Abstract
... it can be safely affirmed that the poet knew little, at least directly, of modern American literature. Lorca had a remarkable impatience with any language other than Spanish. Practically all he read of foreign literature he read in translation. There were few books in his room in John Jay [Hall, his dormitory at Columbia University], and he was busy not only absorbing the impressions of the city but also in writing a great deal of his own verse... Of the books that he read while in New York there are two which may have some significance as indirect sources: Manhattan Transfer by Dos Passos and All Quieton the Western Front by Eric Remarque, both in Spanish translations. A more direct connection couid be established with The Waste Land of Eliot which undoubtedly he read in the Spanish translation, Tierra baldia, of Angel Flores (Del Rio, 1955, pp. xxxxxxi).
Highlights
In his brilliant introduction to Ben Belitt's edition ofPoet in New York, Ángel del Río discusses several sources on which Lorca may have relied while writing Poeta en Nueva York:
Of the books that he read while in New York there are two which may have some significance as indirect sources: Manhattan Transfer by Dos Passos and All Quieton the Western Front by Eric Remarque, both in Spanish translations
A more direct connection couid be established with The Waste Land of Eliot which undoubtedly he read in the Spanish translation, Tierra baldía, of Ángel Flores (Del Río, 1955, pp. xxxxxxi)
Summary
In his brilliant introduction to Ben Belitt's edition ofPoet in New York, Ángel del Río discusses several sources on which Lorca may have relied while writing Poeta en Nueva York:. Lorca had a remarkable impatience with any language other than Spanish All he read of foreign literature he read in translation. Of the books that he read while in New York there are two which may have some significance as indirect sources: Manhattan Transfer by Dos Passos and All Quieton the Western Front by Eric Remarque, both in Spanish translations. A more direct connection couid be established with The Waste Land of Eliot which undoubtedly he read in the Spanish translation, Tierra baldía, of Ángel Flores Hitherto overlooked John Dos Passos' heavy debt [to Eliot] in Manhattan Transfer (1925), a novel conceived and published when the stir created by The Waste Land was at its height"
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