WEBVTT

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By approaching nature and
its tragic relationship

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to human nature
through popular legends

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and by metaphors that he dug
out of history and culture,

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his plays and his poetry reach
right through our defenses

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to touch us in a deep place.

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He was able to move a standard
narrative form, the ballad,

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for example, beyond story
into emotional territory.

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We can't simply laugh, or
shrug, or feel confusion.

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We can't dismiss his work.

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But because his art is both
complicated and simple,

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because he's both a
magnifier and a distiller,

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he remains an enigma, as alone
as on the day he was taken away

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and shot in the head by fascists
outside the village of Víznar.

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Why was it that this man was
such a threat to the highest

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level of civil authority?

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Perhaps it's true,
as Lorca thought,

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that sensitive theater can
alter a people's sensitivity

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in just a few years.

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How else is it that a
playwright, poet, puppeteer,

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piano player, and
prankster ends up

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shot in the middle of a morning?

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To this day, no one is saying
exactly where, exactly when.

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I wish I could
introduce you to Lorca

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by taking you into
his parents' house

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and letting you
listen in while he

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plays the piano on a dry,
hot Andalusian afternoon.

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Or even farther back,
let you eavesdrop

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on the family's housekeeper
dressed as a Moor in curtain

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and towel, and plastered
in rice powder,

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as she tells the
story to Federico

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and his brother,
Francisco, while they

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listen half enthralled,
and half making fun of her.

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Yes, here are the playful,
nimble-minded Lorca boys,

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cocky, laughing it up.

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All this and much more
recounted by his biographer,

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Leslie Stainton, to
whose book I send you

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in my short bibliography
in your paper.

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You will see in her book,
Lorca as a young man,

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entertaining his friends
for hours in cafes.

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Late into the night, reciting
poems, telling stories.

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Lorca, the prankster,
and the sensuous Lorca.

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And Lorca, the homosexual,
grappling with his identity.

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Lorca, Salvador Dalí's intimate.

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And the more serious Lorca,
after his early success,

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distressed and reticent about
fame, escaping to New York.

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Overwhelmed with, as he
says, "the death that's

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nothing but rottenness,"
when he sees Wall Street.

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And thrilled by the great,
black city of Harlem

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while studying at Columbia.

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Who is this man?

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Dead at 38, small in
stature, staring out at us

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from black, soft eyes.

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He was born in Fuente Vaqueros,
Granada, on June 5, 1898.

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A childhood ailment
prevented him

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from speaking
until he was three,

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and from walking
until he was four.

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And he walked all his
life with a bit of a limp.

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This reminds me of the beautiful
elegy he read at the Cubist

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painter María
Blanchard's funeral.

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Speaking movingly of her
difficulty with her body,

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and the humiliations she endured
from apparently having been

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pushed down a flight of stairs.

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And how she nevertheless
lived taking in the needy,

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mending her own shoes by hand.

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The elegy is another
one of Lorca's

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great, empathetic writings.

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And in it, he refers to her
as a world, "a dark pillow

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on which my head is resting."

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And then, he says
famously, "but I'm not

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telling you this
for you to meditate

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on its truth or falsehood.

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It's myth that
creates the world."

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But I digress.

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Lorca's influence,
no doubt, especially

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as he was a great fan of
Cervantes' "Don Quixote."

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But I will not take you around
on a little skinny horse.

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It is Granada that gives Lorca
his roots in classic Roman

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and Greek cultures,
Arab and gypsy cultures,

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and Spanish poetry.

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He learns the guitar.

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He learns the piano.

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He writes a lovely, little book,
Impressions and Landscapes,

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after a tour with his class.

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Lorca is no provincial, however.

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His roots are deep in
Spanish soil, generally.

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So it's not merely
simple when he

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says in his most widely
anthologized poem,

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"green, how much
I want you, green.

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Green wind, green branches,
the ship upon the sea,

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and the horse in the mountain.

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With the shadow on her waist,
she dreams on her balcony.

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Green flesh, hair of green,
and eyes of cold silver.

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Green, how much I
want you, green.

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Beneath the gypsy moon,
all things look at her.

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But she can't see them."

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But this is no simple
nature poem or erotic song.

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This is a poem that turns very
dark and dangerous, listen.

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"Friend, I want to die
decently in my bed.

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Don't you see the wound
I have in my throat?

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And the friend answers, 'your
white shirt bears 300 dark

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roses.'

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And now, the two friends go
up toward the high balustrade,

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leaving a trail of blood,
leaving a trail of tears.

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Small lanterns of tin were
trembling on the roofs.

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A thousand symbol tambourines
piercing the dawn."

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And this poem does not end well.

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No, it does not.

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"The night became as
intimate as a little square.

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Drunken civil guards
knocked on the doors."

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We shall meet these civil guards
again in just a moment or two.

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Lorca moves to Madrid
where he studies

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at the progressive Residencia.

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Students here can make
their own programs.

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And Lorca chooses to
be more the Troubadour,

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than the intellectual.

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Because he's
essentially dramatic,

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he loves to talk,
he loves to listen,

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he loves to give recitals.

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In fact, he never shut up.

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The great Edwin Honig, who
wrote the seminal work on Lorca,

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refers to him as histrionic, by
which he means in the same way

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that Tennessee Williams is, with
a bit of brilliance and a bit

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of flair.

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Lorca, for example,
recited poems out loud

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as a means of writing them.

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Please, understand these are
not memorized and presented.

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These are composed and
conceived in public.

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And this is how Lorca
became known very early

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on without publishing much.

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For the writers in the audience,
I do not recommend this.

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