, the poem first appeared in 1915 in Melodías del pasado, his first collection; others date it to 1916 or 1918, the year retained here as in the file. The same article sees in it proof of an extensive knowledge of the rules of verse, put at the service of modernist taste. A posthumous collection, La copa de amatista, prefaced by Demetrio Korsi, gathered the rest of his verse in 1923 (in 1925 according to El Siglo).
Who it is for
A poem in Spanish, with no published translation; best to know the scene it starts from, in chapter four of the Gospel according to Saint John.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by Panamanian critics as the most ambitious of his poems, it is cited among its author's principal works.
Sources for this page 6
The pages consulted to check this page.