Federico García Lorca

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This is a Spanish name; the first family name is García and the second is Lorca.
Federico García Lorca

Statue of García Lorca in the Plaza de Santa Ana, Madrid
Born June 5, 1898(1898-06-05)
Died August 19, 1936 (aged 38)
Occupation dramatist, poet, theatre director
Nationality Spanish
Writing period Modernism
Literary movement Surrealism

Federico García Lorca (Spanish pronunciation: [feðeˈɾiko ɣarˈθia ˈlorka]) (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936) was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. Lorca achieved international renown as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He was murdered at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War [1] by persons likely affiliated with the Nationalist cause. He is thought to be one of the many victims who 'disappeared' and were executed by the Nationalists.[2] .[3] In 2008, a Spanish judge opened an investigation of Garcia Lorca's death and his family dropped objections to the excavation of his possible grave.[4]

Contents

[edit] Biography

His time at Granada's Arts Club furnished him with influential associations that would prove useful following his move, in 1919, to the Residencia de estudiantes in Madrid. Here he would befriend Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí and many other artists who were, or would become, influential across Spain. In Madrid, he met 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 . Controversy surrounded Lorca and the play as many considered him homosexual, and concluded that his play largely focused on women in order to mask his sexuality.[citation needed] 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.

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 (translated as Gypsy Ballads, 1928), his best known book of poetry. His second play Mariana Pineda, with stage settings by Dalí, opened to great acclaim in Barcelona in 1927.

In 1926, 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 Salvador Dali. [5] Towards the end of the 1920s, García Lorca became increasingly depressed, a situation exacerbated by his anguish with his homosexuality. The success of Romancero Gitano intensified a painful and personal dichotomy : 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.

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). Lorca interpreted it, perhaps erroneously, as a vicious attack upon himself and the film ended García Lorca's affair with Dalí. At this time Dali also met his future wife Gala. His intensely passionate but fatally one-sided affair with the sculptor Emilio Aladrén was also collapsing as the latter became involved with his future wife. 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.

While in America, García Lorca stayed mostly in New York City, where he studied briefly at Columbia University School of General Studies. His collection Poeta en Nueva York explores alienation and isolation through some graphically experimental poetic techniques. His Play El Publico (The Public) was not published until the late 1970s and has never been published in its entirety (the manuscript is lost).

Although Lorca's artwork doesn't often receive attention he was also a keen artist. [6][7]

[edit] Spanish Republic

Great Theater of Havana Garcia Lorca, in Havana

His 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. As well as directing, García Lorca also acted. While touring with La Barraca, he 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). He distilled his theories on artistic creation and performance in a famous lecture Play and Theory of the Duende, first given in Buenos Aires in 1933. Lorca argued that great art depends upon a vivid awareness of death, connection with a nation's soil, and an acknowledgment of the limitations of reason. [8] The group's subsidy was cut in half by the new government in 1934, and la Barraca's last performance was given in April 1936.

[edit] Spanish Civil War

Statue of García Lorca in Madrid's Plaza de Santa Ana

García Lorca left Madrid for Granada only three days before the Spanish Civil War broke out. 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.[9] Lorca was aware that he was heading towards a city held to be the most conservative in Andalucía. After the war broke out, García Lorca and his brother-in-law, the socialist mayor of Granada, were soon arrested. It is thought that García Lorca was shot and killed by Nationalist militia on 19 August 1936 and his body thrown into an unmarked grave somewhere between Víznar and Alfacar, near Granada. Significant controversy remains about the motives and details of his death. Personal, non-political motives have also been suggested. García Lorca's biographer, Stainton, states that his killers made remarks about his sexuality, suggesting that it played a role in his death.[10] Ian Gibson states that García Lorca´s assassination was part of a campaign of mass executions directed to eliminate all the supporters of the Popular Front.[11] However, it can be argued that Lorca was apolitical and that Lorca had many friends in both Republican and Nationalist camps. The Basque poet and Communist Gabriel Celaya wrote in his Memoirs that he once found Lorca in the company of Falangist José Maria Aizpurua. He wrote that Lorca said he dined with Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera every Friday. [12] On March 11, 1937 an article appeared in the Falangist press criticizing the murder and lionizing Lorca; the article opened: "The finest poet of Imperial Spain has been assassinated."[13] The dossier on the murder, compiled at Franco's request, has yet to surface.

The olive tree near Alfacar, where García Lorca was shot, as it was in 1999. Many people have left quotations from his works in its branches.[14]

Jan Morris [15] describes how García Lorca foretold his own fate in a remarkable instance of a (typically Spanish[citation needed]) type of mysticism:

"Then I realised I had been murdered. They looked for me in cafes, cemeteries and churches .... but they did not find me. They never found me? No. They never found me."

[edit] Following his Death

The Franco fascist regime placed a general ban on García Lorca's work, which was not rescinded until 1953 when a (censored) Obras Completas (Complete works) was released. Following this, Bodas de Sangre Blood Wedding, Yerma and La casa de Bernarda Alba were successfully played in 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 in 1975 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 Garcia Lorca family to allow publication of unfinished poems and plays prior to the publication of a critical edition of his works.

Today, García Lorca is honored 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."[16]

A forward-looking foundation, directed by niece Laura Garcia Lorca, sponsors an array of cultural events together with the Huerta de San Vicente.

[edit] Major works

[edit] Poetry

  • Impresiones y paisajes ("Impressions and Landscapes", 1918)
  • Poema del cante jondo ("Poem of Deep Song", written 1921 but not published until 1931)
  • Libro de poemas ("Book of Poems", 1921)
  • Oda a Salvador Dalí ("Ode to Salvador Dalí", 1926)
  • Canción de jinete ("Horseman's Song", 1927)
  • Primer romancero gitano ("Gypsy Ballads", 1928)
  • Poeta en Nueva York (1930, published posthumously in 1940, first translation into English as The Poet in New York, 1940)[17]
  • Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías ("Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías", 1935)
  • Seis poemas gallegos ("Six Galician poems", 1935)
  • Diván del Tamarit ("The Diván of Tamarit", 1936, published posthumously in 1941)
  • Sonetos del amor oscuro ("Sonnets of Dark Love", 1936)
  • Primeras canciones ("First Songs", 1936)

[edit] Theatre

v • d • e
The plays of Federico García Lorca

[edit] Short plays

  • El paseo de Buster Keaton ("Buster Keaton goes for a stroll", 1928)
  • La doncella, el marinero y el estudiante ("The Maiden, the Sailor and the Student", 1928)
  • Quimera ("Dream", 1928)

[edit] Filmscripts

  • Viaje a la luna ("Trip to the Moon", 1929)

[edit] Drawings and Paintings

Salvador Dalí (Peintre). 1925 160x140 mm. Ink and colored pencil on paper. Priv. coll., Barc. Esp.
Bust of a Dead Man. 1932 Ink and colored pencil on paper. dimension and location unknown.

[edit] Select translations

Poem of the Deep Song/Poema del Canto Jondo, translated by Carlos Bauer (includes original Spanish verses). San Francisco; City Lights Books, 1987 ISBN 0872862054

[edit] Works about García Lorca

[edit] Criticism

  • Mayhew, Jonathan. (2009). Apocryphal Lorca: Translation, Parody, Kitsch. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226512037. 

[edit] Poetry

  • Greek poet Nikos Kavvadias'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 Distomo, Greece, where the Nazis executed over two hundred people.
  • American poet Allen Ginsberg's hallucinatory poem "A Supermarket in California" includes García Lorca: "and you, García Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?".
  • Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti also wrote a poem about García Lorca in 1937 under the title "Federico García Lorca".[18]
  • Spanish language poet Giannina Braschi of New York wrote a treatise on Federico García Lorca, Breve tratado del poeta artista (Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, 1986). She later published "El imperio de los suenos," as a poetic homage to Poet in New York (1st edition: Anthropos editorial del hombre, 1988; 2nd edition: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico).
  • Poet Charles Bukowski refers to García Lorca in several of his poems including "Junk", "To Weep" and again in the poem "Style," which was written for a film based on his poetry, Tales of Ordinary Madness, directed by Marco Ferreri.
  • Bob Kaufman and Gary Mex Glazner have both written tribute poems entitled "Lorca".
  • Seamus Heaney also referred to García Lorca in "Summer 1969," line 17.
  • Harold Norse has a poem, "We Bumped Off Your Friend the Poet", inspired by a review of Ian Gibson's Death of Lorca. The poem first appeared in Hotel Nirvana[19], and more recently in In the Hub of the Fiery Force, Collected Poems of Harold Norse 1934-2003[20].
  • The Spanish poet Antonio Machado wrote the poem "El Crimen Fue en Granada", 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 Hartnett published an English translation of Lorca's poetry. Lorca is also a recurring character in much of Hartnett's poetry, most notably in the poem "A Farewell to English"
  • Deep image, a poetic form coined by Jerome Rothenberg and Robert Kelly, is inspired by Lorca's "Deep Song"
  • Vietnamese poet: The guitar of Lorca by Thanh Thao

[edit] Music

  • Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas 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.[21]
  • The Italian avantgarde composer Luigi Nono wrote a composition in 1953 entitled 'Epitaffio per Federico García Lorca'.
  • García Lorca is mentioned in The Clash song 'Spanish Bombs' from their London Calling album in the lines "Oh please leave the ventana open, Federico Lorca is dead and gone".
  • The American composer George Crumb 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 Golijov and playwright David Henry Hwang wrote the one-act opera Ainadamar ("Fountain of Tears") about the death of García Lorca, recalled years later by his friend the actress Margarita Xirgu, 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 Grammophon label (Catalog #642902) won the 2007 Grammy awards for Best Classical Contemporary Composition and Best Opera Recording.
  • Finnish modernist composer Einojuhani Rautavaara 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 Pogues dramatically retell the story of his murder in the song 'Lorca's Novena' on their Hell's Ditch album.
  • Reginald Smith Brindle: El Polifemo de Oro quattro frammenti per chitarra
  • Composer Dmitri Shostakovich wrote the first two movements of his 14th Symphony based around García Lorca poems.
  • The French composer Maurice Ohana set what some regard as Lorca's finest poem - Lament for the death of a Bullfighter (Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias) - to music in a stark, dramatic setting recorded by the famous conductor Ataúlfo Argenta in the 1950s
  • Spanish rock band Marea made a rock version of the poem Romance de la Guardia Civil española, named "Ciudad de los Gitanos".
  • The Bakerton Group, a blues jam band and side project of the members of the rock band Clutch, includes the Lorca poem "Nocturno Esquematico" in the cover art of their 2008 album "El Rojo."
  • In 1968, Joan Baez sang translated renditions of García Lorca's poems, "Gacela Of The Dark Death" and "Casida of the Lament" on her spoken-word poetry album, Baptism.
  • In 1986, Leonard Cohen'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.[22]
  • Richard Daniel Roman's song "Noche De Amantes" from Lorena Rojas' 2001 album "Como Yo No Hay Ninguna" is dedicated to Garcia Lorca.

[edit] Theatre, film and television

  • Playwright Nilo Cruz 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 Festival.
  • British playwright Peter Straughan 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 also a film called The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca (1997), also known as Death in Granada.
  • Miguel Hermoso's La Luz Prodigiosa ('The End of a Mystery') is a Spanish film based on Fernando Macias' novel with the same name, which examines what might have happened if Lorca had survived his execution at the outset of the Spanish Civil War.
  • In the movie Waking Life (2001) a character says "On this bridge," Lorca warns, "life is not a dream." Beware and beware and...beware.", a reference to 'City That Does Not Sleep'.
  • British Screenwriter Philippa Goslett was inspired by García Lorca's close friendship with Salvador Dali. The resulting biopic Little Ashes (2009) depicts the relationship in the 1920s and 1930's between Lorca, Dali, and Luis Bunuel.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Ian Gibson, The Assassination of Federico Garcia Lorca. Penguin (1983) ISBN 0140064737; Michael Wood, "The Lorca Murder Case", The New York Review of Books, Vol. 24, No. 19 (November 24, 1977); José Luis Vila-San-Juan, García Lorca, Asesinado: Toda la verdad Barcelona, Editorial Planeta (1975) ISBN 8432056103
  2. ^ Reuters, "Spanish judge opens case into Franco's atrocities", International Herald Tribune (October 16, 2008)
  3. ^ Estefania, Rafael (2006-08-18). "Poet's death still troubles Spain". BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5262420.stm. Retrieved on 2008-10-14. 
  4. ^ "Lorca family to allow exhumation". BBC. 2008-09-18. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7624887.stm. Retrieved on 2009-05-28. 
  5. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica: "From 1925 to 1928, García Lorca was passionately involved with Salvador Dalí. The intensity of their relationship led García Lorca to acknowledge, if not entirely accept, his own homosexuality."
  6. ^ Cecilia J. Cavanaugh "Lorca's Drawings And Poems",
  7. ^ Mario Hernandez "Line of Light and Shadow" (trans) 383 drawings
  8. ^ Arriving Where We Started by Barbara Probst, 1998 — she interviewed surviving FUE/Barraca members in Paris.
  9. ^ Zhooee, TIME Magazine, July 20, 1936
  10. ^ See Stainton, Lorca: A Dream of Life.
  11. ^ Gibson, Ian (1996) (in Spanish). El asesinato de García Lorca. Barcelona: Plaza & Janes. pp. 255. ISBN 9788466313148. 
  12. ^ Arnaud Imatz, "La vraie mort de Garcia Lorca" 2009 40 NRH, 31-34, at p. 31-2, quoting from the Memoirs. 
  13. ^ Luis Hurtado Alvarez, Unidad (11 March 1937)
  14. ^ Gibson, Ian Lorca's Granada ISBN 0571164897
  15. ^ Jan Morris Spain", p.48
  16. ^ http://www.cceia.org/viewMedia.php/prmTemplateID/3/prmID/957
  17. ^ Encyclopedia of literary translation into English
  18. ^ RADNÓTI MIKLÓS: ERÕLTETETT MENET (VÁLOGATOTT VERSEK) at mek.oszk.hu
  19. ^ Hotel Nirvana, San Francisco, City Lights (1974) ISBN 0872860787
  20. ^ In the Hub of the Fiery Force, Collected Poems of Harold Norse 1934-2003, New York: Thunder's Mouth Press (2003) ISBN 1-56025-520-X
  21. ^ Program Notes at www.thespco.org
  22. ^ de Lisle, T. (n.d.)Hallelujah: 70 things about Leonard Cohen at 70

[edit] References

  • Ian Gibson, La represión nacionalista de Granada en 1936 y la muerte de Federico Garcia Lorca (1971), Guia de la Granada de Federico Garcia Lorca (1989), Vida, pasion y muerte de Federico Garcia Lorca (1998), Lorca-Dali, el amor que no pudo ser (1999)

[edit] Sources

[edit] External links

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