Federico Garcia Lorca

Federico Garcia Lorca

Federico Garcia Lorca was many things in course of his life. He was a playwright, a poet, a musician, a scholar, a homosexual and a martyr. Lorca's life began in 1898 in the village of Fuente Vaqueros, just outside the Spanish city of Granada. He developed artistically at a very young age, studying music as a child and writing poetry starting in his teen years. He went off to The University of Madrid as a young man to study law, but he eventually dropped this pursuit in favor of the arts. He published his first book of poetry in 1921 and became famous in Spain in 1927 with the publication of his book of poetry Romancero Gitano.

While living in Madrid, Lorca began to associate with a group known as the Generation of '27, a group of experimental artists who worked in all different kinds of art forms. Lorca found himself struggling with his repressed homosexuality around this time, finding it harder and harder to keep it hidden from his family and friends. This theme of painful, repressed sexuality is echoed in his later work The House of Bernarda Alba.

Garcia Lorca lived in New York for several years, where he wrote Poet in New York. This posthumously published work touched on Lorca's feelings of depression and suicidal urges, urges that may have helped him to create the frightened, repressed and ultimately suicidal character Adela in The House of Bernarda Alba. He returned to Spain in 1931 and established his own theatre troupe, "La Barraca," which toured the Spanish countryside for several years. The observations Lorca made traveling over the next several years provided the setting and society depicted in Lorca's most famous works, Blood Wedding, Yerma, and The House of Bernarda Alba, which constitute the "Rural Tragedy" trilogy. The early to mid 1930s saw a rise in the militancy and outspokenness of right-wing conservatives of all types, something Lorca disapproved of given his leftist political views, his interest in edgy and experimental art and his sexual orientation. It should come as no surprise then that Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba, written in 1934 and 1936 respectively, contain attacks on traditional conservative morals and norms. This can especially be seen in The House of Bernarda Alba, as the despicable Bernarda's dictator-like personality echoes the political and moral attitude of the Right.

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