Federico García Lorca
Encyclopedia
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (feðeˈɾiko ɣarˈθi.a ˈlorka; 5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936) was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27
. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads during the Spanish Civil War
. In 2008, a Spanish judge opened an investigation into Lorca's death. The Garcia Lorca family eventually dropped objections to the excavation of a potential gravesite near Alfacar
. However, no human remains were found.
, a small town a few miles west of Granada
, southern Spain.His father, Federico García Rodríguez, was a landowner with a farm in the fertile vega surrounding Granada and a comfortable villa in the heart of the city. García Rodríguez saw his fortunes rise with a boom in the sugar industry. García Lorca's mother, Vincenta Lorca Romero, was a teacher and gifted pianist. In 1909, when the boy was 11, his family moved to the city of Granada. For the rest of his life, he maintained the importance of living close to the natural world, praising his upbringing in the country.Maurer (2001) pix In 1915, after graduating from secondary school, García Lorca attended Sacred Heart University. During this time his studies included law, literature and composition. Throughout his adolescence he felt a deeper affinity for theatre and music than literature, training fully as a classical pianist, his first artistic inspirations arising from the scores of Debussy, Chopin and Beethoven. Later, with his friendship with composer Manuel de Falla
Spanish folklore became his muse. García Lorca did not begin a career in writing until his piano teacher died in 1916 and his first prose works such as "Nocturne", "Ballade" and "Sonata" drew on musical forms.Maurer (2001) px His milieu of young artists gathered in El Rinconcillo at the cafe Alameda in Granada. During 1916 and 1917, García Lorca traveled throughout Castile
, Léon
, and Galicia, in northern Spain, with a professor of his university, who also encouraged him to write his first book, (Impressions and Landscapes – published 1918). Don Fernando de los Rios persuaded García Lorca's parents to allow the boy to enrol at the progressive, Oxbridge
-inspired Residencia de estudiantes
in Madrid
in 1919.
in Madrid
García Lorca befriended Manuel de Falla
, Luis Buñuel
and Salvador Dalí
and many other creative artists who were, or would become, influential across Spain. He was taken under the wing of the poet Juan Ramon Jimenez
, becoming close to playwright Eduardo Marquina
and Gregorio Martínez Sierra
, the Director of Madrid
's Teatro Eslava.In 1919–20, at Sierra's invitation, he wrote and staged his first play, El maleficio de la mariposa (The Butterfly's Evil Spell). It was a verse play dramatising the impossible love between a cockroach and a butterfly, with a supporting cast of other insects; it was laughed off stage by an unappreciative public after only four performances and influenced García Lorca's attitude to the theatre-going public for the rest of his career. He would later claim that Mariana Pineda
, written in 1927, was, in fact, his first play. During the time at the Residencia de estudiantes he pursued degrees in law and philosophy though he had more interest in writing than study.
García Lorca's first book of poems was published in 1921, collecting work written from 1918 and selected with the help of his brother Francisco. They concern the themes of religious faith, isolation and nature that had filled his prose reflections.Maurer (2001) pxi Early in 1922 at Granada García Lorca joined the composer Manuel de Falla
in order to promote the Concurso de Cante Jondo
, a festival dedicated to enhance flamenco
performance. The year before Lorca had begun to write his Poema del cante jondo (Poem of the deep song, not published until 1931), so he naturally composed an essay on the art of flamenco, and began to speak publicly in support of the Concurso. At the music festival in June he met the celebrated Manuel Torre
, a flamenco cantaor. The next year in Granada he also collaborated with Falla and others on the musical production of a play for children, adapted by Lorca from an Andalucian story. Inspired by the same structural form of sequence as "Deep song", his collection Suites (1923) was never finished and not published until 1983.
Over the next few years García Lorca became increasingly involved in Spain's avant-garde. He published poetry collections including Canciones (Songs) and Romancero Gitano (Gypsy Ballads, 1928), which became his best known book of poetry.Maurer (2001) pxii It was a highly stylised imitation of the ballads and poems that were still being told throughout the Spanish countryside. Philologists such as Ramón Menéndez Pidal
worked with him to collect versions from the south, many in existence since the Middle Ages. García Lorca describes the work as a "carved altar piece" of Andalusia with "gypsies, horses, archangels, planets, its Jewish and Roman breezes, rivers, crimes, the everyday touch of the smuggler and the celestial note of the naked children of Córdoba. A book that hardly expresses visible Andalusia at all, but where the hidden Andalusia trembles". In 1928, the book brought him fame across Spain and the Hispanic world, and he only gained notability as a playwright much later. For the rest of his life, the writer would search for the elements of Andaluce culture, trying to find its essence without resorting to the "picturesque" or the cliched use of "local colour".Maurer (2001) pxiii
His second play Mariana Pineda
, with stage settings by Salvador Dalí, opened to great acclaim in Barcelona
in 1927. In 1926, García Lorca wrote the play The Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife
which would not be shown until the early 1930s. It was a farce about fantasy, based on the relationship between a flirtatious, petulant wife and a hen-pecked shoemaker.
From 1925 to 1928 he was passionately involved with Dalí. The friendship with Lorca had a strong element of mutual passion, but Dalí (decades later) rejected the erotic advances of the poet. With the success of "Gypsy Ballads", came an estrangement from Dali and the breakdown of a love affair with sculptor Emilio Soriano Aladrén. These brought on an increasing depression, a situation exacerbated by his anguish over his homosexuality. He felt he was trapped between the persona of the successful author, which he was forced to maintain in public, and the tortured, authentic self, which he could only acknowledge in private. He also had the sense that he was being pigeon-holed as a "gypsy poet". He wrote "The gypsies are a theme. And nothing more. I could just as well be a poet of sewing needles or hydraulic landscapes. Besides, this gypsyism gives me the appearance of an uncultured, ignorant and primitive poet that you know very well I’m not. I don't want to be typecast". Growing estrangement between García Lorca and his closest friends reached its climax when surrealists Dalí and Luis Buñuel
collaborated on their 1929 film Un Chien Andalou
(An Andalusian Dog). García Lorca interpreted it, perhaps erroneously, as a vicious attack upon himself. At this time Dalí also met his future wife Gala
. Aware of these problems (though not perhaps of their causes), García Lorca's family arranged for him to take a lengthy visit to the United States in 1929–30.
In June 1929, García Lorca travelled to America with Fernando de los Rios on the SS Olympic
, a sister liner to the Titanic.They stayed mostly in New York City, where Rios started a lecture tour and García Lorca enrolled at Columbia University School of General Studies
, funded by his parents. He studied English but as before, was more absorbed by writing than study. He also spent time in Vermont and later in Havana, Cuba. His collection Poeta en Nueva York (A poet in New York, published posthumously in 1942) explores alienation and isolation through some graphically experimental poetic techniques and was influenced by the Wall Street crash which he personally witnessed. This condemnation of urban capitalist society and materialistic modernity was a sharp departure from his earlier work and label as a folklorist.Maurer (2001) pxiv His play of this time El Público (The Public) was not published until the late 1970s and has never been published in its entirety, the manuscript lost. However, the Hispanic Society of America in New York City retains several of his personal letters.
García Lorca's return to Spain in 1930 coincided with the fall of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera
and the re-establishment of the Spanish Republic
. In 1931, García Lorca was appointed as director of a university student theatre company, Teatro Universitario la Barraca (The Shack). This was funded by the Second Republic's
Ministry of Education, and it was charged with touring Spain's remotest rural areas in order to introduce audiences to radically modern interpretations of classic Spanish theatre free of charge. With a portable stage, and little equipment, they sought to bring theatre to people who had never seen any, with García Lorca directing as well as acting. He commented: "Outside of Madrid, the theatre, which is in its very essence a part of the life of the people, is almost dead, and the people suffer accordingly, as they would if they had lost their two eyes, or ears, or a sense of taste. We [La Barraca] are going to give it back to them". His experiences of travelling through impoverished rural Spain and New York, (particularly amongst the disenfranchised African American population), transformed him into a passionate advocate of the theatre of social action. He wrote "The theatre is a school of weeping and of laughter, a free forum, where men can question norms that are outmoded or mistaken and explain with living example the eternal norms of the human heart".
While touring with La Barraca, García Lorca wrote his now best-known plays, the Rural Trilogy of Bodas de Sangre
(Blood Wedding), Yerma
and La Casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba), which all rebelled against the norms of bourgeois Spanish society. He called for a rediscovery of the roots of European theatre and the questioning of comfortable conventions such as the popular drawing room comedies of the time. His work challenged the accepted role of women in society and explored taboo issues of homoeroticism and class. García Lorca wrote little poetry in this last period of his life, declaring in 1936, “theatre is poetry that rises from the book and becomes human enough to talk and shout, weep and despair.” Maurer (2001) pxv
Travelling to Buenos Aires in 1933 to give lectures and direct the Argentine premiere of Blood Wedding, García Lorca spoke of his distilled theories on artistic creation and performance in the famous lecture Play and Theory of the Duende. This attempted to define a schema of artistic inspiration, arguing that great art depends upon a vivid awareness of death, connection with a nation's soil, and an acknowledgment of the limitations of reason.
As well as returning to the classical roots of theatre, García Lorca also turned to traditional forms in poetry. His last poetic work Sonnets to his dark love (1936) was inspired by a passion for Rafael Rodriguez Rapun, secretary of La Barraca. The love sonnets are inspired by the 16th century poet San Juan de la Cruz.Maurer (2001) pxvii La Barraca's subsidy was cut in half by the new government in 1934, and its last performance was given in April 1936.
Lorca kept Huerta de San Vicente as his summer house in Granada from 1926 to 1936. Here he wrote, totally or in part, some of his major works, among them When Five Years Pass
(Así que pasen cinco años) (1931), Blood Wedding (Bodas de sangre) (1932), Yerma
(1934) and Diván del Tamarit (1931–1936). The poet lived in the Huerta de San Vicente in the days just before his arrest and assassination in August 1936.
Although García Lorca's artwork doesn't often receive attention he was also a keen artist.
broke out (July 1936).The Spanish political and social climate had greatly intensified after the murder of prominent monarchist and anti-Popular Front
spokesman José Calvo Sotelo
by Republican Assault Guards
(Guardia de Asalto
). García Lorca knew that he would be suspect to the rising right wing for his outspoken liberal views. On 18 August, his brother-in-law, Manuel Fernández-Montesinos, the leftist mayor of Granada, was shot. Lorca was arrested that same afternoon.
It is thought that García Lorca was shot and killed by Nationalist militia on 19 August 1936. The author Ian Gibson
in his book The Assassination of García Lorca alleges that he was shot with three others (Joaquin Arcollas Cabezas, Francisco Galadi Mergal and Dioscoro Galindo Gonzalez) at a place known as the Fuente Grande, or Great Fountain in Spanish, which is on the road between Viznar and Alfacar
.
suggests that García Lorca's assassination was part of a campaign of mass killings intended to eliminate supporters of the Marxist Popular Front
. However, Gibson
proposes that rivalry between the anti-communist Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right
(CEDA) and the Falange
was a major factor in Lorca's death. Former CEDA Parliamentary Deputy Ramon Ruiz Alonso arrested García Lorca at the Rosales' home, and was the one responsible for the original denunciation that led to the arrest warrant being issued.
It has been argued that García Lorca was apolitical and had many friends in both Republican and Nationalist camps. Gibson
disputes this in his 1978 book about the poet's death. He cites, for example, Mundo Obrero
's published manifesto, which Lorca later signed, and alleges that Lorca was an active supporter of the Popular Front
. Lorca read this manifesto out at a banquet in honour of fellow poet Rafael Alberti
on 9 February 1936.
Many anti-communists were sympathetic to Lorca or assisted him. In the days before his arrest he found shelter in the house of the artist and leading Falange
member Luis Rosales
. Indeed, evidence suggests that Rosales was very nearly shot as well for helping García Lorca by the Civil Governor Valdes.The Basque
Communist poet Gabriel Celaya wrote in his memoirs that he once found García Lorca in the company of Falangist José Maria Aizpurua. Celaya further wrote that Lorca dined every Friday with Falangist founder and leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera
. On 11 March 1937 an article appeared in the Falangist press denouncing the murder and lionizing García Lorca; the article opened: "The finest poet of Imperial Spain has been assassinated." Jean-Louis Schonberg also put forward the 'homosexual jealousy' theory. The dossier on the murder, compiled at Franco
's request and referred to by Gibson and others, has yet to surface.
In late October 2009, a team of archaeologists and historians from the University of Granada began excavations outside Alfácar. The site was identified three decades ago by a man who claimed to have helped dig Lorca's grave. Lorca was thought to be buried with at least three other men beside a winding mountain road that connects the villages of Viznar and Alfácar.
There is a growing desire in Spain to come to terms with the civil war
, which for decades was not openly discussed. The judge in the case, Baltasar Garzón
, formally requested local government and churches to open their files on the thousands of people who disappeared during the Civil War and under the dictatorship of General Franco until 1975.
The excavations began at the request of another victim's family. Following a long-standing objection, the Lorca family also gave their permission. In October 2009 Francisco Espinola, a spokesman for the Justice Ministry of the Andalusia
n regional government, said that after years of pressure García Lorca's body would "be exhumed in a matter of weeks". Lorca's relatives, who had initially opposed an exhumation, said they might provide a DNA
sample in order to identify his remains.
In late November 2009, after two weeks of excavating the site, organic material believed to be human bones was recovered. The remains were taken to the University of Granada
for examination. But in mid December 2009, doubts were raised as to whether the poet's remains would be found. The dig produced "not one bone, item of clothing or bullet shell", said Begoña Álvarez, justice minister of Andalucia. She added, "the soil was only 40cm (16in) deep, making it too shallow for a grave".
's Falangist regime placed a general ban on García Lorca's work, which was not rescinded until 1953. That year, a (censored) Obras Completas (Complete works) was released. Following this, Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding), Yerma and La casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba) were successfully played on the main Spanish stages. Obras Completas did not include his late heavily homoerotic Sonnets of Dark Love, written in November 1935 and shared only with close friends. They were lost until 1983/4 when they were finally published in draft form (no final manuscripts have ever been found.) It was only after Franco's death that García Lorca's life and death could be openly discussed in Spain. This was due not only to political censorship, but also to the reluctance of the García Lorca family to allow publication of unfinished poems and plays prior to the publication of a critical edition of his works.
South Africa
n Roman Catholic poet Roy Campbell
, who enthusiastically supported the Nationalists both during and after the Civil War, later produced acclaimed translations of Lorca's work. In his poem, The Martyrdom of F. Garcia Lorca, Campbell wrote,
The Parque Federico Garcia Lorca, in Alfacar, is situated close to Fuente Grande and was the location of the unsuccessful 2009 excavations that failed to locate Lorca´s resting place. Close to the olive tree indicated by some as marking the location of the grave, there is a stone memorial to Federico Garcia Lorca and all victims of the Civil War, 1936-39. Flowers are laid at the memorial every year on the anniversary of his death, and a commemorative event including music and readings of the poet´s works is held every year in the park to mark the anniversary. On the 17th August 2011, to remember the 75th anniversary of Lorca´s assassination and to celebrate his life and legacy, this event included dance, song, poetry and dramatic readings and attracted hundreds of spectators.
At the Barranco de Viznar, between Viznar and Alfacar, there is a memorial stone bearing the words "Lorca eran todos, 18-8-2002". The Barranco de Viznar is the site of mass graves and was proposed as another possible location of the poet´s remains.
García Lorca is honoured by a statue prominently located in Madrid
's Plaza de Santa Ana
. Political philosopher David Crocker reports that "the statue, at least, is still an emblem of the contested past: "each day, the Left puts a red kerchief on the neck of the statue, and someone from the Right comes later to take it off."
The Lorca Foundation, directed by Lorca's niece Laura García Lorca, sponsors the celebration and dissemination of the writer's work and is currently building the Lorca Centre in Madrid
. The Lorca family gave all Lorca's documentation to the foundation which holds it on their behalf.
Generation of '27
The Generation of '27 was an influential group of poets that arose in Spanish literary circles between 1923 and 1927, essentially out of a shared desire to experience and work with avant-garde forms of art and poetry. Their first formal meeting took place in Seville in 1927 to mark the 300th...
. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. In 2008, a Spanish judge opened an investigation into Lorca's death. The Garcia Lorca family eventually dropped objections to the excavation of a potential gravesite near Alfacar
Alfacar
Alfacar is an historic town situated approximately 8 kilometres from the city of Granada, in the autonomous Spanish region of Andalucia. The town is situated on the edge of the Sierra de Huétor Natural Park and is located in a region of intensive olive production...
. However, no human remains were found.
Early years
García Lorca was born on 5 June 1898, in Fuente VaquerosFuente Vaqueros
Fuente Vaqueros is a farming village in the province of Granada, Spain. It lies 17km west of the city of Granada. Its population was recorded in 2005 as 4,590. The principal crops are asparagus, olives and apples....
, a small town a few miles west of Granada
Granada
Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...
, southern Spain.His father, Federico García Rodríguez, was a landowner with a farm in the fertile vega surrounding Granada and a comfortable villa in the heart of the city. García Rodríguez saw his fortunes rise with a boom in the sugar industry. García Lorca's mother, Vincenta Lorca Romero, was a teacher and gifted pianist. In 1909, when the boy was 11, his family moved to the city of Granada. For the rest of his life, he maintained the importance of living close to the natural world, praising his upbringing in the country.Maurer (2001) pix In 1915, after graduating from secondary school, García Lorca attended Sacred Heart University. During this time his studies included law, literature and composition. Throughout his adolescence he felt a deeper affinity for theatre and music than literature, training fully as a classical pianist, his first artistic inspirations arising from the scores of Debussy, Chopin and Beethoven. Later, with his friendship with composer Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....
Spanish folklore became his muse. García Lorca did not begin a career in writing until his piano teacher died in 1916 and his first prose works such as "Nocturne", "Ballade" and "Sonata" drew on musical forms.Maurer (2001) px His milieu of young artists gathered in El Rinconcillo at the cafe Alameda in Granada. During 1916 and 1917, García Lorca traveled throughout Castile
Castile (historical region)
A former kingdom, Castile gradually merged with its neighbours to become the Crown of Castile and later the Kingdom of Spain when united with the Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Navarre...
, Léon
León (historical region)
The region of León or Leonese region is a hitoric territory defined by the 1833 Spanish administrative organisation. The Leonese region encompassed the provinces of Salamanca, Zamora, and León, now part of the modern Spanish autonomous community of Castile and León.-Leonese History:Until 1833, the...
, and Galicia, in northern Spain, with a professor of his university, who also encouraged him to write his first book, (Impressions and Landscapes – published 1918). Don Fernando de los Rios persuaded García Lorca's parents to allow the boy to enrol at the progressive, Oxbridge
Oxbridge
Oxbridge is a portmanteau of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England, and the term is now used to refer to them collectively, often with implications of perceived superior social status...
-inspired Residencia de estudiantes
Residencia de estudiantes
The Residencia de Estudiantes, literally the "Student Residence", is one of the original Spanish cultural centers in Madrid, Spain. During the first half of the twentieth century, the Residence was a prestigious cultural institution that helped foster and create the intellectual environment of...
in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
in 1919.
As a young writer
At the Residencia de estudiantesResidencia de estudiantes
The Residencia de Estudiantes, literally the "Student Residence", is one of the original Spanish cultural centers in Madrid, Spain. During the first half of the twentieth century, the Residence was a prestigious cultural institution that helped foster and create the intellectual environment of...
in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
García Lorca befriended Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....
, Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
and Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
and many other creative artists who were, or would become, influential across Spain. He was taken under the wing of the poet Juan Ramon Jimenez
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón was a Spanish poet, a prolific writer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956. One of Jiménez's most important contributions to modern poetry was his advocacy of the French concept of "pure poetry."-Biography:Jiménez was born in Moguer, near Huelva, in...
, becoming close to playwright Eduardo Marquina
Eduardo Marquina
Eduardo Marquina was a Spanish playwright and poet associated with the Catalan Modernist school.His En Flandes se ha puesto el Sol " was awarded the Royal Spanish Academy's award for historical drama....
and Gregorio Martínez Sierra
Gregorio Martínez Sierra
Gregorio Martínez Sierra , Spanish writer, dramatist and theatre director.A key figure in the revival of the Spanish theatrical avant-garde in the early twentieth century, Gregorio Martínez Sierra was one of the few progressive dramatists whose productions achieved any measure of commercial...
, the Director of Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
's Teatro Eslava.In 1919–20, at Sierra's invitation, he wrote and staged his first play, El maleficio de la mariposa (The Butterfly's Evil Spell). It was a verse play dramatising the impossible love between a cockroach and a butterfly, with a supporting cast of other insects; it was laughed off stage by an unappreciative public after only four performances and influenced García Lorca's attitude to the theatre-going public for the rest of his career. He would later claim that Mariana Pineda
Mariana Pineda
Mariana Pineda is a play by the Spanish playwright and poet Federico García Lorca. It is based on the life of Mariana de Pineda Muñoz, whose republican opposition to Ferdinand VII had become part of the folklore of Granada. The play was written between 1923 and 1925 and was first performed in June...
, written in 1927, was, in fact, his first play. During the time at the Residencia de estudiantes he pursued degrees in law and philosophy though he had more interest in writing than study.
García Lorca's first book of poems was published in 1921, collecting work written from 1918 and selected with the help of his brother Francisco. They concern the themes of religious faith, isolation and nature that had filled his prose reflections.Maurer (2001) pxi Early in 1922 at Granada García Lorca joined the composer Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....
in order to promote the Concurso de Cante Jondo
Concurso de Cante Jondo
El Concurso del Cante Jondo was a well-known celebration of the art of flamenco, its music, song, and dance, held in Granada, Andalusia on Corpus Christi, the 13th and 14th of June, 1922.-Falla's purpose:...
, a festival dedicated to enhance flamenco
Flamenco
Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
performance. The year before Lorca had begun to write his Poema del cante jondo (Poem of the deep song, not published until 1931), so he naturally composed an essay on the art of flamenco, and began to speak publicly in support of the Concurso. At the music festival in June he met the celebrated Manuel Torre
Manuel Torre
Manuel Soto Loreto, known as Manuel Torre or Manuel Torres , was a Romani flamenco singer.- Beginning :...
, a flamenco cantaor. The next year in Granada he also collaborated with Falla and others on the musical production of a play for children, adapted by Lorca from an Andalucian story. Inspired by the same structural form of sequence as "Deep song", his collection Suites (1923) was never finished and not published until 1983.
Over the next few years García Lorca became increasingly involved in Spain's avant-garde. He published poetry collections including Canciones (Songs) and Romancero Gitano (Gypsy Ballads, 1928), which became his best known book of poetry.Maurer (2001) pxii It was a highly stylised imitation of the ballads and poems that were still being told throughout the Spanish countryside. Philologists such as Ramón Menéndez Pidal
Ramón Menéndez Pidal
Ramón Menéndez Pidal was a Spanish philologist and historian. He worked extensively on the history of the Spanish language and Spanish folklore and folk poetry. One of his main topics was the history and legend of The Cid....
worked with him to collect versions from the south, many in existence since the Middle Ages. García Lorca describes the work as a "carved altar piece" of Andalusia with "gypsies, horses, archangels, planets, its Jewish and Roman breezes, rivers, crimes, the everyday touch of the smuggler and the celestial note of the naked children of Córdoba. A book that hardly expresses visible Andalusia at all, but where the hidden Andalusia trembles". In 1928, the book brought him fame across Spain and the Hispanic world, and he only gained notability as a playwright much later. For the rest of his life, the writer would search for the elements of Andaluce culture, trying to find its essence without resorting to the "picturesque" or the cliched use of "local colour".Maurer (2001) pxiii
His second play Mariana Pineda
Mariana Pineda
Mariana Pineda is a play by the Spanish playwright and poet Federico García Lorca. It is based on the life of Mariana de Pineda Muñoz, whose republican opposition to Ferdinand VII had become part of the folklore of Granada. The play was written between 1923 and 1925 and was first performed in June...
, with stage settings by Salvador Dalí, opened to great acclaim in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
in 1927. In 1926, García Lorca wrote the play The Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife
The Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife (play)
The Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife , also known as The Shoemaker's Wonderful Wife and The Shoemaker's Prosperous Wife, is a play by the twentieth-century Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca...
which would not be shown until the early 1930s. It was a farce about fantasy, based on the relationship between a flirtatious, petulant wife and a hen-pecked shoemaker.
From 1925 to 1928 he was passionately involved with Dalí. The friendship with Lorca had a strong element of mutual passion, but Dalí (decades later) rejected the erotic advances of the poet. With the success of "Gypsy Ballads", came an estrangement from Dali and the breakdown of a love affair with sculptor Emilio Soriano Aladrén. These brought on an increasing depression, a situation exacerbated by his anguish over his homosexuality. He felt he was trapped between the persona of the successful author, which he was forced to maintain in public, and the tortured, authentic self, which he could only acknowledge in private. He also had the sense that he was being pigeon-holed as a "gypsy poet". He wrote "The gypsies are a theme. And nothing more. I could just as well be a poet of sewing needles or hydraulic landscapes. Besides, this gypsyism gives me the appearance of an uncultured, ignorant and primitive poet that you know very well I’m not. I don't want to be typecast". Growing estrangement between García Lorca and his closest friends reached its climax when surrealists Dalí and Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
collaborated on their 1929 film Un Chien Andalou
Un chien andalou
Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 to a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months....
(An Andalusian Dog). García Lorca interpreted it, perhaps erroneously, as a vicious attack upon himself. At this time Dalí also met his future wife Gala
Gala Dalí
Gala Dalí , usually known simply as Gala, was the wife of first Paul Éluard, then Salvador Dalí, and an inspiration for them and many other writers and artists.- Early years :...
. Aware of these problems (though not perhaps of their causes), García Lorca's family arranged for him to take a lengthy visit to the United States in 1929–30.
In June 1929, García Lorca travelled to America with Fernando de los Rios on the SS Olympic
RMS Olympic
RMS Olympic was the lead ship of the Olympic-class ocean liners built for the White Star Line, which also included Titanic and Britannic...
, a sister liner to the Titanic.They stayed mostly in New York City, where Rios started a lecture tour and García Lorca enrolled at Columbia University School of General Studies
Columbia University School of General Studies
The School of General Studies, commonly known as General Studies or simply GS, is one of the three official undergraduate colleges at Columbia University. It is a highly selective Ivy League undergraduate liberal arts college designed for non-traditional students and confers Bachelor of Art and...
, funded by his parents. He studied English but as before, was more absorbed by writing than study. He also spent time in Vermont and later in Havana, Cuba. His collection Poeta en Nueva York (A poet in New York, published posthumously in 1942) explores alienation and isolation through some graphically experimental poetic techniques and was influenced by the Wall Street crash which he personally witnessed. This condemnation of urban capitalist society and materialistic modernity was a sharp departure from his earlier work and label as a folklorist.Maurer (2001) pxiv His play of this time El Público (The Public) was not published until the late 1970s and has never been published in its entirety, the manuscript lost. However, the Hispanic Society of America in New York City retains several of his personal letters.
The Republic
Miguel Primo de Rivera
Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquis of Estella, 22nd Count of Sobremonte, Knight of Calatrava was a Spanish dictator, aristocrat, and a military official who was appointed Prime Minister by the King and who for seven years was a dictator, ending the turno system of alternating...
and the re-establishment of the Spanish Republic
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
. In 1931, García Lorca was appointed as director of a university student theatre company, Teatro Universitario la Barraca (The Shack). This was funded by the Second Republic's
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
Ministry of Education, and it was charged with touring Spain's remotest rural areas in order to introduce audiences to radically modern interpretations of classic Spanish theatre free of charge. With a portable stage, and little equipment, they sought to bring theatre to people who had never seen any, with García Lorca directing as well as acting. He commented: "Outside of Madrid, the theatre, which is in its very essence a part of the life of the people, is almost dead, and the people suffer accordingly, as they would if they had lost their two eyes, or ears, or a sense of taste. We [La Barraca] are going to give it back to them". His experiences of travelling through impoverished rural Spain and New York, (particularly amongst the disenfranchised African American population), transformed him into a passionate advocate of the theatre of social action. He wrote "The theatre is a school of weeping and of laughter, a free forum, where men can question norms that are outmoded or mistaken and explain with living example the eternal norms of the human heart".
While touring with La Barraca, García Lorca wrote his now best-known plays, the Rural Trilogy of Bodas de Sangre
Bodas de sangre
Blood Wedding is a tragedy by the Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. It was written in 1932 and first performed in Madrid in March 1933 and later that year in Buenos Aires...
(Blood Wedding), Yerma
Yerma
Yerma is a play by the Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. It was written in 1934, and first performed that same year. Lorca describes the play as "a tragic poem."-Plot:...
and La Casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba), which all rebelled against the norms of bourgeois Spanish society. He called for a rediscovery of the roots of European theatre and the questioning of comfortable conventions such as the popular drawing room comedies of the time. His work challenged the accepted role of women in society and explored taboo issues of homoeroticism and class. García Lorca wrote little poetry in this last period of his life, declaring in 1936, “theatre is poetry that rises from the book and becomes human enough to talk and shout, weep and despair.” Maurer (2001) pxv
Travelling to Buenos Aires in 1933 to give lectures and direct the Argentine premiere of Blood Wedding, García Lorca spoke of his distilled theories on artistic creation and performance in the famous lecture Play and Theory of the Duende. This attempted to define a schema of artistic inspiration, arguing that great art depends upon a vivid awareness of death, connection with a nation's soil, and an acknowledgment of the limitations of reason.
As well as returning to the classical roots of theatre, García Lorca also turned to traditional forms in poetry. His last poetic work Sonnets to his dark love (1936) was inspired by a passion for Rafael Rodriguez Rapun, secretary of La Barraca. The love sonnets are inspired by the 16th century poet San Juan de la Cruz.Maurer (2001) pxvii La Barraca's subsidy was cut in half by the new government in 1934, and its last performance was given in April 1936.
Lorca kept Huerta de San Vicente as his summer house in Granada from 1926 to 1936. Here he wrote, totally or in part, some of his major works, among them When Five Years Pass
When Five Years Pass
When Five Years Pass , also known as If Five Years Pass and When Five Years Have Passed, is a play by the twentieth-century Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. It was written in 1931 but was not given a professional theatrical production until several years after Lorca's death, despite plans...
(Así que pasen cinco años) (1931), Blood Wedding (Bodas de sangre) (1932), Yerma
Yerma
Yerma is a play by the Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. It was written in 1934, and first performed that same year. Lorca describes the play as "a tragic poem."-Plot:...
(1934) and Diván del Tamarit (1931–1936). The poet lived in the Huerta de San Vicente in the days just before his arrest and assassination in August 1936.
Although García Lorca's artwork doesn't often receive attention he was also a keen artist.
Death
García Lorca left Madrid for his family home in Granada only three days before the Spanish Civil WarSpanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
broke out (July 1936).The Spanish political and social climate had greatly intensified after the murder of prominent monarchist and anti-Popular Front
Popular Front (Spain)
The Popular Front in Spain's Second Republic was an electoral coalition and pact signed in January 1936 by various left-wing political organisations, instigated by Manuel Azaña for the purpose of contesting that year's election....
spokesman José Calvo Sotelo
José Calvo Sotelo
José Calvo Sotelo, 1st Duke of Calvo Sotelo was a Spanish politician prior to and during the Second Spanish Republic...
by Republican Assault Guards
Guardia de Asalto
The Guardia de Asalto , usually shortened to Los Asaltos or just Asaltos, were the blue-uniformed urban police force of Spain during the Spanish Second Republic. It was the urban analogue to the green-uniformed Guardia Civil which patrolled the countryside. The Assault Guards were special police...
(Guardia de Asalto
Guardia de Asalto
The Guardia de Asalto , usually shortened to Los Asaltos or just Asaltos, were the blue-uniformed urban police force of Spain during the Spanish Second Republic. It was the urban analogue to the green-uniformed Guardia Civil which patrolled the countryside. The Assault Guards were special police...
). García Lorca knew that he would be suspect to the rising right wing for his outspoken liberal views. On 18 August, his brother-in-law, Manuel Fernández-Montesinos, the leftist mayor of Granada, was shot. Lorca was arrested that same afternoon.
It is thought that García Lorca was shot and killed by Nationalist militia on 19 August 1936. The author Ian Gibson
Ian Gibson (author)
Ian Gibson is an Irish author and Hispanist known for his biographies of Antonio Machado, Salvador Dalí, Henry Spencer Ashbee, and particularly his work on Federico García Lorca, for which he won several awards, including the 1989 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography...
in his book The Assassination of García Lorca alleges that he was shot with three others (Joaquin Arcollas Cabezas, Francisco Galadi Mergal and Dioscoro Galindo Gonzalez) at a place known as the Fuente Grande, or Great Fountain in Spanish, which is on the road between Viznar and Alfacar
Alfacar
Alfacar is an historic town situated approximately 8 kilometres from the city of Granada, in the autonomous Spanish region of Andalucia. The town is situated on the edge of the Sierra de Huétor Natural Park and is located in a region of intensive olive production...
.
Motives for assassination
Significant controversy remains about the motives and details of Lorca's murder. Personal, non-political motives have also been suggested. García Lorca's biographer, Stainton, states that his killers made remarks about his sexual orientation, suggesting that it played a role in his death. Ian GibsonIan Gibson (author)
Ian Gibson is an Irish author and Hispanist known for his biographies of Antonio Machado, Salvador Dalí, Henry Spencer Ashbee, and particularly his work on Federico García Lorca, for which he won several awards, including the 1989 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography...
suggests that García Lorca's assassination was part of a campaign of mass killings intended to eliminate supporters of the Marxist Popular Front
Popular Front (Spain)
The Popular Front in Spain's Second Republic was an electoral coalition and pact signed in January 1936 by various left-wing political organisations, instigated by Manuel Azaña for the purpose of contesting that year's election....
. However, Gibson
Ian Gibson (author)
Ian Gibson is an Irish author and Hispanist known for his biographies of Antonio Machado, Salvador Dalí, Henry Spencer Ashbee, and particularly his work on Federico García Lorca, for which he won several awards, including the 1989 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography...
proposes that rivalry between the anti-communist Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right
Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right
The Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right was a Spanish political party in the Second Spanish Republic. A Catholic conservative force, it was the political heir to Angel Herrera Oria's Acción Popular and defined itself in terms of the 'affirmation and defence of the principles of Christian...
(CEDA) and the Falange
Falange
The Spanish Phalanx of the Assemblies of the National Syndicalist Offensive , known simply as the Falange, is the name assigned to several political movements and parties dating from the 1930s, most particularly the original fascist movement in Spain. The word means phalanx formation in Spanish....
was a major factor in Lorca's death. Former CEDA Parliamentary Deputy Ramon Ruiz Alonso arrested García Lorca at the Rosales' home, and was the one responsible for the original denunciation that led to the arrest warrant being issued.
It has been argued that García Lorca was apolitical and had many friends in both Republican and Nationalist camps. Gibson
Ian Gibson (author)
Ian Gibson is an Irish author and Hispanist known for his biographies of Antonio Machado, Salvador Dalí, Henry Spencer Ashbee, and particularly his work on Federico García Lorca, for which he won several awards, including the 1989 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography...
disputes this in his 1978 book about the poet's death. He cites, for example, Mundo Obrero
Mundo Obrero
Mundo Obrero is the periodical of the Communist Party of Spain . It is edited monthly and contains articles related to the Spanish and international political situations, the opinions of the different bodies of the party as well as relevant party members, and on the activities of the Party and the...
's published manifesto, which Lorca later signed, and alleges that Lorca was an active supporter of the Popular Front
Popular Front (Spain)
The Popular Front in Spain's Second Republic was an electoral coalition and pact signed in January 1936 by various left-wing political organisations, instigated by Manuel Azaña for the purpose of contesting that year's election....
. Lorca read this manifesto out at a banquet in honour of fellow poet Rafael Alberti
Rafael Alberti
Rafael Alberti Merello was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27....
on 9 February 1936.
Many anti-communists were sympathetic to Lorca or assisted him. In the days before his arrest he found shelter in the house of the artist and leading Falange
Falange
The Spanish Phalanx of the Assemblies of the National Syndicalist Offensive , known simply as the Falange, is the name assigned to several political movements and parties dating from the 1930s, most particularly the original fascist movement in Spain. The word means phalanx formation in Spanish....
member Luis Rosales
Luis Rosales
Luis Rosales Camacho was a Spanish poet and essay writer member of the Generation of '36. Member of the Hispanic Society of America and the Royal Spanish Academy since 1962...
. Indeed, evidence suggests that Rosales was very nearly shot as well for helping García Lorca by the Civil Governor Valdes.The Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
Communist poet Gabriel Celaya wrote in his memoirs that he once found García Lorca in the company of Falangist José Maria Aizpurua. Celaya further wrote that Lorca dined every Friday with Falangist founder and leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera
José Antonio Primo de Rivera
José Antonio Primo de Rivera y Sáenz de Heredia, 1st Duke of Primo de Rivera, 3rd Marquis of Estella , was a Spanish lawyer, nobleman, politician, and founder of the Falange Española...
. On 11 March 1937 an article appeared in the Falangist press denouncing the murder and lionizing García Lorca; the article opened: "The finest poet of Imperial Spain has been assassinated." Jean-Louis Schonberg also put forward the 'homosexual jealousy' theory. The dossier on the murder, compiled at Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
's request and referred to by Gibson and others, has yet to surface.
Excavation at Alfácar
In late October 2009, a team of archaeologists and historians from the University of Granada began excavations outside Alfácar. The site was identified three decades ago by a man who claimed to have helped dig Lorca's grave. Lorca was thought to be buried with at least three other men beside a winding mountain road that connects the villages of Viznar and Alfácar.
There is a growing desire in Spain to come to terms with the civil war
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, which for decades was not openly discussed. The judge in the case, Baltasar Garzón
Baltasar Garzón
Baltasar Garzón Real is a Spanish jurist who served on Spain's central criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional. He was the examining magistrate of the Juzgado Central de Instrucción No...
, formally requested local government and churches to open their files on the thousands of people who disappeared during the Civil War and under the dictatorship of General Franco until 1975.
The excavations began at the request of another victim's family. Following a long-standing objection, the Lorca family also gave their permission. In October 2009 Francisco Espinola, a spokesman for the Justice Ministry of the Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
n regional government, said that after years of pressure García Lorca's body would "be exhumed in a matter of weeks". Lorca's relatives, who had initially opposed an exhumation, said they might provide a DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
sample in order to identify his remains.
In late November 2009, after two weeks of excavating the site, organic material believed to be human bones was recovered. The remains were taken to the University of Granada
University of Granada
The University of Granada is a public university located in Granada, Spain that enrolls approximately 80,000 students. The university also has campuses in Ceuta and Melilla. Every year, over 2,000 European students enroll in the UGR through the Erasmus Programme, making it the most popular...
for examination. But in mid December 2009, doubts were raised as to whether the poet's remains would be found. The dig produced "not one bone, item of clothing or bullet shell", said Begoña Álvarez, justice minister of Andalucia. She added, "the soil was only 40cm (16in) deep, making it too shallow for a grave".
Censorship
Francisco FrancoFrancisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
's Falangist regime placed a general ban on García Lorca's work, which was not rescinded until 1953. That year, a (censored) Obras Completas (Complete works) was released. Following this, Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding), Yerma and La casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba) were successfully played on the main Spanish stages. Obras Completas did not include his late heavily homoerotic Sonnets of Dark Love, written in November 1935 and shared only with close friends. They were lost until 1983/4 when they were finally published in draft form (no final manuscripts have ever been found.) It was only after Franco's death that García Lorca's life and death could be openly discussed in Spain. This was due not only to political censorship, but also to the reluctance of the García Lorca family to allow publication of unfinished poems and plays prior to the publication of a critical edition of his works.
South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n Roman Catholic poet Roy Campbell
Roy Campbell (poet)
Ignatius Royston Dunnachie Campbell, better known as Roy Campbell, was an Anglo-African poet and satirist. He was considered by T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and Edith Sitwell to have been one of the best poets of the period between the First and Second World Wars...
, who enthusiastically supported the Nationalists both during and after the Civil War, later produced acclaimed translations of Lorca's work. In his poem, The Martyrdom of F. Garcia Lorca, Campbell wrote,
- Not only did he lose his life
- By shots assassinated:
- But with a hammer and a knife
- Was after that -- translated.
Memorials
In Granada, the city of his birth, the Parque Federico Garcia Lorca is dedicated to his memory and includes the Huerta de San Vicente, the Lorca family summer home, opened to the public in 1995 as a museum. The grounds, including nearly two hectares of land, the two adjoining houses, artworks and the original furnishings have been preserved. There is a new statue of Lorca on the Avenida de la Constitución in the city centre, and a new cultural centre bearing his name is currently under construction and will play a major role in preserving and disseminating his works.The Parque Federico Garcia Lorca, in Alfacar, is situated close to Fuente Grande and was the location of the unsuccessful 2009 excavations that failed to locate Lorca´s resting place. Close to the olive tree indicated by some as marking the location of the grave, there is a stone memorial to Federico Garcia Lorca and all victims of the Civil War, 1936-39. Flowers are laid at the memorial every year on the anniversary of his death, and a commemorative event including music and readings of the poet´s works is held every year in the park to mark the anniversary. On the 17th August 2011, to remember the 75th anniversary of Lorca´s assassination and to celebrate his life and legacy, this event included dance, song, poetry and dramatic readings and attracted hundreds of spectators.
At the Barranco de Viznar, between Viznar and Alfacar, there is a memorial stone bearing the words "Lorca eran todos, 18-8-2002". The Barranco de Viznar is the site of mass graves and was proposed as another possible location of the poet´s remains.
García Lorca is honoured by a statue prominently located in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
's Plaza de Santa Ana
Plaza de Santa Ana
Plaza de Santa Ana is a plaza located in central Madrid, Spain, nearby Puerta del Sol and Calle de Huertas, in the Barrio de las Letras. It features monuments to Spanish Golden Age writer Pedro Calderón de la Barca and the Granadian poet Federico García Lorca and numerous restaurants, cafes and...
. Political philosopher David Crocker reports that "the statue, at least, is still an emblem of the contested past: "each day, the Left puts a red kerchief on the neck of the statue, and someone from the Right comes later to take it off."
The Lorca Foundation, directed by Lorca's niece Laura García Lorca, sponsors the celebration and dissemination of the writer's work and is currently building the Lorca Centre in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
. The Lorca family gave all Lorca's documentation to the foundation which holds it on their behalf.
Poetry collections
- (Impressions and Landscapes 1918)
- Libro de poemas (Book of Poems 1921)
- Poema del cante jondo (Poem of Deep Song; written in 1921 but not published until 1931)
- Suites (written between 1920 and 1923, published posthumously in 1983)
- Canciones (Songs written between 1921 and 1924, published in 1927)
- Romancero gitano (Gypsy Ballads 1928)
- Odes (written 1928)
- Poeta en Nueva York (written 1930 - published posthumously in 1940, first translation into English as The Poet in New YorkPoet in New YorkPoet in New York is one of the most important works of Spanish author Federico García Lorca. It is a body of poems composed during the visit of the poet to Columbia University in New York in the years 1929/1930. During his stay the stockmarket crashed in October 1929, an event which profoundly...
1940) - Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías (Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías 1935)
- Seis poemas gallegos (Six Galician poems 1935)
- Sonetos del amor oscuro (Sonnets of Dark Love 1936, not published until 1983)
- Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter and Other Poems (1937)
- Primeras canciones (First Songs 1936)
- The Tamarit Divan (poems written 1931-4 and not published until after his death in a special edition of Revista Hispanica Moderna in 1940).
- Selected Poems (1941)
Select translations
- Poem of the Deep Song - Poema del Canto Jondo, translated by Carlos Bauer (includes original Spanish verses). City Lights Books, 1987 ISBN 0-87286-205-4
- Poem of the Deep Song, translated by Ralph Angel. Sarabande Books, 2006 ISBN 1-932511-40-7
- Gypsy Ballads: A Version of the Romancero Gitano of Frederico García Lorca Translated by Michael Hartnett. Goldsmith Press 1973
Plays
- Christ: A Religious Tragedy (unfinished 1917)
- El maleficio de la mariposa (The Butterfly's Evil Spell: written 1919–20, first production 1920)
- Los títeres de Cachiporra (The Billy-Club Puppets: written 1922-5, first production 1937)
- Retablillo de Don Cristóbal (The Puppet Play of Don Cristóbal: written 1923, first production 1935)
- Mariana PinedaMariana PinedaMariana Pineda is a play by the Spanish playwright and poet Federico García Lorca. It is based on the life of Mariana de Pineda Muñoz, whose republican opposition to Ferdinand VII had become part of the folklore of Granada. The play was written between 1923 and 1925 and was first performed in June...
(written 1923–25, first production 1927) - La zapatera prodigiosa (The Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife: written 1926–30, first production 1930, revised 1933)
- Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín (Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in his Garden: written 1928, first production 1933)
- El públicoEl públicoThe Public , also known as The Audience, is a surrealist play by the twentieth-century Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. It was written between 1929 and 1930, but remained unpublished until 1978 and did not receive its first professional theatrical production until 1986...
(The Public: written 1929–30, first production 1972) - Así que pasen cinco años (When Five Years Pass: written 1931, first production 1945)
- Bodas de sangreBodas de sangreBlood Wedding is a tragedy by the Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. It was written in 1932 and first performed in Madrid in March 1933 and later that year in Buenos Aires...
(Blood Wedding: written 1932, first production 1933) - YermaYermaYerma is a play by the Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. It was written in 1934, and first performed that same year. Lorca describes the play as "a tragic poem."-Plot:...
(written 1934, first production 1934) - Doña Rosita la soltera (Doña Rosita the Spinster: written 1935, first production 1935)
- Comedia sin título (Play Without a Title: written 1936, first production 1986)
- La casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba: written 1936, first production 1945)
- Los sueños de mi prima Aurelia (Dreams of my Cousin Aurelia: unfinished 1938)
Short plays
- El paseo de Buster Keaton (Buster KeatonBuster KeatonJoseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
goes for a stroll 1928) - La doncella, el marinero y el estudiante (The Maiden, the Sailor and the Student 1928)
- Quimera (Dream 1928)
Operas
- Lola, la Comedianta (Lola, the Actress, unfinished collaboration with Manuel de FallaManuel de FallaManuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....
1923)
Drawings and paintings
- Salvador Dalí, 1925. 160x140mm. Ink and colored pencil on paper. Private collection, Barcelona, Spain
- Bust of a Dead Man, 1932. Ink and colored pencil on paper. Dimension and location unknown.
Poetry based on Lorca
- Greek poet Nikos KavvadiasNikos KavvadiasNikos Kavvadias was a Greek poet and writer; currently one of the most popular poets in Greece, who used his travels around the world as a sailor, and life at sea and its adventures, as powerful metaphors for the escape of ordinary people outside the boundaries of reality.- Early life and...
's poem Federico García Lorca, in Kavvadias' Marabu collection, is dedicated to the memory of García Lorca and juxtaposes his death with war crimes in the village of DistomoDistomoDistomo , older forms: Distomon is a municipality in the Boeotia Prefecture, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Distomo-Arachova-Antikyra, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
, Greece, and in Kessariani in AthensAthensAthens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, where the Nazis executed over two hundred people in each city. - Hungarian poet Miklós RadnótiMiklós RadnótiMiklós Radnóti, birth name Miklós Glatter was a Hungarian poet who died in The Holocaust.-Personality and early life:...
also wrote a poem about García Lorca in 1937 entitled Federico García Lorca. - The New York based Spanish language poet Giannina BraschiGiannina BraschiGiannina Braschi is a Puerto Rican writer. She is credited with writing the first Spanglish novel YO-YO BOING! and the poetry trilogy Empire of Dreams , which chronicles the Latin American immigrant's experiences in the United States...
published El imperio de los sueños, a poetic homage to Poet in New York (1st edition: Anthropos editorial del hombre, 1988; 2nd edition: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico). - Bob KaufmanBob KaufmanBob Kaufman , born Robert Garnell Kaufman, was an American Beat poet and surrealist inspired by jazz music. In France, where his poetry had a large following, he was known as the "American Rimbaud."-Biography:...
and Gary Mex GlaznerGary Mex GlaznerGary Mex Glazner, born 1957, is a poet and author. He was the Managing Director of the Bowery Poetry Club in New York City, 2007 to 2010.In 1990, Glazner working as a florist in San Francisco...
have both written tribute poems entitled Lorca. - Harold NorseHarold NorseHarold Norse was an American writer who created a body of work using the American idiom of everyday language and images. One of the expatriate artists of the Beat generation, Norse was widely published and anthologized.- Life :Born Harold Rosen to an unmarried Lithuanian Jewish immigrant in Brooklyn...
has a poem, We Bumped Off Your Friend the Poet, inspired by a review of Ian Gibson'sIan Gibson (author)Ian Gibson is an Irish author and Hispanist known for his biographies of Antonio Machado, Salvador Dalí, Henry Spencer Ashbee, and particularly his work on Federico García Lorca, for which he won several awards, including the 1989 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography...
Death of Lorca. The poem first appeared in Hotel Nirvana, and more recently in In the Hub of the Fiery Force, Collected Poems of Harold Norse 1934–2003 - The Spanish poet Antonio MachadoAntonio MachadoAntonio Cipriano José María y Francisco de Santa Ana Machado y Ruiz, known as Antonio Machado was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98....
wrote the poem El Crimen Fue en GranadaGranadaGranada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...
, in reference to García Lorca's death. - The Turkish poet Turgut Uyar wrote the poem Three Poems For Federico García Lorca including a line in Spanish:obra completas
- The Irish poet Michael HartnettMichael HartnettMichael Hartnett was an Irish poet who wrote in both English and Irish. He was one of the most significant voices in late 20th century Irish writing and has been called "Munster's de facto poet laureate"....
published an English translation of García Lorca's poetry. García Lorca is also a recurring character in much of Hartnett's poetry, most notably in the poem A Farewell to English.. - Deep imageDeep imageDeep image is a term coined by U.S. poets Jerome Rothenberg and Robert Kelly in the second issue of Trobar in 1961. They used it to describe poetry written by them and by Diane Wakoski and Clayton Eshleman....
, a poetic form coined by Jerome RothenbergJerome RothenbergJerome Rothenberg is an internationally known American poet, translator and anthologist who is noted for his work in ethnopoetics and poetry performance.-Early life and work:...
and Robert KellyRobert Kelly (poet)Robert Kelly is an American poet associated with the deep image group.-Early life and education:Kelly was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Samuel Jason and Margaret Rose Kelly née Kane, in 1935. He did his undergraduate studies at the City College of the City University of New York, graduating in 1955...
, is inspired by García Lorca's Deep Song. - VietnameseVietnamese peopleThe Vietnamese people are an ethnic group originating from present-day northern Vietnam and southern China. They are the majority ethnic group of Vietnam, comprising 86% of the population as of the 1999 census, and are officially known as Kinh to distinguish them from other ethnic groups in Vietnam...
poet Thanh Thao wrote The guitar of Lorca and was set to music by Thanh Tung. - A Canadian poet named John Mackenzie published several poems inspired by García Lorca in his collection Letters I Didn't Write, including one titled Lorca's Lament.
- In 1945, Greek poet Odysseas ElytisOdysseas ElytisOdysseas Elytis was regarded as a major exponent of romantic modernism in Greece and the world. In 1979 he was bestowed with the Nobel Prize in Literature.-Biography:...
(Nobel Prize for Literature, 1979) translated and published part of García Lorca's Romancero Gitano. - Pablo NerudaPablo NerudaPablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda....
wrote Ode to Federico García Lorca (1935) and Eulogy For Federico García Lorca. - Robert CreeleyRobert CreeleyRobert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...
wrote a poem called "After Lorca" (1952) - Jack SpicerJack SpicerJack Spicer was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer won the American Book Award for poetry.-Life and work:...
wrote a book of poems called "After Lorca" (1957). - The Russian poet Yevgeni Yevtushenko wrote the poem "When they murdered Lorca" ("Когда убили Лорку") in which he portrays Lorca as being akin to Don Quixote—an immortal symbol of one's devotion to his ideals and perpetual struggle for them.
- British poet John SiddiqueJohn Siddique-Personal life:Siddique was born to an Indian Muslim father and an Irish Catholic mother, He has said in interviews that he regards his true countries of birth to be 'literature and language.' The family struggled with poverty from which the young Siddique sought refuge in the world of books...
wrote "Desire for Sight (After Lorca)" included in Poems from a Northern Soul
Musical works based on Lorca
- Spanish flamenco singer Camarón de la IslaCamarón de la IslaCamarón de la Isla , was the stage name of a spanish flamenco singer José Monje Cruz who is sometimes also credited as Camarón de la Isla....
's album "La leyenda del tiempo" contains lyrics written by or based on works by Lorca and much of the album is about his legacy. - Mexican composer Silvestre RevueltasSilvestre RevueltasSilvestre Revueltas Sánchez was a Mexican composer of classical music, a violinist and a conductor.-Life:...
composed Homenaje a Federico García Lorca (a 3 movement work for chamber orchestra) shortly after García Lorca's death, performing the work in Spain during 1937. - The Italian avant garde composer Luigi NonoLuigi NonoLuigi Nono was an Italian avant-garde composer of classical music and remains one of the most prominent composers of the 20th century.- Early years :Born in Venice, he was a member of a wealthy artistic family, and his grandfather was a notable painter...
wrote a composition in 1953 entitled Epitaffio per Federico García Lorca. - The American composer George CrumbGeorge CrumbGeorge Crumb is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. Examples include seagull effect for the cello , metallic vibrato for the piano George Crumb (born...
utilizes much of García Lorca's poetry in works such as his Ancient Voices of Children, his four books of Madrigals, and parts of his Makrokosmos. - Composer Osvaldo GolijovOsvaldo GolijovOsvaldo Noé Golijov is a Grammy award–winning composer of classical music.-Biography:Osvaldo Golijov was born in and grew up in La Plata, Argentina, in a Jewish family that had emigrated to Argentina in the 1920s from Romania and Russia.Golijov has developed a rich musical language, the result of...
and playwright David Henry HwangDavid Henry HwangDavid Henry Hwang is an American playwright who has risen to prominence as the preeminent Asian American dramatist in the U.S.He was born in Los Angeles, California and was educated at the Yale School of Drama and Stanford University...
wrote the one-act opera AinadamarAinadamarAinadamar means "Fountain of Tears" in Arabic, and is the first opera by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov. The libretto is by American playwright David Henry Hwang. It premiered in Tanglewood on August 10, 2003. After major revisions, the new version premiered at the Santa Fe Opera on July 30,...
("Fountain of Tears") about the death of García Lorca, recalled years later by his friend the actress Margarita XirguMargarita XirguMargarita Xirgu, also Margarida Xirgu was a Catalan stage actress, who was greatly popular throughout her country and Latin America. A friend of the poet Federico García Lorca, she was forced into exile during Francisco Franco's dictatorship of Spain, but continued her work in America...
, who could not save him. It opened in 2003, with a revised version in 2005. A recording of the work released in 2006 on the Deutsche GrammophonDeutsche GrammophonDeutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
label (Catalog #642902) won the 2007 Grammy awards for Best Classical Contemporary Composition and Best Opera Recording. - Finnish modernist composer Einojuhani RautavaaraEinojuhani RautavaaraEinojuhani Rautavaara is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius.-Life:...
has composed Suite de Lorca ("Lorca-sarja") for a mixed choir to the lyrics of García Lorca's poems Canción de jinete, El grito, La luna asoma and Malagueña (1972). - The PoguesThe PoguesThe Pogues are a Celtic punk band, formed in 1982 and fronted by Shane MacGowan. The band reached international prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. MacGowan left the band in 1991 due to drinking problems but the band continued first with Joe Strummer and then with Spider Stacy on vocals before...
dramatically retell the story of his murder in the song 'Lorca's Novena' on their Hell's DitchHell's DitchHell's Ditch is the fifth full-length album by The Pogues, and the last to feature front man Shane MacGowan as a member. Released in 1990, the album continued the group's slow departure from Irish music, giving more emphasis to rock and straight folk rock, and forsaking their earlier staples of...
album. - Reginald Smith BrindleReginald Smith BrindleReginald Smith Brindle was a British composer and writer.Smith Brindle began learning the piano at the age of six, and later took up the clarinet, saxophone and guitar . Under pressure from his parents, he began to study architecture...
composed the guitar piece Four Poems of Garcia Lorca (1975) and El Polifemo de Oro (for guitar, 1982) based on two Lorca poems Adivinanza de la Guitarra and Las Seis Cuerdas - Composer Dmitri ShostakovichDmitri ShostakovichDmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
wrote the first two movements of his 14th SymphonySymphony No. 14 (Shostakovich)The Symphony No. 14 by Dmitri Shostakovich was completed in the spring of 1969, and was premiered later that year. It is a sombre work for soprano, bass and a small string orchestra with percussion, consisting of eleven linked settings of poems by four authors. Most of the poems deal with the...
based around García Lorca poems. - The French composer Maurice OhanaMaurice OhanaMaurice Ohana was an Anglo-French composer of Sephardic Jewish origin.Ohana was born in Casablanca, Morocco. He was a British citizen until 1976, as his father had been born in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. He originally studied architecture, but abandoned this in favour of a...
set to music García Lorca's poem Lament for the death of a Bullfighter (Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías) recorded by the conductor Ataúlfo ArgentaAtaúlfo ArgentaAtaúlfo Exuperio Martín de Argenta Maza , was a Spanish conductor and pianist.-Biography:Argenta was born in Castro Urdiales, Cantabria, one of the two children, and the only son, of the local station master and a worker with the railways, Juan Martín de Argenta, and Laura Maza...
in the 1950s - Spanish rock band MareaMarea (band)Marea is a Spanish rock band from Berriozar, Navarre formed in 1997 by Kutxi Romero. So far they have released five studio albums, a collection boxset and a live record.-History:...
made a rock version of the poem Romance de la Guardia Civil española, named "Ciudad de los Gitanos". - In 1968, Joan BaezJoan BaezJoan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
sang translated renditions of García Lorca's poems, "Gacela Of The Dark Death" and "Casida of the Lament" on her spoken-word poetry album, BaptismBaptismIn Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
. - In 1986, Leonard CohenLeonard CohenLeonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
's English translation of the poem "Pequeño vals vienés" by García Lorca reached #1 in the Spanish single charts (as "Take This Waltz", music by Cohen). Cohen has described García Lorca as being his idol in his youth, and named his daughter Lorca Cohen for that reason. - Missa Lorca by Italian composer Corrado Margutti (2008) is a choral setting of the Latin MassLatin MassThe term Latin Mass refers to the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Mass celebrated in Latin.The term is frequently used to denote the Tridentine Mass: that is, the Roman-Rite liturgy of the Mass celebrated in accordance with the successive editions of the Roman Missal published between 1570 and 1962...
text and the poetry of Lorca. U.S. premiere, 2010. - In 1967, composer Mikis TheodorakisMikis TheodorakisMikis Theodorakis is one of the most renowned Greek songwriters and composers. Internationally, he is probably best known for his songs and for his scores for the films Zorba the Greek , Z , and Serpico .Politically, he identified with the left until the late 1980s; in 1989, he ran as an...
set to music seven poems of the Romancero Gitano – translated into Greek by Odysseas Elitis in 1945. This work was premiered in Rome in 1970 under the same title. In 1981, under commission of the Komische Oper in Berlin, the composition was orchestrated as a symphonic work entitled Lorca. In the mid 1990s, Theodorakis rearranged the work as an instrumental piece for guitar and symphony orchestra. - In 1989, American composer Stephen Edward Dick created new music for Lorca's ballad Romance Sonambulo, based on the original text, and with permission from Lorca's Estate. The piece is set for solo guitar, baritone and flamencoFlamencoFlamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
dance, and was performed in 1990 at the New Performance Gallery in San Francisco. The second performance took place in Canoga Park, Los Angeles in 2004. - American composer Geoffrey Gordon composed Lorca Musica per cello solo (2000), utilizing themes from his 1995 three act ballet, The House of Bernarda Alba (1995), for American cellist Elizabeth Morrow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C9_mP_17hw The work was recorded on Morrow's Soliloquy CD on the Centaur label and was featured at the 2000 World Cello Congress. Three suites from the ballet, for chamber orchestra, have also been extracted from the ballet score by the composer.
- The Spanish guitarist José María Gallardo del Rey composed his 'Lorca Suite' in 2003 as a tribute to the great poet. Taking Lorca's folksong compilations 'Canciones Españolas Antiguas' as his starting point, Gallardo del Rey adds the colour and passion of his native Andalucia, incorporating new harmonisations and freely composed link passages that fuse classical and flamenco techniques.
- Catalán composer Joan Amargós wrote Homenatje a Lorca for alto saxophone in piano. Its three movements are based on three Lorca poems: Los cuatro muleros, Zorongo, and Anda jaleo.
- Composer Brent Parker wrote Lorca's Last Walk for piano solo. This was on the Grade 7 syllabus of the Royal Irish Academy of Music's piano exams, 2003-2008.
- Greek musician Thanasis Papakonstantinou composed Άυπνη Πόλη' with part of Lorca's "Poeta en Nueva York", translated to greek by Maria Efstathiadi.
Theatre, film and television based on Lorca
- Federico García Lorca: A Murder in Granada ( 1976) directed by Humberto Lopez y GuerraHumberto López y GuerraHumberto Lopez y Guerra was born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1945. He began his film career 1960 producing and directing a series of documentary films for the Cuban Institute of Art and Cinema, ICAIC. In 1963 he was given through election a scholarship to study film directing at the Cinema Superior...
and produced by the Swedish Television. In October 1980 the New York Times described the transmission of the film by Spanish Television in June that same year as attracting "one of the largest audiences in the history of Spanish Television". - Playwright Nilo CruzNilo CruzNilo Cruz is an Cuban-American playwright and pedagogue. With his award of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play, Anna in the Tropics, he became the first Latino so honored.-Early years:...
wrote the surrealistic drama Lorca in a Green Dress about the life, death, and imagined afterlife of García Lorca. The play was first performed in 2003 at the Oregon Shakespeare FestivalOregon Shakespeare FestivalThe Oregon Shakespeare Festival is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States. The festival annually produces eleven plays on three stages during a season that lasts from February to October...
. The Cruz play Beauty of the Father (2010) also features Lorca's ghost as a key character. - British playwright Peter StraughanPeter StraughanPeter Straughan is a playwright and author, based in the north-east of England.Peter Straughan was the writer-in-residence at Newcastle's Live Theatre Company. Whilst there, Live staged his plays Bones and Noir...
wrote a play (later adapted as a radio play) based on García Lorca's life, The Ghost of Federico Garcia Lorca Which Can Also Be Used as a Table. - TVE broadcast a six hour mini-series based on key episodes on García Lorca's life in 1987. British actor Nickolas Grace played the poet, although he was dubbed by a Spanish actor.
- There is a 1997 film called The Disappearance of Garcia LorcaThe Disappearance of Garcia LorcaThe Disappearance of Garcia Lorca is a 1997 film based on a book by Ian Gibson about the life and murder of Federico García Lorca. It stars Andy García as Lorca and Esai Morales as Ricardo, a journalist who investigates Lorca's disappearance during the early years of the Spanish Civil War...
, also known as Death in Granada, based on a biography by Ian GibsonIan Gibson (author)Ian Gibson is an Irish author and Hispanist known for his biographies of Antonio Machado, Salvador Dalí, Henry Spencer Ashbee, and particularly his work on Federico García Lorca, for which he won several awards, including the 1989 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography...
. The film earned an Imagen Award for best film. - Miguel Hermoso's La Luz Prodigiosa (The End of a Mystery) is a Spanish film based on Fernando Macías' novel with the same name, which examines what might have happened if García Lorca had survived his execution at the outset of the Spanish Civil WarSpanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. - British Screenwriter Philippa GoslettPhilippa GoslettPhilippa Goslett is a British screenwriter. In 2000, she won the Euroscript Screen Story Competition.Her first feature Little Ashes is being directed by Paul Morrison, who was nominated for an Academy Award in 1999 for his film Solomon and Gaenor...
was inspired by García Lorca's close friendship with Salvador DalíSalvador DalíSalvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
. The resulting biopic Little AshesLittle AshesLittle Ashes is a 2008 Spanish-British drama film, set against the backdrop of Spain during the 20s and 30s, as three of the era's most creative young talents meet at university and set off on a course to change their world...
(2009) depicts the relationship in the 1920s and 1930s between García Lorca, DalíDALIDALI may refer to:* Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries* The "Distance-matrix ALIgnment" algorithm used in the FSSP database on structurally similar proteins* Digital Addressable Lighting Interface* Dartmouth Assessment of Lifestyle Index...
, and Luis BuñuelLuis BuñuelLuis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
. - Bodas De Sangre (Blood Wedding) is the first part of a ballet / flamencoFlamencoFlamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
film trilogy directed by Carlos SauraCarlos SauraCarlos Saura Atarés is a Spanish film director and photographer.-Early life:Born into a family of artists , he developed his artistic sense in childhood as a photography enthusiast.He obtained his directing diploma in Madrid in 1957 at the Institute of Cinema Research and Studies...
and starring Antonio GadesAntonio GadesAntonio Gades was a Spanish flamenco dancer and choreographer . He helped to popularise the art form on the international stage...
and Cristina HoyosCristina HoyosCristina Hoyos Panadero is a Spanish flamenco dancer, choreographer and actress, born in Seville. After several successes throughout the world with several companies and movies, she created her own dancing company and premiered with it in Rex Theatre of Paris in 1988...
(1981).
See also
- Le Mondes 100 Books of the CenturyLe Monde's 100 Books of the CenturyThe 100 Books of the Century is a grading of the books considered as the hundred best of the 20th century, drawn up in the spring of 1999 through a poll conducted by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde....
, a list which includes Gypsy Ballads
External links
- The Lorca Foundation
- Huerta De San Vicente, Grandada - The Lorca Family home now a museum
- Lorca censored to hide sexuality - article by The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, 14 March 2009 - LGB biog of García Lorca
- Lorca and Censorship: The Gay Artist Made Heterosexual - essay by Eisenberg, D; FSUFlorida State UniversityThe Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...