Federico García Lorca: Life, Themes, and Poetic Trajectory

Federico García Lorca: Key Figure of the Generation of '27

Federico García Lorca was a key figure in the Generation of '27 due to his influential literary work and his crucial role in Spanish cultural life.

Central Themes in Lorca's Poetic World

Lorca's poetic world is often tragic and violent. His central themes include:

• Love: Love is presented as a true life force and source of energy and fullness, validating all erotic inclination. However, the love relationship is frequently condemned to frustration.
• Death: The failure of love often leads to death. Its mysterious presence permeates situations, characters, and history, exercising a powerful attraction.
• Children/Innocence: Childhood is seen as the age of innocence. Lorca's poetry often recreates this stage, with the writer adopting a similar attitude toward the child in his poems.
• Social Issues: The presence of society manifests in two ways: through rigid moral impositions and through a reality that consistently punishes the helpless.

Lorca's Poetic Style and Constants

Lorca's style varies across different periods of his writing, but several constants remain:

• The function of evocative words.
• The presence of powerful symbols.
• Visionary imagery.
• An impressionistic trend characterized by poetic musicality.

Poetic Trajectory of Federico García Lorca

Lorca's body of work includes: Impressions and Landscapes, Book of Poems, Songs, Poem of the Cante Jondo, Gypsy Ballads, and Poet in New York. We can distinguish two main stages in his career.

First Stage (1921–1928)

This period includes Impressions and Landscapes, Book of Poems, Songs, and Gypsy Ballads.

Book of Poems (1921)

This is the work of a young poet, strongly connected to contemporary literary lessons, but it also marks the beginning of the poet's own voice, acquiring unique resonances and keys. It explores the developing world of adolescence—its games, fears, joys, and sorrows. Lorca uses traditional strophic forms such as the silva arromanzada and the romance. There is a predominance of minor art verses, seeking simplicity and spontaneity.

Songs and Gypsy Ballads

These works utilize short verses and choruses. The romance form provides perfect unity. Lorca employs rich imagery, metaphors, and symbols. A key element is the use of the Gypsy theme as a primitive element, coupled with inherent rebellion. The texts incorporate narrative, dramatic, and lyrical elements.

Influences and Tone

This stage shows Romantic-Symbolist influence, affinity with Antonio Machado and Juan Ramón Jiménez in the impressionistic treatment of landscape and sensory reality, and proximity to Rubén Darío's Modernism. The books from this stage often adopt a melancholic tone, combined with dramatic narrative and the influence of Andalusian folklore.

Second Stage (1929–1936)

This stage includes Poet in New York, Divan of Tamarit, Six Galician Poems, and Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías.

Poet in New York (1930)

This work holds a biographical significance. Lorca utilizes free verse, implying an abandonment of traditional metrics.

Later Works (1935–1936)

Between 1935 and 1936, Lorca composed his final verses in a collection of sonnets, The Sonnets of Dark Love. These largely remained unpublished until recently. In these poems, the glory and pain of love reach their deepest and most profound expressions.