Comparative

 One of the most puzzling critique of my work has been the idea that I shouldn't have positive knowledge about Lorca to judge translations of him.  My expertise is treated as a handicap: "That Mayhew thinks there is a 'real' Lorca!" My efforts to present a reasonable view of what Lorca is about is treated as professional dogmatism of some kind. 

But translation is inherently comparative: we look at two things side by side. If item A is unknowable, in some existential sense, then why isn't item B also unknowable? How can we compare anything to anything?  

My position was that I knew Lorca, and also knew American poetics. I understand what Spicer is about, or O'Hara, or Koch, or Creeley. It was putting these two knowledges together that made AL a valuable project. You not only have to know Creeley, but know what makes him different from O'Hara; you have to know Sorrentino's sarcasm as well as Ginsberg's exuberant sense of humor. For example, if you just thought O'Hara wrote casual "lunch poems" and wasn't a serious artist, you wouldn't understand his cagey engagement with FGL.    

I go out of my way carefully to present my view of Lorca as simply the best one I can muster, provisional.  "If Lorca is a modernist poet... then ..."  But however provisional, contingent, apologetic, or qualified, there must be some view. The poet being translated cannot be a tabula rasa. Otherwise, literally nothing happens. 

Of course, I can be wrong about Lorca!  I have been wrong.  But you have to say why I am wrong, and why your view is better.  You have to beat me in the argument. Which you won't do unless your name is Andrew Anderson or Christopher Maurer, etc...   

(It's even an argument from authority. The authority comes from the receipts you have, not from the identity of the person who has the receipts in their file.)