ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some initial reflections on translation, translatability, and canonicity, and addresses the fundamental question of whether or not Lorca is essentially translatable or, as many have believed, is instead such a culturally remote and exotic author that his work will always present an excessive degree of ‘otherness’ and resistance to translation. It examines how Lorca is much more than just another foreign poet, and how he has habitually been categorized, and therefore limited, to the status of the quintessential poet of Spain by Spaniards and non-Spaniards alike. The chapter examines the long history of the rather superficial conflation of Lorca and his homeland which has sought to establish him as the symbol of all things Spanish and, therefore, alien and impenetrable to those from other cultures. The chapter essentially analyses how, both before and after his murder in 1936, his myriad translators and critics have often felt the need to stress the ethnocentrism and cultural exceptionalism of his poetry.
