Federico Garcia Lorca

Federico García Lorca
García Lorca in 1914
Born	Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca 5 June 1898(1898-06-05) Fuente Vaqueros, Granada, Andalusia, Spain
Died	19 August 1936(1936-08-19) (aged 38) Near Alfacar, Granada, Spain
Nationality	Spanish
Occupation	dramatist, poet, theatre director
Influenced by	Spanish folklore, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, Walt Whitman
Influenced	Leonard Cohen, Giannina Braschi, Octavio Paz, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, Tim Buckley, Pablo Neruda
Political movement	Generation of '27
Signature

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca^[1] (Spanish pronunciation: [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 may have been shot by anti-communist forces during the Spanish Civil War.^[2][3][4] 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.^[5][6]

Life and career

Early years

García Lorca was born on 5 June 1898, in Fuente Vaqueros, a small town a few miles west of Granada, southern Spain.^[7]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, Vicenta 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.^[7] 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.^[8] 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, Impresiones y Paisajes (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.^[8]

As a young writer

Huerta de San Vicente, Lorca's summer home in Granada, Spain, now a museum

At the Residencia de estudiantes 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.^[8] 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.^[8]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.^[8]

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.^[9] 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,^[10] 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.^[11][12] Inspired by the same structural form of sequence as "Deep song", his collection Suites (1923) was never finished and not published until 1983.^[9]

Lorca, 1934

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.^[13] 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".^[13] 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".^[14]

His second play Mariana Pineda, with stage settings by Salvador Dalí, opened to great acclaim in Barcelona in 1927.^[8] 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.^[15] The friendship with Lorca had a strong element of mutual passion,^[16] but Dalí (decades later) rejected the erotic advances of the poet.^[17] 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".^[14] 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.^[18] 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.^[19]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.^[19] 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

Statue of Lorca in the Plaza de Santa Ana, Madrid

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.^[19] 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".^[19] 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.^[19] 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".^[19]

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.^[19] 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.” ^[20]

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.^{[20] [21]}

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.^[22] 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.^[23]

Although García Lorca's artwork doesn't often receive attention he was also a keen artist.^[24][25]

Death

García Lorca left Madrid for his family home in Granada only three days before the Spanish Civil War broke out (July 1936).^[22]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).^[26] García Lorca knew that he would be suspect to the rising right wing for his outspoken liberal views.^[22] On 18 August, his brother-in-law, Manuel Fernández-Montesinos, the leftist mayor of Granada, was shot. Lorca was arrested that same afternoon.^[27]

It is thought that García Lorca was shot and killed by Nationalist militia^[28][29] on 19 August 1936.^[30] 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.^[31]

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.^[32] Ian Gibson suggests that García Lorca's assassination was part of a campaign of mass killings intended to eliminate supporters of the Marxist Popular Front.^[27] 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.^[27] 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.^[33] 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.^[34] 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."^[35] Jean-Louis Schonberg also put forward the 'homosexual jealousy' theory.^[36] The dossier on the murder, compiled at Franco's request and referred to by Gibson and others, has yet to surface. The first published account of an attempt to locate Lorca's grave can be found in British traveller and Hispanist Gerald Brenan's book 'The Face of Spain'.^[37] Despite early attempts such as Brenan's in 1949, the site remained undiscovered throughout the Francoist era.

Excavation at Alfácar

The site of the excavation as it was in 1999

Bust of Federico García Lorca in Santoña, Cantabria

The poem De profundis on the eastern wall of the Kamerlingh Onnes Gebouw, at the corner of the Langebrug and the Zonneveldstraat in Leiden, Netherlands.

In late October 2009, a team of archaeologists and historians from the University of Granada began excavations outside Alfácar.^[38] The site was identified three decades ago by a man who claimed to have helped dig Lorca's grave.^[39][40] 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.^[41]

There is a growing desire in Spain to come to terms with the civil war, which for decades was not openly discussed.^[42] 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.^[43]

The excavations began at the request of another victim's family.^[44] Following a long-standing objection, the Lorca family also gave their permission.^[44] In October 2009 Francisco Espinola, a spokesman for the Justice Ministry of the Andalusian regional government, said that after years of pressure García Lorca's body would "be exhumed in a matter of weeks".^[45] Lorca's relatives, who had initially opposed an exhumation, said they might provide a DNA sample in order to identify his remains.^[44]

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.^[46] But in mid December 2009, doubts were raised as to whether the poet's remains would be found.^[47] 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".^[48][49]

Censorship

Francisco Franco'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 African 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,

Not only did he lose his life

By shots assassinated:

But with a hammer and a knife

Was after that -- translated.^[50]

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.^[51] 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'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."^[52]

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.^[53]

List of major works

Poetry collections

• Impresiones y paisajes (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 York 1940)^[54]
• 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 Pineda (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 público (The Public: written 1929–30, first production 1972)
• Así que pasen cinco años (When Five Years Pass: written 1931, first production 1945)
• Bodas de sangre (Blood Wedding: written 1932, first production 1933)
• Yerma (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 Keaton goes for a stroll 1928)
• La doncella, el marinero y el estudiante (The Maiden, the Sailor and the Student 1928)
• Quimera (Dream 1928)

Filmscripts

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

Operas

• Lola, la Comedianta (Lola, the Actress, unfinished collaboration with Manuel de Falla 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.

List of works based on Lorca

Criticism

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

Poetry based on Lorca

• 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, and in Kessariani in Athens, where the Nazis executed over two hundred people in each city.
• Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti also wrote a poem about García Lorca in 1937 entitled Federico García Lorca.^[55]
• The New York based Spanish language poet Giannina Braschi 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 Kaufman and Gary Mex Glazner have both written tribute poems entitled Lorca.
• 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,^[56] and more recently in In the Hub of the Fiery Force, Collected Poems of Harold Norse 1934–2003^[57]
• 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 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 image, a poetic form coined by Jerome Rothenberg and Robert Kelly, is inspired by García Lorca's Deep Song.
• Vietnamese 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 Elytis (Nobel Prize for Literature, 1979) translated and published part of García Lorca's Romancero Gitano.
• Pablo Neruda wrote Ode to Federico García Lorca (1935) and Eulogy For Federico García Lorca.
• Robert Creeley wrote a poem called "After Lorca" (1952)
• Jack Spicer 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 Siddique wrote "Desire for Sight (After Lorca)" included in Poems from a Northern Soul ^[58]

Musical works based on Lorca

• Spanish flamenco singer 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 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.^[59]
• The Italian avant garde composer Luigi Nono wrote a composition in 1953 entitled Epitaffio per Federico García Lorca.
• 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 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 ^[60]
• Composer Dmitri Shostakovich wrote the first two movements of his 14th Symphony based around García Lorca poems.
• The French composer Maurice Ohana set to music García Lorca's poem Lament for the death of a Bullfighter (Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías) recorded by the 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".
• 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.^[61]
• Missa Lorca by Italian composer Corrado Margutti (2008) is a choral setting of the Latin Mass text and the poetry of Lorca. U.S. premiere, 2010.
• In 1967, composer Mikis Theodorakis 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.^[62][63][64]
• 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 flamenco 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. [2] 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 Guerra 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".^[65]
• 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. The Cruz play Beauty of the Father (2010) also features Lorca's ghost as a key character.^[66]
• 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 a 1997 film called The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca, also known as Death in Granada, based on a biography by Ian Gibson. 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 War.
• British Screenwriter Philippa Goslett was inspired by García Lorca's close friendship with Salvador Dalí. The resulting biopic Little Ashes (2009) depicts the relationship in the 1920s and 1930s between García Lorca, Dalí, and Luis Buñuel.^[67]
• Bodas De Sangre (Blood Wedding) is the first part of a ballet / flamenco film trilogy directed by Carlos Saura and starring Antonio Gades and Cristina Hoyos (1981).

See also

• Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, a list which includes Gypsy Ballads

References

1. ^ "Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatists". http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/rmcd/9780415362436/lorca.asp. 
2. ^ Ian Gibson, The Assassination of Federico García Lorca. Penguin (1983) ISBN 0-14-006473-7; Michael Wood, "The Lorca Murder Case", The New York Review of Books, Vol. 24, No. 19 (24 November 1977); José Luis Vila-San-Juan, García Lorca, Asesinado: Toda la verdad Barcelona, Editorial Planeta (1975) ISBN 84-320-5610-3
3. ^ Reuters, "Spanish judge opens case into Franco's atrocities", International Herald Tribune (16 October 2008)
4. ^ Estefania, Rafael (2006-08-18). "Poet's death still troubles Spain". BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5262420.stm. Retrieved 2008-10-14. 
5. ^ No remains found - Guardian article
6. ^ "Lorca family to allow exhumation". BBC. 2008-09-18. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7624887.stm. Retrieved 2009-05-28. 
7. ^ ^{a b} Maurer (2001) pix
8. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Maurer (2001) px
9. ^ ^{a b} Maurer (2001) pxi
10. ^ Frederico García Lorca, "El cante jondo (Primitivo canto andaluz)" (1922), reprinted in a collection of his essays entitled Prosa (Madrid: Alianza Editorial 1969, 1972) at 7-34.
11. ^ The play was titled La niña que riega la albahaca.
12. ^ José Luis Cano, García Lorca (Barcelona: Salvat Editores 1985) at 54-56 (Concurso), at 56-58 (play), and 174.
13. ^ ^{a b} Maurer (2001) pxii
14. ^ ^{a b} Maurer (2001) pxiii
15. ^ 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."
16. ^ For more in-depth information about the Lorca-Dalí connection see Lorca-Dalí: el amor que no pudo ser and The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí, both by Ian Gibson.
17. ^ Bosquet, Alain, Conversations with Dalí, 1969. p. 19–20. (PDF format) (of García Lorca) 'S.D.:He was homosexual, as everyone knows, and madly in love with me. He tried to screw me twice .... I was extremely annoyed, because I wasn’t homosexual, and I wasn’t interested in giving in. Besides, it hurts. So nothing came of it. But I felt awfully flattered vis-à-vis the prestige. Deep down I felt that he was a great poet and that I owe him a tiny bit of the Divine Dalí's asshole.'
18. ^ Buñuel, Luis. My Last Sigh. Translated by Abigail Israel. University of Minnesota Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8166-4387-3. Page 66.
19. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Maurer (2001) pxiv
20. ^ ^{a b} Maurer (2001) pxv
21. ^ Arriving Where We Started by Barbara Probst, 1998. She interviewed surviving FUE/Barraca members in Paris.
22. ^ ^{a b c} Maurer (2001) pxvii
23. ^ Huerta de San Vicente
24. ^ Cecilia J. Cavanaugh "Lorca's Drawings And Poems",
25. ^ Mario Hernandez "Line of Light and Shadow" (trans) 383 drawings
26. ^ Zhooee, Time Magazine, 20 July 1936
27. ^ ^{a b c} Gibson, Ian (1996) (in Spanish). El assasinato de García Lorca. Barcelona: Plaza & Janes. pp. 255. ISBN 9788466313148. 
28. ^ Graham, Helen. The Spanish Civil War. A very short introduction. Oxford University. 2006. Press.p.28
29. ^ Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939. Penguin Books. 2006. London. p.100
30. ^ Preston, Paul. The Spanish Civil War. Reaction, Revolution & Revenge. Harper Perennial. London. 2006. pp.107-108
31. ^ Gibson, Ian. The Assassination of Federico García Lorca. Penguin Books. London. 1983. p.164
32. ^ Stainton, Lorca: A Dream of Life.
33. ^ Gibson, Ian (1996) (in Spanish). El assasinato de García Lorca. Barcelona: Plaza & Janes. pp. 52. ISBN 9788466313148. 
34. ^ Arnaud Imatz, "La vraie mort de Garcia Lorca" 2009 40 NRH, 31–34, at p. 31-2, quoting from the Memoirs. 
35. ^ Luis Hurtado Alvarez, Unidad (11 March 1937)
36. ^ "Frederico Garcia Lorca. L'homme – L'oeuvre" 1956 (Paris, Plon). 
37. ^ Gerald Brenan, 'The Face of Spain', Chapter 6, 'Granada'. (Serif, London, 2010). http://www.serifbooks.co.uk/books/travel-reportage/
38. ^ "Time" article 2009 "Exhuming Lorca's remains and Franco's ghosts"
39. ^ Gibson p 467–8
40. ^ Guardian article "Spanish archeologists fail to find Federico García Lorca's grave"
41. ^ "Lorca's Granada" p.113–123
42. ^ Democratic Development and Reckoning with the Past: The Case of Spain in Comparative Context, article by D. Crocker, University of Maryland
43. ^ The Independent, 17 October 2008
44. ^ ^{a b c} BBC News article 28 October 2009
45. ^ Seattle Times article Oct 2009
46. ^ "The Leader" Article "First bones found"
47. ^ Reuters - "Doubts rise over Spanish poet Lorca's remains".
48. ^ BBC news article "Spanish dig fails to find grave of poet Lorca"
49. ^ Guardian article Dec 18 09 - "No remains found"
50. ^ Roy Campbell, Selected Poems, Henry Regnery Company, 1955. Page 283. "On the Martyrdom of F. Garcia Lorca."
51. ^ Huertadesanvicente.com
52. ^ Democratic Development and Reckoning with the Past: The Case of Spain in Comparative Context, article by D. Crocker, University of Maryland [1]
53. ^ The Lorca Foundation
54. ^ Encyclopedia of literary translation into English
55. ^ Radnóti Miklós: Erõletett Menet (Válogatott Versek) at the National Széchényi Library
56. ^ Hotel Nirvana, San Francisco, City Lights (1974) ISBN 0-87286-078-7
57. ^ 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
58. ^ John Siddique
59. ^ Program Notes at the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
60. ^ Video - El Polifemo de Oro (for guitar, 1982) by Brindle
61. ^ de Lisle, T. (n.d.) Article -Hallelujah: 70 things about Leonard Cohen at 70
62. ^ Composition review Article by Andreas Brandes 11 Aug 2004
63. ^ Gail Holst composition review article
64. ^ Detail on Theodorakis' works
65. ^ The Lorca Murder Case New Yortk Times 19 October 1980.
66. ^ Washington Post article on Beauty of the Father February 5, 2010 accessed 2010-02-26
67. ^ Ian Gibson, La represión nacionalista de Granada en 1936 y la muerte de Federico García Lorca (1971), Guía de la Granada de Federico García Lorca (1989), Vida, pasión y muerte de Federico García Lorca (1998), Lorca-Dalí, el amor que no pudo ser (1999).

Sources

• Gibson, Ian (1989). Federico García Lorca. London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 0571142249. OCLC 21600658. 
• Stainton, Leslie (1999). Lorca: A Dream of Life. London: Farrar Straus & Giroux. ISBN 0374190976. OCLC 246338520. 
• Doggart, Sebastian & Michael Thompson (eds) (1999). Fire, Blood and the Alphabet: One Hundred Years of Lorca. Durham: University of Durham. ISBN 0907310443. OCLC 43821099. 
• Hernandez, Mario Translated by Maurer, Christopher (1991). Line of Light and Shadow: The Drawings of Federico García Lorca. Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-1122-4. 
• Maurer, Christopher (2001) Federico García Lorca:Selected Poems Penguin</ref>

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Federico García Lorca

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Federico García Lorca

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Federico García Lorca

• The Lorca Foundation
• Huerta De San Vicente, Grandada - The Lorca Family home now a museum
• Lorca censored to hide sexuality - article by The Independent, 14 March 2009
• LGB biog of García Lorca
• Lorca and Censorship: The Gay Artist Made Heterosexual - essay by Eisenberg, D; FSU