Garcia Lorca, Federico

García Lorca, Federico 

Born June 5, 1898, in Fuen-tevaqueros; died Aug. 19, 1936, near Granada. Spanish poet and dramatist. Graduated from the university in Granada.

García Lorca’s artistic works bear the influence of Andalusian folk songs. Overcoming the imitative nature of his first Book of Poems (1921), he enriched traditional forms with the achievements of modern poetry and expressed the folk sense of life in the collections El Poema del Cante jondo (1921-22, published in 1931), Songs (1927), and First Gypsy Romancero (1928), as well as the narrative poem Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías (1935). The volume of poetry The Poet in New York (published 1940) was based on his trip to the USA and Cuba (1929-30). It is filled with a spirit of renouncement of the capitalist world.

García Lorca’s drama incorporates the main themes of his poetry: love, death, and a hatred of despotism. He wrote a romantic fairy tale (“The Butterfly’s Curse,” 1919), a heroic drama (Mariana Pineda, 1925; Russian translation, 1944), plays for puppet theater, and a popular folk farce (The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife, 1930; Russian translation, 1940). Some of García Lorca’s plays have become classics of poetic drama, including the tragedies Blood Wedding (1933; Russian translation, 1938) and Yerma (1934; Russian translation, 1944), the play Doña Rosita the Spinster, or The Language of Flowers (1935; Russian translation, 1957), and the drama The House of Bernarda Alba (1936, published 1945; Russian translation, 1957). The heroines of these works find themselves in a relentless struggle against their deadening environment.

After the Spanish republic had been declared in 1931, García Lorca joined the politically more progressive Spanish writers. From 1931 to 1933 he led La Barraca, a group of traveling student players that performed the classics of Spanish drama. It was in Granada that García Lorca was caught by surprise in the Franco storm and executed by the fascists.

WORKS

Obras completas. [Madrid, 1966.]
In Russian translation:
Teatr. Introduction by F. Kel’in. Moscow, 1957.
Izbrannaia lirika. [Preface by E. Simorr. Moscow, 1960.]
Lirika. [Preface by A. Geleskul.] Moscow, 1965.

REFERENCES

Ospovat, L. Garsia Lorka. Moscow, 1965.
Vazques Ocaña, F. García Lorca: Vida, cántico y muerte. Mexico City, 1957.
Cano, J. L. García Lorca: Biografía ilustrada. Barcelona [1962].
Auclair, M. Enfances et mort de Garcia Lorca. [Paris, 1968.] (Bibliography, pp. 473-74.)
Honig, E. García Lorca. London [1968]. (Bibliography, pp. 227-34).

L. S. OSPOVAT