San Juan de la Cruz, the great sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, is regarded by many as Spain's finest poet. Passionate, ecstatic, and spiritual, his poems are a blend of exquisite lyricism and profound mystical thought. In "The Poems of St. John of the Cross John Frederick Nims presents his superlative translation of the complete poems, re-creating the religious fervor of St. John's art.
This dual-language edition makes available the original Spanish from the Codex of Sanlucon de Barrameda with facing English translations. The work concludes with two essays--a critique of the poetry and a short piece on the Spanish text that appears alongside the translation--as well as brief notes on the individual poems.