Salvador Novo, Alfonso Reyes and the first anthologies of modern poetry in Mexico

Abstract

Even though translation anthologies have been around for more than three hundred years, the criticism that has been devoted to them is still insufficient. Translation anthologies not only compile and classify texts of value, but also present a calculated notion or image of a certain literature, an interpretation of it in a given time and place. This essay purports to study the context and the motives which fostered the first two Mexican anthologies of modern American poetry ─a successful one, by Salvador Novo, and another one, less accomplished, by Alfonso Reyes.