I. Parte primera
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A romantic narrative poem in verse for B2
The Student of Salamanca El estudiante de Salamanca
José de Espronceda
José de Espronceda’s complete narrative poem of 1840, not an adaptation. In the catalog it is B2: about 9,500 words and 23 words per sentence on average. Four parts: a night duel in Salamanca, the abandoned Elvira in her garden, a gambling table, and the long final part that follows Don Félix de Montemar through the dark streets.
- B2
- 9 519 words
- 2-3 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the long verse sentences, the inverted word order and words like lóbrego or anatema will make most stanzas slow; part III, in short dialogue lines, is the easiest place to start.
B1B2
This text
You can manage it at B2: the plot is simple and the poem is short, so read stanza by stanza, translating single words, and whole sentences where the order is twisted for the rhyme.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the poem reads freely; what remains is the music of the changing metres and the romantic imagery.
Start readingThe average sentence has 23 words, but in verse a sentence runs across many lines, and one word in seventeen has 9 letters or more, so the vocabulary is not the main barrier. The difficulty is the changing metres and the romantic imagery: moonlight, ghosts and storms, with words moved around to fit the rhyme. It is uneven: part I averages 35 words per sentence, part II 22, part III, a scene in short dialogue lines, only 9, and part IV, more than half of the poem, 39. In the Spanish catalog the verse play Don Juan Tenorio (B2) counts 6 words per sentence, Campos de Castilla 17 and Martín Fierro 25, so this poem sits between the last two, but its long words (5.8%) are far below the C1 threshold. Hence B2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 9 519
- words
- 23
- words in an average sentence
- 2-3
- hours of reading
Wikisource. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
In Salamanca, one night after midnight, swords ring out in the dark and a man is heard dying while a cloaked figure slips away into the shadows. The poem follows Don Félix de Montemar, a reckless student who believes in nothing, and Elvira, a young woman he seduced and abandoned, who wanders through her garden at night. A scene at a gambling table shows what kind of man he is. Then, alone in a dark street where a lamp burns before a sacred image, he meets a veiled figure in white and decides to follow her. Where she leads him is not revealed here.
Compare two places
El estudiante de Salamanca
IV. Parte cuarta
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Choose an underlined word.
Follow the verbs, not the lines
The opening sentence runs over six lines and ends only at dejan: look for the verbs (parecen, dejan) and let the images wait. Every second line ends in the same vowel sounds, e-a (cuentan, tierra, dejan), which is why words sit in odd places: lóbrego envuelta la tierra is “the earth wrapped in gloom”. The sentence from Era la hora en que acaso is longer still and ends only at fiesta.
Read stanza by stanza
Part IV opens in quatrains: lines 1 and 3 rhyme (mano, hermano) and lines 2 and 4 echo each other (corazón, cayó). Most sentences close with the stanza, so take one stanza at a time. The poet moves the verb for the rhyme: in la misteriosa calle encapotó the verb comes last and the subject, noche sombría, stands before the object: “a gloomy night covered the mysterious street”.
Where the text gets harder
I-IIlong verse sentences
IIIeasier: short dialogue lines
IVlongest sentences
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
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In part I, the sentence that begins “Era la hora en que acaso temerosas voces suenan informes” runs for fourteen lines through a list of sounds and ghosts before it ends: translating the whole sentence in Reader keeps the thread.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s adaptation: José de Espronceda’s complete narrative poem El estudiante de Salamanca (1840), all four parts, as transcribed on Spanish Wikisource, which does not name a single print edition. The poem appeared in his Poesías, published in Madrid in 1840. The epigraphs that open some parts are left out.
Is there an audiobook?
The Student of Salamanca has no audio on MovaReader: the poem is read on screen. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for words such as lóbrego, anatema or encapotó.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. In this poem it helps most where one sentence runs across many lines, such as “Era la hora en que acaso temerosas voces suenan informes”, which carries on for fourteen lines. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole poem takes about 2-3 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. The four parts run from about 900 words (part I) to about 5,600 (part IV), so parts I-III together, about 4,000 words, fit into one evening.
Where does the text get easier?
Part III, a scene at a gambling table in quick dialogue lines of about 9 words per sentence, is the easy stretch. Parts I and IV are the densest, with 35 and 39 words per sentence; part II sits in between at 22.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so you can return to the poem where you left off. Any of the four parts also opens from the contents on this page, for example part III, the dialogue scene.