Looking for Lorca
Morning. Any opinions on the best translations of Lorca?
Thanks, in advance. |
I haven't read Lorca, so I have no expertise. I did, however, recently pick up the New Directions selected Lorca. For that volume, the editors selected, for each individual poem, what they thought was the best existing translation of that poem. So that volume may be a good bet (unless you want a consistent translator). It's a bilingual edition, too.
http://www.ndbooks.com/book/selected...-garcia-lorca/ |
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Emitt, I'm not a translator, but my English Lorca is translated by Robert Bly and conveniently includes the Spanish on facing pages. Now you're making me want to dip back into it.
[Edited in: So, you prodded me to spend some time with Bly's translations today, Emitt. He doesn't take a lot of liberties with the Spanish -- they're fairly literal, but I wouldn't call them artless. They definitely convey the strangeness of Lorca's tropes. BTW, he also translates Juan Ramon Jimenez, whom I prefer as a poet to Lorca ... but that's another thread, another day!] I'd advise you not to miss the plays if you haven't read them. "The House of Bernarda Alba" in particular has haunted me since I first read it -- and several others like "Yerma", "Blood Wedding" and "The Shoemaker's Amazing Wife" I think are held generally in high regard. M |
I always read Lorca in the original Spanish, but I do have two very old bilingual editions: Lorca's Poeta en Nueva York, translated by Greg Simon and Steven F. White isn't so bad, but don't waste your time or money on Robert G. Havard's egregious take on the extraordinary Romancero gitano.
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Federico García Lorca: Selected Poems, translated by Merryn Williams (Bloodaxe Books, UK, 1992) – with the originals on the verso page.
Federico García Lorca: Gypsy Ballads, translated by Jane Duran and Gloria García Lorca (Enitharmon Press, London: 2011) – with the originals on the verso page. (Further translations of Lorca’s poetry by these two authors are available.) |
Thanks Clive. I have always had good experiences with Bloodaxe. Will look out for that and the one Michael suggested.
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I have two bilingual selected Lorcas: one edited by Christopher Maurer and a shorter volume with an introduction by W.S. Merwin. Both have Spanish on the facing page. That seems easy to come by - and these two aren't bad - but a complete bilingual Lorca seems a rare bird.
If you're exploring Lorca, may i also suggest Vicente Aleixandre, who won the Nobel Prize? There's a decent bilingual selection edited by Lewis Hyde. Cheers, John |
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