ABSTRACT
The chapter proposes an analysis of 10 English translations of Lorca’s “Ode to Walt Whitman” and attempts to demonstrate both how the nature of his reception through translation has changed in accordance with changes in social attitudes toward homosexuality and how this evolution has been reflected in the concomitant variations in the translational choices made. The first English translation of the text dates from 1939 and the latest revised version was published in 2013. The intervening years have witnessed immense changes in social attitudes toward homosexuality, and since the 1980s there has been a clear and committed critical recognition both of Lorca’s sexual orientation and of its importance to the understanding of his work. The fact that this reception in the English-speaking world has evolved from his initial presentation as the anti-Fascist proto-martyr to his current status as a central part of the gay literary canon has been due in no small measure to the retranslation of poems such as “Ode to Walt Whitman”, and this chapter will seek to trace the evolution of this changing reception of Lorca from his initial post–Civil War politicization to his current elevation to the highest echelons of the Queer Studies pantheon.
