Federico García Lorca
It is impossible to study Spanish literature without coming across Federico García Lorca, arguably one of the most important characters to emerge in Spain´s cultural history. This is not merely due to the splendor of his famous surrealist masterpieces such as Bodas de sangre (‘Blood Wedding’), Yerma, and La Casa de Bernada Alba (‘The House of Bernarda Alba’), but also due to the interesting époque in which he was writing, when many important cultural figures emerged in Spain, such as Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, with whom Lorca was even rumoured to be romantically involved. This group came to be known as the “Generation of ´27´”.
However, it was crippled by the Civil War. Lorca was murdered by a group of people suspected to be Nationalists, and had a general ban placed on his works, which was not removed until 1953. It is perhaps for this reason that Lorca’s works have come to be so treasured, as they not only represent masterful writing, but also play a role in the nation´s history.
Lorca was born in a village outside Granada in 1898, and although the family moved to Granada city when he was 11, they continued to spend summers in the country, where Lorca did much of his writing. Lorca emphasized the importance of his rural background, saying that without this opportunity to observe rural life he would never have been able to write ´Blood Wedding´.
Lorca moved to Madrid in 1919 but it was not until 1927 that he started to become truly respected as a dramatist, when his play Mariana Pineda opened to great acclaim in Barcelona. By 1928, he was beginning to feel unhappy in Spain, mainly due to his feeling of estrangement from his friends Buñuel and Dalí when they collaborated on the film ‘An Andalusian Dog’ without inviting him to join them. His family arranged for him to go to New York, where he wrote Poeta en Nueva York, in which he used a variety of original poetic techniques to express his feelings of isolation in the city.
In 1930, Lorca returned to Spain and in 1931 he became the director of a university theatre company. It was whilst touring with this company that he wrote his famous “Rural Trilogy” of Bodas de Sangre, Yerma and La Casa de Bernada Alba.
In July 1936, he returned to Granada. He was arrested and shot a month later, leaving behind a plethora of unfinished manuscripts. There are still questions surrounding Lorca´s murder; many say he was apolitical and had friends on both sides, suggesting his killer´s motives were not political. It has been proposed that his sexual orientation could have played a role in his murder, but no one can be totally sure.
One thing people can be sure of however is the mastery of Lorca´s craft, which continues to be enjoyed today. His contribution to Spanish literature is one of the most important in recent years and it is unlikely that his plays will disappear from stages for many years to come.