Federico Garcia Lorca: Spain's encore in the West.

• Author: Byrd, Suzanne
• Position: Spanish poet's relationship to South America

June 5, 1998 marks the centennial of the birth of Federico Garcia Lorca, a birth year often belied by the poet himself because of Spain's calamitous loss of world empire in the Spanish-American War of 1898. So wounded was his patriotic pride by the events of 1898 that he deliberately evaded any reference to that year, preferring instead to claim the year 1899, or even 1900, as his natal year. But the parish registry in Fuente Vaqueros, a village on the outskirts of Granada, records his baptism on June 11, 1898, and his family affirms the date of his birth some six days earlier.

Underlying Garcia Lorca's antipathy toward Spain's nadir was his deep devotion to his homeland and to the dissemination of its rich culture. In his brief lifetime, Garcia Lorca spent two extended sojourns in the Americas, and he was on the verge of leaving for a third tour when he fell victim to the vengeance of the Spanish Civil War in August 1936. In Latin America his poetry and theater had already met with such overwhelming acclaim that he was eagerly anticipating his projected return visit to the Americas.

Garcia Lorca's zeal to spread Hispanic lore had first brought him to the Americas in the summer of 1929, just as his literary productivity and publication began to bring him fame. He went first to New York City, where he enrolled to study English at Columbia University. The classroom, however, was not, and in fact had never been, his milieu. While he had hoped to broaden the scope of his creative experience, this foreign venture left him depressed and restless, yearning for a warmer, more gregarious ambiance.

After six months in New York, Garcia Lorca sought a respite and embarked for Cuba, where he planned to give a few lectures and recitals, establishing artistic and cultural ties. On March 9, 1930, the Havana Post carried on page 2 an item entitled "Dr. Lorca Will Lecture Here." At the invitation of the Hispano-Cuban Institution, "the noted Spanish writer and lecturer" was to present a lecture on the mechanics of Spanish prose and poetry, which was to be followed by three more lectures on other aspects of Spanish literature. During the poet's New York stay, according to the news item, he had studied American life, specializing In the folkways of Harlem. Garcia Lorca, in fact, had been greatly drawn to African-American life, musically and socially, and would later draw parallels between the emotional expressions of Spain's gypsies and those of American blacks.

Undoubtedly, this reference to Garcia Lorca's study of Harlem alludes to his collection of poems, Poet in New York, composed during his sojourn there but not published until four years after his death. Considered by some to be Garcia Lorca's greatest poetic achievement, this work contains several poems based upon his observations of Harlem, poems reflecting his bitterness and dejection as he contemplated its misery and squalor. Yet, after arriving in Havana, he added an epilogue. With those final verses Garcia Lorca's lyrical style rebounded, embellishing his old themes and ballad forms. It seems that once the poet had ensconced himself in Cuba, he quickly recovered his innate zest for life and rhythmic expression.

All through the spring of 1930, as Garcia Lorca basked in his popularity in Cuba, his creativity surged with the presentation of his lecture series, which included discourses and poetic presentations on Gongora, Spanish lullabies, the baroque poet Pedro Soto de Rojas, and one of his perennially favorite topics, the cante jondo. During his visit some of his poems were published in Cuban...