WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.790 align:middle line:84% I hope you had more sleep than I did last night. 00:00:02.790 --> 00:00:06.480 align:middle line:84% But Lorca is very exciting, so I know that he will wake me up, 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:08.460 align:middle line:90% and I hope, by extension, you. 00:00:08.460 --> 00:00:13.800 align:middle line:84% I have some prepared notes, and I call it an informal lecture. 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:18.930 align:middle line:84% I'm going to be reading and also welcoming your interruptions 00:00:18.930 --> 00:00:19.930 align:middle line:90% from my reading. 00:00:19.930 --> 00:00:21.900 align:middle line:84% So please don't feel that you have 00:00:21.900 --> 00:00:24.690 align:middle line:84% to wait until the last second if you want to shout something out 00:00:24.690 --> 00:00:25.190 align:middle line:90% at me. 00:00:25.190 --> 00:00:27.000 align:middle line:90% I delight in that. 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:31.290 align:middle line:84% I'm presenting this as I have read that Lorca 00:00:31.290 --> 00:00:33.010 align:middle line:90% presented his lectures. 00:00:33.010 --> 00:00:35.340 align:middle line:84% He tried to make it sound as if he was making it 00:00:35.340 --> 00:00:38.490 align:middle line:84% up on the spot, but he had prepared very seriously 00:00:38.490 --> 00:00:40.860 align:middle line:90% for long hours. 00:00:40.860 --> 00:00:43.350 align:middle line:84% Not that I am trying to be in his skin. 00:00:43.350 --> 00:00:45.870 align:middle line:84% That would be most difficult indeed. 00:00:45.870 --> 00:00:49.020 align:middle line:84% I understand that it's darn near impossible 00:00:49.020 --> 00:00:51.220 align:middle line:90% to fill the skin of a genius. 00:00:51.220 --> 00:00:53.070 align:middle line:84% But I am here as his great admirer, 00:00:53.070 --> 00:00:55.840 align:middle line:84% and I hope by the end of the hour that you will be too. 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:59.250 align:middle line:84% So you've been listening to the recording of "Nights 00:00:59.250 --> 00:01:02.220 align:middle line:84% in the Gardens of Spain," from which I've borrowed my title 00:01:02.220 --> 00:01:05.880 align:middle line:84% for today's presentation, which is a composition by Manuel de 00:01:05.880 --> 00:01:08.010 align:middle line:90% Falla-- that's F-A-L-L-A-- 00:01:08.010 --> 00:01:11.370 align:middle line:84% who wrote carefully and slowly and, unfortunately for us, 00:01:11.370 --> 00:01:14.940 align:middle line:84% too few pieces, but who our subject today, 00:01:14.940 --> 00:01:17.910 align:middle line:84% Federico García Lorca, admired enormously. 00:01:17.910 --> 00:01:20.760 align:middle line:90% They were old and dear friends. 00:01:20.760 --> 00:01:24.720 align:middle line:84% So this presentation today is my Federico García Lorca, 00:01:24.720 --> 00:01:27.990 align:middle line:84% not a scholar's, or an academician's, or a Doctor 00:01:27.990 --> 00:01:30.990 align:middle line:84% of Spanish Literature's, or a Spaniard's. 00:01:30.990 --> 00:01:33.720 align:middle line:84% I hope to give you an impression from my heart. 00:01:33.720 --> 00:01:35.610 align:middle line:84% And I wish that literally, as I think 00:01:35.610 --> 00:01:37.320 align:middle line:84% Lorca himself might have wanted it, 00:01:37.320 --> 00:01:39.570 align:middle line:84% that my heart might press against you 00:01:39.570 --> 00:01:40.800 align:middle line:90% and leave an imprint. 00:01:40.800 --> 00:01:43.440 align:middle line:84% In this case, an intimate sketch, 00:01:43.440 --> 00:01:46.380 align:middle line:84% a living impression of a man who's changed my life 00:01:46.380 --> 00:01:48.630 align:middle line:90% and so many, many others'. 00:01:48.630 --> 00:01:51.840 align:middle line:84% My first acquaintance with Lorca was when I was a child. 00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:54.810 align:middle line:84% Notice how I say Lorca rather than Lorca's poems, 00:01:54.810 --> 00:01:57.450 align:middle line:84% as though I'd met him, but this seems so natural 00:01:57.450 --> 00:01:58.680 align:middle line:90% when it comes to Lorca. 00:01:58.680 --> 00:02:01.110 align:middle line:90% His generosity calls this forth. 00:02:01.110 --> 00:02:03.780 align:middle line:84% Here's the poem that made its way miraculously 00:02:03.780 --> 00:02:04.890 align:middle line:90% into our house. 00:02:04.890 --> 00:02:10.710 align:middle line:84% Lorca was 27 when he wrote it, and I was 10 when I heard it. 00:02:10.710 --> 00:02:13.770 align:middle line:84% It's called "Song of Amargo's Mother." 00:02:13.770 --> 00:02:16.020 align:middle line:84% This isn't the one that I have handed out. 00:02:16.020 --> 00:02:17.550 align:middle line:84% The one that I have handed out, I'll 00:02:17.550 --> 00:02:19.680 align:middle line:90% discuss with you at the end. 00:02:19.680 --> 00:02:22.650 align:middle line:90% "Song of Amargo's Mother." 00:02:22.650 --> 00:02:27.330 align:middle line:84% "They carry him placed upon my sheet, upon my oleander 00:02:27.330 --> 00:02:28.950 align:middle line:90% and my palm leaves. 00:02:28.950 --> 00:02:34.170 align:middle line:84% The 27th day of August with a tiny little knife of gold. 00:02:34.170 --> 00:02:35.490 align:middle line:90% The cross. 00:02:35.490 --> 00:02:37.380 align:middle line:90% And so much for that. 00:02:37.380 --> 00:02:40.970 align:middle line:84% He was so dark and so very bitter. 00:02:40.970 --> 00:02:44.540 align:middle line:84% Neighbor ladies, bring me a brass pitcher 00:02:44.540 --> 00:02:46.910 align:middle line:90% filled with lemonade. 00:02:46.910 --> 00:02:48.260 align:middle line:90% The cross. 00:02:48.260 --> 00:02:54.020 align:middle line:84% Don't anybody weep, for Amargo is in the moon." 00:02:54.020 --> 00:02:57.140 align:middle line:84% "Song of Amargo's Mother" frightened me terribly, 00:02:57.140 --> 00:03:00.440 align:middle line:84% for it presented a familiar world of numbers and lemonade, 00:03:00.440 --> 00:03:02.630 align:middle line:84% but it was a sad song and violent. 00:03:02.630 --> 00:03:06.710 align:middle line:84% Someone was dead, and his mother didn't want anyone to weep. 00:03:06.710 --> 00:03:08.990 align:middle line:84% I knew nothing about Spanish Catholics, 00:03:08.990 --> 00:03:11.960 align:middle line:84% but I knew the moon where he apparently now lived. 00:03:11.960 --> 00:03:15.680 align:middle line:84% And I dreaded the 27th of August for many years. 00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:17.360 align:middle line:84% In our New York apartment building, 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:19.100 align:middle line:90% my mother had many friends. 00:03:19.100 --> 00:03:21.140 align:middle line:84% I knew they would carry lemonade to her 00:03:21.140 --> 00:03:24.770 align:middle line:84% if she needed it as desperately as this mother apparently did. 00:03:24.770 --> 00:03:27.800 align:middle line:84% It seemed ominous that my mother would drink lemonade, 00:03:27.800 --> 00:03:30.110 align:middle line:84% an innocuous, frivolous kid's drink 00:03:30.110 --> 00:03:32.930 align:middle line:84% but entirely appropriate under the circumstances 00:03:32.930 --> 00:03:36.170 align:middle line:84% of death, which by now I had accepted as my fate. 00:03:36.170 --> 00:03:41.000 align:middle line:84% I also took personally the tiny, little, gold knife. 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:43.130 align:middle line:84% I don't know why the little couplets he wrote in 00:03:43.130 --> 00:03:46.790 align:middle line:84% seemed familiar, but I imagined real poetry skipped like that-- 00:03:46.790 --> 00:03:50.900 align:middle line:84% some words, white space, more words, more space. 00:03:50.900 --> 00:03:53.180 align:middle line:84% The music and the emptiness filled me. 00:03:53.180 --> 00:03:56.120 align:middle line:84% And also, by some coincidence, the only leaves 00:03:56.120 --> 00:03:57.920 align:middle line:84% I knew and loved were palm leaves. 00:03:57.920 --> 00:04:02.400 align:middle line:84% We drove to Florida most winters and sat under them. 00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:04.790 align:middle line:84% The thought of my mother on a park bench having lemonade 00:04:04.790 --> 00:04:08.120 align:middle line:84% brought to her because I was dead still scares me. 00:04:08.120 --> 00:04:09.770 align:middle line:84% Yet I understood with certainty, I 00:04:09.770 --> 00:04:11.870 align:middle line:84% was not with Amargo in the moon where I 00:04:11.870 --> 00:04:14.190 align:middle line:90% imagined things were far worse. 00:04:14.190 --> 00:04:15.980 align:middle line:84% The last line always brought me back 00:04:15.980 --> 00:04:19.700 align:middle line:84% to life and to poor Amargo and his brave mother. 00:04:19.700 --> 00:04:22.790 align:middle line:84% And then something outside of my experience entirely-- 00:04:22.790 --> 00:04:23.810 align:middle line:90% the cross-- 00:04:23.810 --> 00:04:26.870 align:middle line:84% sailed over the heads of the words of the poem 00:04:26.870 --> 00:04:30.800 align:middle line:84% and lodged in the adult world where I was expected. 00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:33.510 align:middle line:84% The tiny, little, gold knife had come from there. 00:04:33.510 --> 00:04:36.740 align:middle line:84% So I knew that the magic went in two directions. 00:04:36.740 --> 00:04:39.200 align:middle line:84% Lorca still has the ability to send me 00:04:39.200 --> 00:04:43.370 align:middle line:84% in several directions at once, including deep into childhood 00:04:43.370 --> 00:04:46.010 align:middle line:84% and far ahead of what I think I know. 00:04:46.010 --> 00:04:48.500 align:middle line:84% I still love a colloquial poem lit 00:04:48.500 --> 00:04:51.860 align:middle line:84% with the passionate moonlight and an intrigue of knives. 00:04:51.860 --> 00:04:56.270 align:middle line:84% But there is more to it than symbolic legend and folk 00:04:56.270 --> 00:04:57.350 align:middle line:90% romance. 00:04:57.350 --> 00:04:59.810 align:middle line:84% With this introduction to death and to the idea 00:04:59.810 --> 00:05:02.420 align:middle line:84% that a young person could be dark and bitter, 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:04.910 align:middle line:84% I took a closer look at my father, and my mother, 00:05:04.910 --> 00:05:08.240 align:middle line:84% and my brother before leaving home. 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:13.280 align:middle line:84% Today, let's take a close and personal look at Lorca. 00:05:13.280 --> 00:05:16.940 align:middle line:84% In his writing, force, magic, and surrealism 00:05:16.940 --> 00:05:20.600 align:middle line:84% allowed him to break out of the confines of accepted behavior, 00:05:20.600 --> 00:05:22.310 align:middle line:84% and many of these techniques are still 00:05:22.310 --> 00:05:25.190 align:middle line:84% found to be useful in the art community today. 00:05:25.190 --> 00:05:28.610 align:middle line:84% However, he used not only popular but also sophisticated 00:05:28.610 --> 00:05:31.940 align:middle line:84% techniques in a quest for a very personal voice. 00:05:31.940 --> 00:05:34.760 align:middle line:84% He's not, strictly speaking, a surrealist poet 00:05:34.760 --> 00:05:38.390 align:middle line:84% or a poet of local color as is sometimes thought. 00:05:38.390 --> 00:05:40.760 align:middle line:84% Lorca studied poetic traditions as far back 00:05:40.760 --> 00:05:44.270 align:middle line:84% as early Arabic poems, and he flung himself into the world 00:05:44.270 --> 00:05:47.900 align:middle line:84% and sometimes into the arms of contemporary artists. 00:05:47.900 --> 00:05:51.260 align:middle line:84% His style is more complicated than it appears. 00:05:51.260 --> 00:05:53.900 align:middle line:84% Those writers in the room trying to borrow 00:05:53.900 --> 00:05:58.850 align:middle line:84% his exciting adjectives and weird juxtapositions, beware! 00:05:58.850 --> 00:06:01.100 align:middle line:84% He has tapped into imagery and figures 00:06:01.100 --> 00:06:03.800 align:middle line:84% of speech that are urgent by immersing himself 00:06:03.800 --> 00:06:07.460 align:middle line:84% in Spanish lullabies, gypsy song, ancient music, 00:06:07.460 --> 00:06:10.310 align:middle line:84% and theater, all of which we'll see in a moment. 00:06:10.310 --> 00:06:12.590 align:middle line:84% He's not writing about folksy stuff, 00:06:12.590 --> 00:06:16.820 align:middle line:84% not, as he says, about short jackets and tambourines, 00:06:16.820 --> 00:06:18.710 align:middle line:90% but about pain. 00:06:18.710 --> 00:06:21.190 align:middle line:84% Listen in to the poem "Farewell." 00:06:21.190 --> 00:06:24.210 align:middle line:90% 00:06:24.210 --> 00:06:27.930 align:middle line:84% "If I die, leave the balcony open. 00:06:27.930 --> 00:06:29.880 align:middle line:84% The little boy is eating oranges. 00:06:29.880 --> 00:06:32.190 align:middle line:90% From my balcony, I can see him. 00:06:32.190 --> 00:06:34.380 align:middle line:90% The reaper is harvesting wheat. 00:06:34.380 --> 00:06:36.990 align:middle line:90% From my balcony, I can see him. 00:06:36.990 --> 00:06:41.460 align:middle line:84% If I die, please leave the balcony open." 00:06:41.460 --> 00:06:44.190 align:middle line:90% Fresh and haunting. 00:06:44.190 --> 00:06:46.830 align:middle line:84% This isn't a narrative, but it's dramatic. 00:06:46.830 --> 00:06:49.020 align:middle line:84% Lorca is immediately apprehendable. 00:06:49.020 --> 00:06:52.050 align:middle line:84% And as accurate as a surgeon in a surgical theater 00:06:52.050 --> 00:06:54.900 align:middle line:84% is Lorca in his own theater, a theater 00:06:54.900 --> 00:06:57.140 align:middle line:90% we will hear from shortly.