Cernuda tradujo a Hölderlin sin saber alemán, sin ser traductor. La obra de Hölderlin apenas era conocida y casi no había sido editada en lengua española. ¿Cómo lo hizo? ¿Realmente influyó la obra del poeta alemán en su poesía, como él lo afirmaba? He aquí una aproximación a estas cuestiones

Luis Cernuda’s translations of English literary works from authors like Blake or Shakespeare have been studied extensibly. Nevertheless, the Spanish poet’s translations of German writer Friedrich Hölderlin’s poetic works have not been examined in depth in the world of Spanish literature nor in the field of philology. This is due to the scarce knowledge of German language among Spanish speaking cultures. That language barrier has meant Cernuda’s translations from German to Spanish have remained almost unnoticed for half a century. The way the translations were undertaken shed light on a particular episode in Luis Cernuda’s biography considering that he did not speak German, and that it was thanks to the almost unknown philosopher Hans Gebser that he was able to understand Hölderlin’s work. This paper reports on the impact and influence of this German lyrical poet had on Luis Cernuda—and in Spanish literature—after the recovery of Hölderlins’s forgotten works. It presents a comparison between some of the original poems and the versions Cernuda translated leaving a trace of his own style. The methodology he followed in order to accomplish those works and the traces of Hölderlin’s style in the Sevillian’s writings should be taken into account as one of the rarities found in the world of translation. And, at the same time, it should be noticed as an interesting case in the field of comparative literature