Outline of future article

 Here's an article I could write:

Apocryphal translation tends toward the parodic, whether intentionally or not.  Why?

(Definition: translations of "originals" that do not exist, or translations so distant from the original that they are almost unrecognizable.)  

Why? Because they are "unmoored" from any source, hence what steps in to the vacuum created by the absent original is going to be a cultural stereotype.  It will be "orientalist," whether it is Japan or Spain. In other words, a vision of an "other" that is non-Western, in some sense. 

In reality, the use of this device is variable, so must be judged case by case in individual contexts. In general terms, though, we should see this not as an exception within translation practices, but simply one extreme--where the other extreme would be translation that aims toward an ethics of scrupulousness. 

A narrative device that is available, with well-known precedents. Nobody reads Brownings Sonnets from the Portuguese as apocryphal Portuguese poetry. In this case the device is a pure pretext.  The pretense that Don Quijote is translated from the Arabic is somewhat different: it becomes a device of metafiction. We don't literally read the work as a translation from the Arabic, since the device is transparent.  

Examples: Spicer's Lorca (add Ron Padgett)

Rexroth's Marichiko. 

Landling's Love Poems from God. 

Conclusions: the parodic view means that intentionally bad, kitschy poems, will be indistinguishable from sincere attempts to channel the original.  In other words, parody cannot be as bad as the supposedly sincere attempt to do justice to the poetry of the "other." 

This reveals the status of poetry in our culture. It is on the level of inspirational quotes on facebook. Engagement with the cultural other ends up being an exercise in cultural narcissism.