Correspondence with the Dead; Poetic Identity and Translation in Lorca’s 'Poeta en Nueva York' and Spicer’s 'After Lorca'

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2012
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Bi-College (Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges). Comparative Literature Program
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Bi-College users only
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Abstract
My thesis analyzes poetic identity and correspondence in two works: Federico García Lorca’s Poeta en Nueva York and Jack Spicer’s After Lorca. Poeta describes New York City as a metropolitan monster. By denying his own poetic voice and using violent images of voids and victimization, Lorca depicts the city’s desolation as contributing to his own fragmented poetic identity. For Lorca, paradox is essential to poetry, and he uses contradictory images to construct a fractured poetic identity for himself and the city. After Lorca draws on the ambiguities of Lorca’s identity, as embodied in Poeta, through the conflation of Spicer’s poetic identity with Lorca’s. The flirtatious dialogue between the two poets in After Lorca emphasizes a correspondence theory of translation, with each poet speaking through time to contribute and respond to the poetic tradition. In addition to translating Lorca’s work, Spicer is also translating Lorca himself, for through their correspondence, Spicer helps to construct a poetic afterlife for himself and Lorca.
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