Queer Ancestor Spotlight: Federico García Lorca

Queer Ancestor Spotlight
Written By White Rose Witching

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theater director. He is considered one of the most important Spanish poets of the 20th century. He was a member of the Generation of ‘27, which was a group of poets who brought modern European artistic movements into Spanish literature. During the Spanish Civil War in the 1930’s he toured rural Spain and put on free theatrical shows of classical Spanish theatre before being arrested by Nationalist militias and assassinated.

Federico García Lorca. Huerta de San Vicente, Granada - 1932, Anonymous

García Lorca was born on June 5, 1898 in a small town outside of Granada, Spain. His father owned land in a fertile valley, and their family benefitted from a boom in the sugar industry. His mother was a teacher. After graduating from secondary school in in Granada, he attended the University of Granada where he studies law, literature, and composition. In 1919 a professor persuaded his parents to allow him to attend the more progressive Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid. During his time here, García Lorca befriended a number of future creatives who would become influential across Spain, including Salvador Dali.

Beginning in 1919, García Lorca began writing and staging plays, publishing poetry, and was even invited to exhibit a series of drawings as the Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona in the summer of 1927. His best known book of poetry, Romancero gitano (Gypsy Ballads), was published in 1928. It was a book of poems depicting rural life in Andalusia, told in a highly stylized imitation of ballads that were common across the Spanish countryside.

García Lorca has an intense emotional relationship with Salvador Dali, however the latter rejected his more erotic advances. This, coupled with the breakdown of his relationship with the sculptor Emilio Aladrén Perojo, resulted in a period of severe depression for García Lorca. As a result, he left Spain and traveled to New York and Cuba. These travels provided him the space to more fully explore his homosexuality. It was during this time he wrote his most openly queer works: “Ode to Walt Whitman”, The Public, and The Destruction of Sodom.

García Lorca returned to Spain in 1930. His return coincided with the ouster of Spanish dictator Primo de Rivera and the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic. He was appointment as the director of Teatro Universitario La Barraca, a theater company which was funded by the Ministry of Education and charged with bringing free theater productions to rural Spain. In García Lorca’s own words:

"Outside of Madrid, the theatre, which is in its very essence a part of the life of the people, is almost dead, and the people suffer accordingly, as they would if they had lost their two eyes, or ears, or a sense of taste. We [La Barraca] are going to give it back to them."

This experience exposed García Lorca to the depths of poverty that existed in the Spanish countryside, and he began to see theater as a tool for social action and change. He also wrote his three best known plays during this time, referred to the “Rural Trilogy” and comprised of Blood Wedding, Yerma, and The House of Bernarda. His works began to challenge the conservative assumptions of gender and class, and explored issues of homoeroticism.

The Spanish Civil War began in July 1936 with a failed coup attempt by Spanish Nationalists led by a cabal of military leaders. On August 19, 1936 García Lorca was arrested by Nationalist militias. It is at this point that his life fades into mystery. It is believed he was shot and killed. Police reports released in 1965 back up this claim, describing García Lorca as a “socialist” who engaged in “homosexual and abnormal practices”.

Controversy continues to surround the death of García Lorca and the possible location of his remains. Concrete steps to locate his remains, as well as the remains of countless others murdered under the Franco regime, did not begin until the 21st century with the establishment of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory. At the time of this writing, his remains have yet to be discovered.

White Rose Witching
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