Advantages of (almost) literal translation

 By literal translation I don't mean word by word, but translation that essentially follows the most obvious path, with most elements of the text except those that would sound too unnatural or stiff. You would say dream about not "dream with" to translate "soñar con..."  

1. It is easy to follow in a bilingual face-to-face edition, where the verso is the original and the recto of the next is the translation. Easy for both the monolingual reader and the reader with some knowledge of the source language. 

2. It is non-objectionable.  It is hard to formulate objections to it, because it seem like the most correct and natural version possible. 

3. It usually avoids amplification, or introducing more words that the original had. It won't be padded or over explanatory.  

4. It will often convey literary qualities of the original text because it won't rewrite in a way that eliminates the tropes. 

Disadvantages:

It won't be particular meta, calling attention to itself as a translation. (But this could be an advantage.)

It may not be musical or have a satisfactory prosody. (But the literary and free version might also not have a satisfactory prosody.).  

Broccoli Poem Written in the Car

 

There was a time I did not like broccoli, 

Other times when I was enthusiastic about it. 

I also passed through phases of neglect and indifference

When I did not think much about it at all.

These are fact about me, not about broccoli itself--

And not very interesting ones at that. 

Dream of parking space

 I was in the living room of a house. I heard a conversation very loud outside. One man was accusing the other of taking his parking space. The other said these were not assigned. The accuser was following the other, and I emerged to look. They starting fighting but were soon separated by another man. The street filled with a crowd of people; I thought they were 50 of them. The cat really wanted to get out so I opened the door. I assumed the cat would find its way back eventually. It got dark and I was a bit worried about the cat's safety.  

Dream of milk and watch

 I had a gallon of milk in a backpack that I was obliged to carry around. 

***

I was buying a watch, of an old-fashioned analog kind, for about $100.  I thought it was a good idea, somehow.  

Poet in Spain

 I was looking at Sarah Arvio's Poet in Spain. I noticed that two reviews of the book (a translation of Lorca's poetry + Bodas de sangre) mention me, but she doesn't in the intro to the book or bibliography. She's translating everything except the New York poetry, it seems, in an effort to give a less American Lorca.  

She seems unaware of the complete history of Lorca translation into English.  

The intro is a little off at places. She says the sonnets are unusual because they have a strict rhyme scheme, but more of Lorca's poetry rhymes than doesn't, and the rhyme is often very regular: assonance in every other line (even numbered lines).  

She thinks the Falange started the Spanish Civil War.  I am reminded of how difficult it is to state basic facts. This was a military coup; the Falange was a small party at the time, and Franco later took it over, though he was never a member of it before then. The party was very small before the Civil War, and Franco took it over in 1937, during the war, to consolidate his own power.  

She groups the Suites into other groupings, along with other poems that are not part of the Suites, creating her own Lorca sequences. This seems weird to me.  

I'm not going to nit-pick with translations any more, because it seems that the process is exhausting without leading to much substance. A few well-chosen examples go a long away.  

I was in a restaurant and couldn't help overhearing a conversation

 One guy was an older man, a composer, and he was telling another slightly younger fellow: "I used to tell my students, when I write a score it is like writing a personal letter to each musician..."  The other guy, also a musician, was telling him that his [older man's'] scores were so carefully notated that the musicians just had to play the music as written and the music would be 90% right already (something like this).  

I still have it!

 I still have it.  (I still have "it.") I went to the library and just sat there writing and researching for 3 hours, from 9-12, yesterday and today. Retirement is freeing me up.  I can write as well as ever; the ideas flow. I have supreme confidence in what I am doing.  

Part of what I am doing is eliminating things. Students, colleagues, administrators, have no more demands on me.  I am unsubscribing from everything imaginable. I looked at my retirement privileges: I have full access to library, can park for less money, and even have a grave sit in the University Cemetery--hopefully not very soon. I have plenty of money.  

I am giving some books and cds away.  I might sell some books, not because I need the money, but because they are too valuable to simply donate to the library.  

While I am not technically retired, since I am doing the Barcelona program in July, I am living the lifestyle. The missing element seemed to be very simple: going to the library and working. Why the library? That is where the books are.  I simply sit down at a desk near the Lorca section, PQ6000 and whatever. I have my own books too to supplement the holdings of the library, a collections of books by and about Lorca that I have been collecting for 20 years.  

I plan to be more productive now, keeping a regular schedule, M-F from 9-12. I will go to the regular library and to the music library, depending on what project I am working on.