Abstract: This essay revisits and expands the fascinating history of “Night and Death,” a most celebrated religious sonnet written by anglicized Spaniard José María Blanco White. As previous research highlights, this English poem has produced a remarkable number of Spanish translations since it first appeared in 1828. However, there exist some rather important versions that have not yet been identified. Namely, Gaspar Núñez de Arce’s “Luz y vida,” which was written in 1873 and later included in his seminal 1875 book Gritos del combate . Although “Luz y vida” makes no reference to any source text whatsoever, I argue that there is enough internal evidence to categorize it as an imitation of Blanco White’s sonnet, and I make my case through a comparative analysis. The new data allows me to conclude that “Night and Death” had a bigger impact on nineteenth-century Spain than it was previously thought, and to position Núñez de Arce as one of the first Spanish speaking authors who productively engaged with it.

Category	Quartile
文学	4
文学, 罗曼语系文学	4

On the Transmission of Blanco White’s Famous Sonnet: A Lost Link

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