Federico García Lorca: Spanish Poet and Dramatist

Federico García Lorca: Life and Legacy

Federico García Lorca was born in Granada (Fuente Vaqueros) in 1898. In 1919, he settled in the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid, where he met and interacted with renowned authors such as Juan Ramón Jiménez, as well as artists and poets of his generation.

Theatrical Works and Rural Tragedies

Lorca began his dramatic career very young with The Curse of the Butterfly, but his first major success came with Mariana Pineda (1925), a verse play influenced by the modernism of Eduardo Marquina. However, it was from 1930 until his death that Lorca dedicated himself primarily to theater. The following themes unify his work during this period:

• The myth of impossible desire.
• The opposition between reality and desire.

Lorca stages loves sentenced to solitude or death, tragedies of women drawn into a sterile life, and frustration often stemming from caste prejudices and social yokes.

His three major rural tragedies are:

• Blood Wedding (1933)
• Yerma (1934)
• The House of Bernarda Alba (1936)

Lorca's drama combines verse and prose, though verse is gradually limited to special moments of intensity or popular songs. Conflicts and environments also become deeper and more rooted in Spanish reality, gradually opening up to collective problems.

Poetic Works and Defining Characteristics

Three key characteristics define Lorca's poetry:

1. Fusion of Cultures: Union of high culture and popular tradition.
2. Technical Rigor: Dedication to rigorous technical perfection (inspiration and conscious work merge).
3. Tragic Grace: Fusion of unrest and frustration regarding tragic destiny with bustling, graceful demonstrations.

Early Poetry and Modernist Influence

His first collection, Book of Poems, was a youthful modernist work influenced by Antonio Machado and Juan Ramón Jiménez. It features nostalgic evocations of lost childhood innocence, alongside deep distress and anguish.

Gypsy Ballads: Myth and Passion

Between 1924 and 1927, he wrote Gypsy Ballads (Romancero Gitano), where Lorca achieved the pinnacle of fusion between cultured and popular styles. Using the traditional romance verse and bold, passionate metaphors, he forcefully elevates the world of the gypsies to the category of myth. The theme of the tragic fate of people living outside the conventional world runs throughout the work.

Later Works: Surrealism and Elegy

He remained in New York between 1929 and 1930, resulting in the publication of Poet in New York (Poeta en Nueva York).

After Poet in New York, Lorca dedicated himself mainly to the theater, though in 1935 he composed Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías. This elegy to his friend, the bullfighter, combines popular and cultured elements with bold surreal imagery.

The Prototype of the Generation of '27

Lorca is considered the prototype within the Generation of '27 for his journey from the personal 'self' to the collective 'us' without compromising his aesthetic requirements.