Lorca, icon and polymath in all his manifestations.

A study of Lorca's poetic trajectory. This volume is one of few surveys in English of the whole of Lorca's poetry and the first to concentrate entirely on self-consciousness, a subject which it sees as central to our understanding of the work of a poet writing in themost self-conscious of literary periods: the Modernist era. Focusing on poems which have the poet, art and creativity as their subject, or which draw attention at a formal level to issues of practice or style, it shows how these poems speak for or against contemporary aesthetic doctrine, thereby revealing the extent of the poet's allegiance to it and the positions he takes up in the process of making his own mark in the literary field. In so doing itcharts the development of a poet whose self-conscious engagement with his art offers an explanation as to why his work, in the space of little more than a decade and a half, should have been so singular and diverse. FEDERICO BONADDIO lectures in Modern Spanish Studies at King's College London.

Feted by his contemporaries, Federico García Lorca's status has only grown since his death in 1936. This book shows just why his fame has endured, through an exploration of his most popular works: Romancero Gitano, Poeta en Nueva York and the trilogy of tragic plays - Blood Wedding, Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba.Feted by his contemporaries, Federico García Lorca's status has only grown since his death in 1936: poet, playwright, political martyr, gay icon, champion of women, defender of the oppressed. This book guides readers through the key themes and concerns in Lorca's work. It demonstrates how Lorca applied his poetic sensibilities and lyrical craft to what were, in essence, tangible, real-life issues: the plight of Andalusia's Romani people, the idea of modernity and the condition of women in Spain. What becomes evident is that, even though he was writing at a time when many writers and artists were less inclined to deal directly with the things of the world, Lorca maintained a profound interest in the human subject and in the world around him. It is this interest, the book argues, in tandem with his poetic vision and craft, that ensured his most popular works' enduring, universal appeal.in the human subject and in the world around him. It is this interest, the book argues, in tandem with his poetic vision and craft, that ensured his most popular works' enduring, universal appeal.in the human subject and in the world around him. It is this interest, the book argues, in tandem with his poetic vision and craft, that ensured his most popular works' enduring, universal appeal.in the human subject and in the world around him. It is this interest, the book argues, in tandem with his poetic vision and craft, that ensured his most popular works' enduring, universal appeal.

This first English-language edition of Federico Garcia Lorca's Selected Letters presents an intimate autobiographical record of the Spanish poet from the age of twenty to a month before his death at the hands of Franco's forces in 1936. "I was born for my friends," Lorca wrote to Melchor Fernández Almagro in 1926, and these letters reveal the personality his friends found so magical. ("A happiness, a brilliance..." Pablo Neruda called him.) Lorca was by turns sympathetic, generous, demanding, whimsical, insecure, and always lyrical. Over the nineteen years covered in this selection, he maintained a correspondence with his closest friends, particularly his childhood companion Melchor Fernández Almagro and his fellow poet Jorge Guillén, and wrote in concentrated bursts to many others. He could be playful with Salvador Dali's younger sister Ana Maria; deferential to composer Manuel de Falla; lively and descriptive with his family; and exasperating to Barcelona critic Sebastian Gasch as he poured out literary plans and solicited favors, ever impassioned but good-natured. With their frequent enclosures of poems and scenes from plays, the letters also chronicle Lorca's growth as an artist, from self-doubting romantic dilettante to confident, internationally respected playwright and poet. Begun at Columbia University under the aegis of Lorca's brother, Francisco Garcia Lorca, the translation and selection of these letters has been made by David Gershator, poet, teacher, and co-founder of the Downtown Poets Co-op. Dr. Gershator has also provided an informative biographical introduction.

Federico García Lorca (1898–1936) is perhaps Spain’s most famous writer and cultural icon. By the age of thirty, he had become the most successful member of a brilliant generation of poets, winning critical and popular acclaim by fusing traditional and avant-garde themes and techniques. He would go on to reinvent Spanish theater too, writing bold, experimental, and often shocking plays that dared openly to explore both female and homosexual desire. A vibrant and mercurial personality, by the time Lorca visited Argentina in late 1933, he had become the most celebrated writer and cultural figure in the Spanish-speaking world. But Lorca’s fame could not survive politics: his identification with the splendor of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–36) was one of the reasons behind Lorca’s murder in August 1936 at the hands of right-wing insurgents at the start of the Spanish Civil War. In this biography, Stephen Roberts seeks out the roots of the man and his work in the places in which Lorca lived and died: the Granadan countryside where he spent his childhood; the Granada and Madrid of the 1910s, ’20s, and ’30s where he received his education and achieved success as a writer; his influential visits to Catalonia, New York, Cuba, and Argentina; and the mountains outside Granada where his body still lies in an undiscovered grave. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of a complex and brilliant man as well as new insight into the works that helped to make his name.

This poem-by-poem guide to Lorca’s Romancero gitano was prompted by the need for some form of guidance to the overwhelming amount of critical material published on the book, the relative neglect or misunderstanding of certain poems and a concern to counter a recent tendency to eccentric interpretation. Herbert Ramsden’s comprehensive collection of commentaries will be useful both for students and teachers and for the Lorca specialist. With each poem the author offers a brief introduction to relevant background material, a comprehensive commentary, a brief indication of interpretations notably different from his own and a select critical bibliography. In a more general bibliography, the author lists a number of translations of Romancero gitano into English and a selection of commentary-based studies. The great diversity and allusive richness of Lorca’s poetic masterpiece demands more space than a compact student edition allows, and all serious students of Romancero gitano will want to use Herbert Ramsden’s Eighteen commentaries alongside his simultaneously-published edition of the text.

Finished just two months before the author's murder on 18 August 1936 by a gang of Franco's supporters, The House of Bernarda Alba is now accepted as Lorca's great masterpiece of love and loathing. Five daughters live together in a single household with a tyrannical mother. When the father of all but the eldest girl dies, a cynical marriage is advanced which will have tragic consequences for the whole family. Lorca's fascinatingly modern play, rendered here in an English version by David Hare, speaks as powerfully as a political metaphor of oppression as it does as domestic drama. The House of Bernarda Alba premiered at the National Theatre, London, in March 2005.