Garcia Lorca Poet Of The Anda Essay

Garcia Lorca: Poet Of The Anda Essay, Research Paper

Garcia Lorca

Poet of the Andalusians

Federico Garcia Lorca is one of Spain s most famous artists. He played a large

role in transforming the Spanish theatre of the twentieth century. In addition to his

original works for the theatres in Barcelona and Madrid, the traveling university theatre he

directed, La Baracca, brought classic Spanish dramas to audiences throughout rural Spain.

Before his execution by the Fascists in 1936, he had amassed a large body of work. His

last three plays established Lorca s international reputation as a playwright.

Born in a small town near the city of Granada in Southern Spain in the Andalusian

Mountains, he was deeply influenced by the Gypsy and Arabic culture there. His father

was a well-to-do farmer, his mother a highly educated school teacher. From the beginning

it was she who nurtured his musical and poetic talents.(Honig 2) He left home for the

University of Granada at the age of sixteen to earn a degree in law. A mediocre student,

he was frustrated by subjects he did not immediately grasp. He cut many classes,

preferring instead to seek the company of literary men, write verse into the wee hours of

the morning, and play piano in night clubs for hours on end.(Stainton)

While in Granada he met Fernando de los Rios, a professor at the university and an

important political figure, who became his mentor. Following Rios advice, Lorca left

Granada for Madrid in 1919. He lived at the Residencia de Estudantes, a Spanish version

of Oxford, where the atmosphere was serious and scholarly.(Duran 3) It was here he

became close friends with the famous Salvador Dali, Gerardo Diego, a poet, and Luis

Bunuel, who would later become a great film director.

In 1929 he traveled to New York, where Fernando de los Rios arranged for him to

attend Columbia University for a short while. He was in the throes of a mysterious

emotional crisis, the details of which have never been disclosed. He returned to Spain in

1931 much changed by his experiences in America. He had a passionate interest in

American film and jazz, and a fascination with the women in New York, who were so

different from those in Spain.(Duran 9) His stay in America seems to be an important

turning point in his metamorphosis from poet to playwright. Upon his return, he turned

his attention to the stage, founding the theatre troupe La Barraca. He traveled overseas

again to produce classic Spanish plays in Montevideo and Buenos Aires. In 1934 he

returned to Madrid, where he concentrated on playwrighting. These next few years before

his death are considered his mature period, when he wrote his rural dramas, Bodas de

Sangre, Yerma, and La Casa de Bernarda Alba. These are concentrated on a single

theme; the suffering and the frustration of the Spanish woman.

Blood Wedding

The crisis of this play is the contrast between the two contradictory principle lines

of action. One is towards the wedding of the bride and bridegroom; a socially sanctioned

union between a man and a woman necessary for the accumulation of land and property,

and for carrying on the family blood line. The second line of action is toward the

consummation of an illicit love affair between the bride and Leonardo, which pays no heed

to material restrictions or social conditions. (Anderson 91) The bride s struggle between

duty to her family and her responsibility to marry, and her desire for Leonardo become the

focal point of dramatic interest as the movement of the lines of action come to a climax in

the second act.

The mother the second focal point of dramatic interest. She has lost both her

husband and her son in a knife fight with the Felix clan. She has a horror of weapons, and

feels that the murderers have not been punished enough for their crimes. The mother

consents to her son s wedding the sake of his happiness, despite a feeling of apprehension

towards the bride. Her hatred towards the rival clan and her suspicion of the bride

establish a sense of impending tragedy in the first moments of the play.(Anderson 92)

Each of the three scenes in act one reveals the play s tragic potential. The first

scene is concerned with the mother s reservation towards her son s wedding, in contrast

to his optimism and eagerness to be wed. The second scene takes place in Leonardo s

house. He grows sullen when he learns of the bride s engagement, and becomes hostile

towards his mother-in-law when she asks him where he s just come from. He finally

erupts in anger and storms out of the house, waking the baby. In the third scene the

mother and bridegroom and the father and bride all come together and the marriage is

arranged. In the last half of the scene only the bride and the servant are onstage. The

bride becomes violent when the servant asks her about her wedding gift, she bites and

shoves and yells, and the servant forces

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