Three Tragedies: Blood Wedding, Yerma, Bernarda Alba (New Directions Paperbook)

The book contains 3 "folk tragedies" written from 1933-1936. All share a passion and directness, and all seem to have as a theme of frustration and despair, and tension between passion and duty. In Blood Wedding, the balance tips toward passion, with the new bride choosing or irresistibly drawn in a way she didn't expect. From Garcia Lorca of course there are always poetic phrases: (Wounds of wax/, Salve of sorrow/. Sleeping by morning/, watching by night"). In Yerma the frustrations of a childless woman are contrasted with the man, who wants nothing more than to love the wife ("You are what I'm after! In the moonlight, you are beautiful"). This introduces us to mysteries such as Delores the Conjurer, and the annual pilgrimage to Moclin (from the introduction "where all manner of pious ritual and impious coupling went on."). The House of Bernarda Alba, seems very different and harder to understand. There is no poetry here, only the seeming eavesdropping on a bitter old woman, Bernarda, and the comings and goings at her house. The only way to get out of this suppression is tragic ("When you least expect it, lightning strikes! When you least expect, your heart stops."). Perhaps Bernarda represents the fascists, that killed Garcia Lorca. These all deal directly with the most primal of human feelings. I regret that I cannot read the originals, and would love to see these staged.

I saw BLOOD WEDDING and THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA on television during the '50s or '60s. I loved them so much, I got the books out of the library read and re-read them during high school. Garcia Lorca is a master of language and poetry. His plays and poems are romantic, lyrical, and passionate. THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA, BLOOD WEDDING, AND YERMA center on the urgent sexuality of women and the rage and pain that come when that sexuality is denied or thwarted. Lorca's plays are not pornographic or sexually explicit--rather they deal with drives, yearnings, impulses that inevitably flower, and how different characters in the play are affected by social pressures that allow--or restrain--her from expressing these ancient needs. One reviewer included a quote in his review, and so will I--this poem will perhaps give the reader a sense of his style: The Gypsy and the Wind Playing her parchment moon Precosia comes along a watery path of laurels and crystal lights. The starless silence, fleeing from her rhythmic tambourine, falls where the sea whips and sings, his night filled with silvery swarms. High atop the mountain peaks the sentinels are weeping; they guard the tall white towers of the English consulate. And gypsies of the water for their pleasure erect little castles of conch shells and arbors of greening pine. Playing her parchment moon Precosia comes. The wind sees her and rises, the wind that never slumbers. Naked Saint Christopher swells, watching the girl as he plays with tongues of celestial bells on an invisible bagpipe. Gypsy, let me lift your skirt and have a look at you. Open in my ancient fingers the blue rose of your womb. Precosia throws the tambourine and runs away in terror. But the virile wind pursues her with his breathing and burning sword. The sea darkens and roars, while the olive trees turn pale. The flutes of darkness sound, and a muted gong of the snow. Precosia, run, Precosia! Or the green wind will catch you! Precosia, run, Precosia! And look how fast he comes! A satyr of low-born stars with their long and glistening tongues. Precosia, filled with fear, now makes her way to that house beyond the tall green pines where the English consul lives. Alarmed by the anguished cries, three riflemen come running, their black capes tightly drawn, and berets down over their brow. The Englishman gives the gypsy a glass of tepid milk and a shot of Holland gin which Precosia does not drink. And while she tells them, weeping, of her strange adventure, the wind furiously gnashes against the slate roof tiles. Now imagine these words in Spanish!

garcia lorca is simply a person who must be read.And where has gone the Argentine "Valsa de Requerda??"" Where?

The trilogy by FGL, Yerma, Blood Wedding and The House of Bernarda Alba is set in Spain not Peru. They are an excellent portrayal of life in rural Spain during those times. A must read for anyone, but especially those who are studying Spanish literature. Allthough most widely known as a poet, FGL displays his talent for drama with these plays.

Lorca uses simple mathematical expressions to convey emotions. A colour, for example white, combined with an object, for example a baby in the opening sequence of Yerma, will add up to a symbolic meaning where either two factors can be used somewhere else. Basically, anything white is a dream of happiness which is destroyed by an event. This very basic set of symbols and the application of "equations" makes Lorca one of the most powerful and accessible writers i've come accross. Oh and the stories are good too (!)