Romantic love poems in verse for B2

Rhymes Rimas

Name: Rhymes
Author: Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, 1885

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer’s Rimas, complete and not an adaptation: all 76 poems first collected after his death in 1871, in the 1885 Madrid edition. In the catalog it is B2: about 7,300 words and 21 words per sentence on average. Each rima is a short chapter of 23 to 387 words.

B2
7 345 words
1-2 hours

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Will this text hold?

B1

Earlier

At B1 the short lines look easy, but the verb comes at the end of the clause, as in “De fuego y oro vista”, and old spellings like á and dió will need explaining.

B2

This text

You can manage it at B2: the words are everyday ones, each rima has only a few stanzas and reads in one go, translating single words and, where the word order twists, whole sentences.

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C1

With room to spare

At C1 the rimas read freely; what remains is the imagery and the metaphors, not the language.

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The average sentence has 21 words, more than in Campos de Castilla (17) and Romancero gitano (12), because a rima is often one long sentence broken into short lines. The vocabulary is plain: only one word in twenty-two has 9 letters or more, and the subjects are familiar: eyes, lips, tears, a kiss, a swallow. The difficulty is poetic syntax: the verb is pushed to the end of the line, a long run of clauses with mientras comes before the main one, and the edition keeps the spelling of its time, such as á for a and dió. The start is the densest part: rimas I-X average 30 words per sentence, rimas XLI-L about 15. Hence B2, not lower and not higher. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.

7 345: words
21: words in an average sentence
1-2: hours of reading
1885: Librería de Fernando Fé

Librería de Fernando Fé, 1885. Wikisource

What it is about, without the ending

Bécquer’s rimas are short poems about poetry, love and loss, and they were collected after his death in an order that reads almost like a story. The first poems (I-XI) ask what poetry is and where it comes from; rima IV insists there will always be poetry while the world holds a mystery. Rimas XII-XXIX follow the joy of a love, in eyes, glances and kisses; the next run (XXX-LI) is about pride, a quarrel and a parting; and the last poems (LII-LXXVI) turn to loneliness and death, from the swallows that will not return in rima LIII to the funeral of a young girl in rima LXXIII. How the sequence closes is not revealed here.

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Rimas

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LIII

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Choose an underlined word.

Wikisource

Put the verb back in its place

In verse the verb often comes last: “Mientras el sol las desgarradas nubes / De fuego y oro vista” means “while the sun dresses the torn clouds in fire and gold”. Find the subject (el sol), then the verb at the end (vista), and read the rest in between. Mientras with the subjunctive here means “as long as”.

Old accents are only spelling

This edition keeps the spelling of its time: the preposition a is written á (“En tu balcón sus nidos á colgar”), and aquéllas still has an accent that is now dropped. Read á as a and keep going. The refrain “Esas... ¡no volverán!” helps too: each pair of stanzas sets what returns against what does not.

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Chapters

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In rima IV the line “Mientras el sol las desgarradas nubes / De fuego y oro vista” puts the verb last: translating the whole sentence in Reader shows who does what (the sun dresses the torn clouds in fire and gold).

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Before you read

Is this the original or a learner adaptation?

It is the original, not a learner’s adaptation: all 76 rimas of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, from the Wikisource transcription of the 1885 Madrid edition of his Obras (volume III, Librería de Fernando Fé). They were first collected after his death in Obras (1871, Imprenta de T. Fortanet), whose title page is the cover. The spelling of the period is kept: á for a, dió, ví.

Is there an audiobook?

Rhymes has no audio on MovaReader: the poems are read on screen. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it for words such as enmudeció, desgarradas or tupidas.

Can I translate a whole sentence?

Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most where the word order is twisted, for example in rima IV: Mientras el sol las desgarradas nubes / De fuego y oro vista. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.

How many hours does it take?

The whole book takes about 1-2 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. The rimas are short, from 23 to 387 words and about 97 on average, so you can read one between other things.

Where does the text get easier?

From rima XLI. Rimas I-X are the densest, at about 30 words per sentence; rimas XLI-L average about 15, and the last rimas (LXXI-LXXVI) come back to about 21. The longest poems are V, LXXIII and III.

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 come back to the rimas where you left off. Any of the 76 rimas also opens from the contents on this page, for example rima LIII.

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