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attained a considerable reputation and won
praise for his poems and plays. A sojourn in
the United States, mostly in New York City,
was a stimulating experience, though his
poetry of this period (1929-30) was not
published until after his death. He returned
to Spain after the proclamation of the Sec-
ond Republic in 1931 and was commis-
sioned by the new government to organize
and stage a series of dramatic performances,
particularly oriented toward youth. Like
the festival of
cante jondo
(the flamenco
songs associated with the gypsy traditions
of Andalusia) that he had created some
years earlier, this enterprise was highly suc-
cessful and added to his recognition among
popular and progressive elements. García
Lorca, by the very nature of his art and per-
sonality, was however a marked man
among reactionary forces in Spanish soci-
ety. When he returned from Madrid to his
home city of G
RANADA
at the outbreak of
the S
PANISH
CIVIL
WAR
, he was almost imme-
diately assassinated.
García Lorca is certainly the best-known
Spanish literary figure of the 20th century,
particularly among the wide circle of admir-
ers in other countries, where his plays are
regularly produced, although at least one
notable American critic has said that they
could only be fully understood and appreci-
ated in Spain. His distinctive style, his strik-
ing personality, and the circumstances of
his death, cutting short his achievements at
so early an age, have perpetuated his iconic
stature. Separating García Lorca's plays
from his poetry is more a matter of arbi-
trary distinctions of format than of content
or style. While some of his stage works are
light or even farcical, his three master-
pieces—
Bodas de sangre
(
Blood Wedding,
1933),
Yerma
(1934), and
La casa de Ber-
narda Alba
(
The House of Bernarda Alba,
1936)—constitute a grim trilogy of harsh
rural society. Each deals with matters of
honor, stifling isolation, desperate passion,
and death. While foreign audiences may
see them as “quintessentially Spanish,”
Spanish audiences have recognized their
mixture of symbolism and realism as far
removed from the florid melodrama with
which playwrights such as J
OSÉ
E
CHEGARAY
presented such themes.
Among the best known and most contro-
versial of his poetical work is that contained
in the
Romancero gitano
(
Gypsy Ballads,
1924-
27), which despite its name, is less a collec-
tion of gypsy ballads than a celebration of
his Granada. García Lorca's poetry is full of
recurring symbolism—the horse, the bull,
the moon, the inexorable passage of time—
and it is also intensely reflective of the soci-
ety that he found both fascinating and
menacing. The finest example of his poetry
among the collections of verse he authored
is his elegy on the death of a personal friend,
the matador Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, fatally
gored in the Madrid bullring in 1934. The
ritualistic repetition and the sense of mount-
ing doom that advances with the ticking
away of the hours are interwoven with a
larger sense of inescapable human destiny
and, perhaps, with a premonition of García
Lorca's own not-too-distant fate.
Garcilaso de la Vega
(1503-1536)
Spanish poet
Revered as the perfect courtier possessing
in equal measure all the skills of a noble
gentleman, from mastery of musical instru-
ments to bravery on the field of battle, Gar-
cilaso was a native of T
OLEDO
whose
distinguished lineage guaranteed him a
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