Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca
File:Lorca (1934).jpg García Lorca in 1934
Born	Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (1898-06-05)5 June 1898 Fuente Vaqueros, Granada, Andalusia, Spain
Died	Near Alfacar, Granada, Spain
Nationality	Spanish
Occupation	playwright, poet, theatre director
Movement	Generation of '27
Parent(s)	Federico García Rodríguez Vicenta Lorca Romero
Signature

This name uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is García and the second or maternal family name is Lorca.

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca, known as Federico García Lorca (Spanish pronunciation: [feðeˈɾiko ɣarˈθi.a ˈlorka]; 5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director.

García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. The Generation of '27 was a group consisting of mostly poets who introduced the tenets of European movements (such as symbolism, futurism, and surrealism) into Spanish literature. He was executed by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. His body has never been found. In 2008, a Spanish judge opened an investigation into Lorca's death. The García Lorca family eventually dropped objections to the excavation of a potential gravesite near Alfacar, but no human remains were found.

According to Spanish naming customs, a person usually uses their father's surname as their main surname; as García is a very widely-used name and Lorca is not, as is common in similar cases García Lorca is often referred to for short by his mother's less common surname "Lorca", rather than García. However, his name, by Spanish rules, should always be alphabetized under "G".

Life and career

Early years

Lorca, 1914

García Lorca was born on 5 June 1898, in Fuente Vaqueros, a small town a few miles west of Granada, southern Spain. His father, Federico García Rodríguez, was a prosperous landowner with a farm in the fertile vega (valley) 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. After Fuente Vaqueros, the family moved in 1905 to the nearby town of Valderrubio (at the time named Asquerosa). In 1909, when the boy was 11, his family moved to the regional capital of Granada; their best known residence there is the summer home known as the Huerta de San Vicente, on what was then the outskirts of 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. All three of these homes — Fuente Vaqueros, Valderrubio, and Huerta de San Vicente — are today museums.

In 1915, after graduating from secondary school, García Lorca attended the University of Granada. During this time his studies included law, literature and composition. Throughout his adolescence he felt a deeper affinity for music than for literature. When he was 11 years old, he began six years of piano lessons with Antonio Segura Mesa, a harmony teacher in the local conservatory and a composer. It was Mesa who inspired Federico's dream of developing a career in music. His first artistic inspirations arose 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 Segura died in 1916, and his first prose works such as "Nocturne", "Ballade" and "Sonata" drew on musical forms. His milieu of young artists gathered in El Rinconcillo at the cafe Alameda in Granada. During 1916 and 1917, García Lorca traveled throughout Castile, León, 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 – printed at his father's expense in 1918). Don Fernando de los Rios persuaded García Lorca's parents to let him move to the progressive, Oxbridge-inspired Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid in 1919, while nominally attending classes at the University of Madrid.

As a young writer

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

At the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid García Lorca befriended Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí and many other creative artists who were, or would become, influential across Spain. He was taken under the wing of the poet Juan Ramón Jiménez, becoming close to playwright Eduardo Marquina and 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 (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 the 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.

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 (nicknamed Paquito). They concern the themes of religious faith, isolation and nature that had filled his prose reflections. 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, and began to speak publicly in support of the Concurso. At the music festival in June he met the celebrated Manuel Torre, a flamenco cantador. 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. Inspired by the same structural form of sequence as "Deep song", his collection Suites (1923) was never finished and not published until 1983.

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. It was a highly stylised imitation of the ballads and poems that were still being told throughout the Spanish countryside. 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". 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".

His second play, Mariana Pineda, with stage settings by Salvador Dalí, opened to great acclaim in Barcelona in 1927. 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.

File:Postal de Federico a Antonio de Luna.jpg

Postcard from Lorca and Dalí to Antonio de Luna, signed "Federico." "Dear Antonito: In the midst of a delicious ambience of sea, phonographs and cubist paintings I greet you and I hug you. Dalí and I are preparing something that will be 'moll bé.' Something 'moll bonic.' Without realizing it, I have deposited myself in the Catalan. Goodbye Antonio. Say hello to your father. And salute yourself with my finest unalterable friendship. You've seen what they've done with Paquito! (Silence)" Above, penned by Dalí: "Greetings from Salvador Dalí"

From 1925 to 1928 he was passionately involved with Dalí. The friendship with Lorca had a strong element of mutual passion, but Dalí rejected the erotic advances of the poet. With the success of "Gypsy Ballads", came an estrangement from Dalí 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". 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. 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.

Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.
With the shadow at the waist
she dreams on her balcony,
green flesh, green hair,
with eyes of cold silver.

From "Romance Sonámbulo",
("Sleepwalking Romance"), Garcia Lorca

In June 1929, García Lorca travelled to America with Fernando de los Rios on the RMS Olympic, a sister liner to the RMS Titanic. 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. 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

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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. 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 most remote 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". 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. 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".

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. 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.”

File:Federicogarcialorca1.jpg

Bust of Federico García Lorca in Santoña, Cantabria

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.

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 long thought to have been inspired by his passion for Rafael Rodríguez Rapun, secretary of La Barraca, but new documents and mementos discovered in 2012 suggest that the actual inspiration was Juan Ramírez de Lucas, a 19-year-old with whom Lorca hoped to emigrate to Mexico. The love sonnets are inspired by the 16th-century poet San Juan de la Cruz. 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.

Although García Lorca's artwork doesn't often receive attention he was also a keen artist.

Death

García Lorca left Madrid for his family home in Granada only three days before the Spanish Civil War broke out (July 1936). 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). García Lorca knew that he would be suspect to the rising right wing for his outspoken socialist views. Granada was so tumultous that it had had no mayor for months; no one dared accept the job. When Lorca's brother-in-law, Manuel Fernández-Montesinos, agreed to accept the position, he was immediately assassinated. On the same day he was shot, 18 August, Lorca was arrested.

It is thought that García Lorca was shot and killed by Nationalist militia on 19 August 1936. The author Ian Gibson in his book The Assassination of García Lorca alleges that he was shot with three others (Joaquín Arcollas Cabezas, Francisco Galadí Melgar and Dióscoro Galindo González) at a place known as the Fuente Grande, or Great Fountain in Spanish, which is on the road between Víznar and Alfacar. Police reports released by radio station Cadena Ser in April 2015 conclude that Lorca was executed by fascist forces.

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. 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. 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 Ramón Ruiz Alonso arrested García Lorca at the Rosales's home, and was the one responsible for the original denunciation that led to the arrest warrant being issued.

Then I realized 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.

From "The Fable And Round of the Three Friends",
Poet in New York (1929), Garcia Lorca

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. 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. Lorca read this manifesto out loud 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. 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." Jean-Louis Schonberg also put forward the 'homosexual jealousy' theory. 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'. Despite early attempts such as Brenan's in 1949, the site remained undiscovered throughout the Franco era.

Excavation at Alfácar

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The site of the excavation as it was in 1999

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

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

The excavations began at the request of another victim's family. Following a long-standing objection, the Lorca family also gave their permission. In October 2009 Francisco Espínola, 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". Lorca's relatives, who had initially opposed an exhumation, said they might provide a DNA sample in order to identify his remains.

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. But in mid December 2009, doubts were raised as to whether the poet's remains would be found. 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".

In January 2012, a local historian, Miguel Caballero Pérez, author of "The last 13 hours of García Lorca", applied for permission to excavate another area less than half a kilometre from the site, where he believes Lorca's remains are located.

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.

Memorials

File:Federico Garcia Lorca - De profundis - Langebrug, Leiden.JPG

The poem De profundis in Leiden, Netherlands, the last of a set of 101 Wall poems in Leiden to be painted.

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. There is a new statue of Lorca on the Avenida de la Constitución in the city center, and a new cultural center bearing his name is currently under construction and will play a major role in preserving and disseminating his works.

The Parque Federico García 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 García 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 17 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 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."

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 Center in Madrid. The Lorca family gave all Lorca's documentation to the foundation which holds it on their behalf.

In the Castelar Hotel in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he lived for six months in 1933, the room where he lived has been kept as a shrine and contains original writings and drawings of his. The room can be visited by arrangement.

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 Poet in New York 1940)
• 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 1931–34 and not published until after his death in a special edition of Revista Hispánica Moderna in 1940).
• Selected Poems (1941)

Select translations

• Poem of the Deep Song – Poema del Cante 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 Federico García Lorca Translated by Michael Hartnett. Goldsmith Press 1973
• "Poet in New York-Poeta en Nueva York", translated by Pablo Medina and Mark Statman (includes original Spanish, with a preface by Edward Hirsch), Grove Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-8021-4353-2; 0-8021-4353-9

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); only an incomplete draft is known
• 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)

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. Chicago, Illinois

.

Further reading

• OCLC 598851 (477 pages)

• Spanish translation: OCLC 889360 (411 pages). Includes excerpts from García Lorca's works.

• "Unanswered Questions about Lorca' Death", article of es:Daniel Eisenberg

List of works based on Lorca

Poetry and Novels based on Lorca

• Greek surrealist poet and painter Nikos Engonopoulos wrote the poem: News on the death of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca on the 19th of August 1936 in the ditch of Camino de la Fuente, a poem that juxtaposes the actual death of a poet and the symbolic death of poets that are depreciated by their contemporaries.
• 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.
• Allen Ginsberg's poem "A Supermarket in California" makes mention to Lorca mysteriously acting out with a watermelon.
• Spanish poet Luis Cernuda, who is also part of the Generation of '27, wrote the elegy A un poeta muerto (F.G.L.).
• Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti also wrote a poem about García Lorca in 1937 entitled Federico García Lorca.
• The New York-based Spanish language poet Giannina Braschi published El imperio de los sueños in 1988; Braschi's Empire of Dreams is a homage to Poet in New York.
• 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, and more recently in In the Hub of the Fiery Force, Collected Poems of Harold Norse 1934–2003
• 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.
• Nicole Krauss includes a reference to Lorca in her novel Great House (2010): "It was then that he told me the desk had been used, briefly, by Lorca." (p. 11) The desk is the central metaphor for memory and the burden of inheritance, used throughout the novel. Also see page 13. Krauss also refers to Neruda the poet.
• British poet John Siddique wrote "Desire for Sight (After Lorca)" included in Poems from a Northern Soul
• Bengali poet Sunil Ganguly wrote a poem "Kobir Mirtyu-Lorca Smarane" (The death of a Poet- In the memory of Lorca)
• Erie, Pennsylvania poet Sean Thomas Dougherty published a book of poems titled Nightshift Belonging to Lorca.
• Scott Ruescher, author of Sidewalk Tectonics, a 2009 chapbook from Pudding House Publications, won the 2013 Erika Mumford Prize (for poetry about travel and international culture) from the New England Poetry Club for his five-part poem, "Looking for Lorca."
• American-born poet Edwin Rolfe's 1948 Spanish Civil War poem ″A Federico García Lorca″ characterizes Lorca as having ″recognized your [his] assassins,″ whom Rolfe derides as ″The men with the patent-leather hats and souls of patent-leather.″
• The Spanglish novel Yo-Yo Boing! by Giannina Braschi features a dinner party debate among Latin American poets and artists about Lorca's genius compared to other Spanish language poets.

Musical works based on Lorca

• Greek composer Stavros Xarchacos wrote a large piece, a symphonic poem, a lament, with a complete Llanto por Ignatio Sanchez Mejias, by Lorca. Musical idiom of the piece is very true to Spain.
• 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 three- movement work for chamber orchestra) shortly after García Lorca's death, performing the work in Spain during 1937.
• The Italian-American composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote Romencero Gitano for Mixed Choir and Guitar, Op. 152 based on poems from Poema del Cante Jondo.
• The Italian avant-garde composer Luigi Nono wrote a triptych of compositions in 1951–53 collectively titled Tre epitaffi per Federico García Lorca (España en el corazón, Y su sangre ya viene cantando, and Memento: romance de la guardia civil española), and in 1954 composed a three-act ballet titled Il mantello rosso with an argument taken from 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. His four books of "Madrigals," for soprano and various instruments including: piccolo, flute, alto flute, harp, vibraphone, percussion, and contrabass, utilizes for its text twelve short segments of Lorca's poetry.
• 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") and Canción de nuestro tiempo ("Song of our time") for a mixed choir to the lyrics of García Lorca's various poems (1972 and 1993).
• 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
• 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
• French composer Francis Poulenc dedicated his Violin Sonata (1943) to Lorca's memory, and quoted (in French) the first line of his poem ‘Las Seis Cuerdas’ (The Six Strings) - “The guitar makes dreams weep" - at the head of the second movement. He composed his Trois chansons de F Garcia Lorca in 1947.
• Spanish rock band Marea made a rock version of the poem "Romance de la Guardia Civil española", named "Ciudad de los Gitanos".
• In 1959–1960 Austrian-Hungarian composer Iván Eröd composed La doncella, el marinero y el estudiante, a short opera of 15 minutes based almost exclusively on serial techniques, premiered in May 1960 in Innsbruck
• In 1964 Sándor Szokolay adapted Lorca's play Blood Wedding into an opera, Vérnász, first produced in Budapest.
• Wolfgang Fortner also wrote an operatic adaptation of Blood Wedding using a German translation by Enrique Beck, Die Bluthochzeit (1957).
• 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: A Journey Through Our Time.
• American experimental folk-jazz musician Tim Buckley released an album called Lorca which included a song of the same name.
• In 1986, CBS Records released the tribute album Poetas En Nueva York (Poets in New York), including performances by Leonard Cohen, Paco de Lucía.
• In 1986 Leonard Cohen's English translation of the poem "Pequeño vals vienés" by García Lorca reached No. 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.
• 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.
• In 1986, Turkish composer Zülfü Livaneli composed the song Atlı in the album Zor Yıllar, using a Turkish translation of Lorca's Canción del Jinete by Melih Cevdet Anday and Sabahattin Eyüboğlu.
• 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.
• 1n 1998, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, pianist Ben Sidran performed The Concert for García Lorca at Garcia Lorca's home, Huerta de San Vicente, on his piano.
• 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. 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.
• Lorca was referenced in the song "Spanish Bombs" by English punk rock band The Clash on their 1979 album, London Calling.
• The Spanish guitarist José María Gallardo del Rey composed his 'Lorca Suite' in 2003 as a tribute to the 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 Albert 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.
• Catalán composer Joan Albert 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".
• Argentine composer Roberto García Morillo composed Cantata No. 11 (Homenaje a García Lorca), 1988–89.
• In 2000 a Greek rock group Onar composed a song based on Lorca's poem " La balada del agua del mar". Teresa Salgueiro from a Portuguese musical ensemble called Madredeus participates reading the poem during the song.
• In 2009, the indie rock band Youthguard from Indianapolis, released the album Milk Cup which included a song called "Lorca."
• British composer Simon Holt has set Lorca's words to music in Ballad of the Black Sorrow, for five solo singers and instrumental ensemble, and Canciones, for mezzo-soprano and instrumental ensemble. His opera The Nightingale's to Blame is based on Lorca's Amor de don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín.

Theatre, film and television based on Lorca

• Federico García Lorca: A Murder in Granada (1976) directed by Humberto López 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".
• 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.
• 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.ó
• 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 biographical film Little Ashes (2009) depicts the relationship in the 1920s and 1930s between García Lorca, Dalí, and Luis Buñuel.
• American playwright Michael Bradford drama, Olives and Bloodd, produced by Neighborhood Productions at The HERE Art Center/Theatre, June 2012, focuses on the present day trouble one of the supposed murderers of Lorca.
• 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 includes Gypsy Ballads

Sources

• Maurer, Christopher (2001) Federico García Lorca:Selected Poems Penguin

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons
• 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
• Works by Federico García Lorca at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Lorca and Censorship: The Gay Artist Made Heterosexual – essay by Eisenberg, D; FSU
• Federico García Lorca was killed on official orders, say 1960s police files - The Guardian