SOURCE: A review of Shadow of Paradise, in Hispanic Review, Vol. 56, No. 3, Summer, 1988, pp. 385-87.

In the following review of Shadow of Paradise, Gullón calls attention to light imagery in Aleixandre's poetic vision, and considers the difficulties faced by translators in rendering the vivid and precise imagery of Aleixandre's poems into English.

In the Foreward [to Shadow of Paradise, translated by Hugh A. Harter, 1987] Claudio Rodríguez indicates that opposing forces await the reader of this book:

Clearly, Shadow of Paradise is a book about a paradise lost, about the loss of the innocence of love. Paradise and its absence, harmony and destruction, light and shadow, elegy and exaltation: the playing out of human destiny under the immortal canticle of trees, ocean foam, and moonlight: the glittering, unifying energy of erotic forces within a diversity of organic forms.

In the Introduction by Hugh A. Harter, a different...