27 abr 2005

Lorca is not a strong influence on contemporary Spanish poetry. Sure, he's in the "canon" and there's a fair amount of Lorca-kitsch that will never go away, but he's not a widespread influence. I'm not saying recent Spanish poetry would be better or worse if it were more connected to Lorca, but simply stating a general consensus. Nor do Spanish views of Lorca emphasize the features of his work that make him influential in US poetics, the duende for example. There a level at which he has not entered into the nation's literature. I love Lorca, of course, but there's no point in my wishing for his influence to have been greater (greater, by the way, is a word to be types with the left hand alone). I'm not in the business of contrafactual literary history. More Lorca influence might have meant more kitsch; I'm not sure.

Lorca criticism tends to be very bad. There are good, very specialized critics who do nothing but Lorca, but without interesting the rest of our field in what they do. There are many others who are just plain bad.

3 comentarios:

Anónimo dijo...

Do you know if Garcia Lorca is the author of those lines that Robt. Creeley plays with (in both Spanish and English) in the last two pages (before the Afterward) of _Presences, A Text for Marisol_:

As I remember the lines, I hope correctly:

Vestido en mantos negros,
Piensa que el mundo es chiquito
Y el corazon es immenso.

Jonathan dijo...

Yes, that's Lorca.

"Vestida con mantos negros
piensa que el mundo es chiquito
y el corazón es inmenso."

From a poem entitled "Soleá" from Poema del cante jondo. It's a woman, "vestida" not "vestido."

Anónimo dijo...

Thanks indeed. Now I can look up the poem.

"Inmenso", huh? That sure violates an English speaker's instincts!