Apocryphal Lorca: Translation, Parody, Kitsch (Emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith) - Hardcover

"Apocryphal, American Lorca! Inviting us to consider how one culture reads another - how American poets read Spain through Lorca and Lorca through Spain - Jonathan Mayhew has given us an informative, thoughtful, fascinating, and often funny journey through translation, parody, and kitsch. No one could be better qualified to study Lorca's work as 'generative device' in English-language poetry and get at the mystery of how and what a poet can mean in a different cultural context." - Christopher Maurer, editor of Lorca's Collected Poems"

Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) had an enormous impact on the generation of American poets who came of age during the cold war, from Robert Duncan and Allen Ginsberg to Robert Creeley and Jerome Rothenberg. In large numbers, these poets have not only translated his works, but written imitations, parodies, and pastiches - along with essays and critical reviews. Jonathan Mayhew's "Apocryphal Lorca" is an exploration of the afterlife of this legendary Spanish writer in the poetic culture of the United States. The book examines how Lorca in English translation has become a specifically American poet, adapted to American cultural and ideological desiderata - one that bears little resemblance to his original corpus, or even his Spanish legacy. As Mayhew assesses Lorca's considerable influence on the American literary scene of the latter half of the twentieth century, he uncovers fundamental truths about contemporary poetry, the uses and abuses of translation, and Lorca himself.