¡Bemsha SWING!: Review of TOTAV

5 jun 2011

Review of TOTAV

My friend Luis Martín-Estudillo reviews Twilight of the Avant-Garde in the recent issue of MLN.

Durante el año 2009 aparecieron dos libros de Jonathan Mayhew: Apocryphal Lorca: Parody, Translation, Kitsch (publicado por University of Chicago Press),y el que centra esta reseña. Tal annus mirabilis del profesor de la Universidad de Kansas lo ha confirmado como uno de los más señeros críticos de la poesía española escrita durante la última centuria. Su obra es idiosincrática y a menudo polémica, pues nunca renuncia a expresarse desde una combativa parcialidad, pero resulta siempre sugestiva, rigurosamente razonada, y certeramente presentada.

[In 2009 two books by JM appeared, AL and the one I'm reviewing here. This annus mirabilis of the KU prof confirms him as one of the most extraordinary critics of Spanish poetry written during the last century. His work is idiosyncratic and often polemical, since he never passes up the opportunity to express himself from a combative partiality, but it is always suggestive, rigorously argued, and accurately presented.]

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Blurbs & Reviews

"Jonathan Mayhew’s new work belongs to a certain class of surprising books: those so obviously necessary once they appear that it apparently required a stroke of genius to come up with the idea for them."

--Daniel Katz

"Jonathan Mayhew's Lorca is less the distinctive Spanish poet, whose murder in 1936 marked the beginning of the Civil War, than he is an American invention. From the 1940s to the end of the century, our poets have invoked Lorca-in translation, of course-as a Romantic, exotic, radical, and, in many cases, gay icon-the poet of mystery and the duende. The Lorca myth, Mayhew argues persuasively, has enriched American lyric, but it has also been an obstacle to a more adequately grounded understanding of Spanish poetry in the 20th century. Apocryphal Lorca is revisionist criticism at its most acute."

-Marjorie Perloff

"Enhanced by copious notes and an excellent bibliography, this book offers a perceptive, intriguing assessment of the Garcia Lorca created by the postwar generation of American poets." (Choice )

"Mayhew is a critic who is at the top of his game; he combines a breadth of knowlege of the field with acute analysis."

--John C. Wilcox, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"Let me just cut through all the usual, boring book review preliminaries and say the following thing: Jonathan Mayhew has, in Apocryphal Lorca, written an amazing book. "

--Brandon Holmquest, Calque

"The great merit of Mayhew's study is his sustained effort to document and interrogate Lorca's reception, unique among American encounters with foreign literatures in its nature and extent."

--Lawrence Venuti, TLS.

"Se trata de Jonathan Mayhew y su extraordinario estudio Apocryphal Lorca. Translation, Parody, Kitsch. Esta obra se ocupa no de García Lorca sino de cómo los escritores estadounidenses han reinventado a Lorca, desde Spicer y Rothenberg hasta O’Hara y Koch. Asimismo, es una discusión de la Deep Image —¡cuánto hay que desmenuzar de ese capítulo!— y la manera en que la poética norteamericana se ha apropiado de lo lorqueano (o lorcaesco) y del concepto de lo 'otro' que éste representa. Éste es un libro repleto de sutilezas, de tesis, apuntes, datos."

--Heriberto Yépez

"Apocryphal Lorca, sin embargo, es mucho más que un estudio de las vidas posteriores de Lorca en la poesía americana entre principios de los años 50 y 70. También ofrece un acercamiento histórico a la traducción de su obra, descubriendo reseñas de prensa significativas y discurriendo acerca de reconocimientos críticos. El texto es elegante y fresco; el análisis amplio e históricamente específico."

--María Delgado, Revista de Literatura

¡Bemsha SWING!

5 jun 2011

Review of TOTAV

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