Love, Desire and Identity in the Theatre of Federico García Lorca

Paul McDermid

• Publisher: Tamesis Books
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN:
  9781855661462
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781846155659
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

A dialectical tension between physical desire and metaphysical love lies at the heart of the theatre works of Federico García Lorca, and the deployment of queer theory's critique of gender and identity is surprisingly effective in this discussion of love versus desire. Seldom is enough attention paid to the poet's early works, and so this book offers a timely review of the 'religious tragedy' Cristo, as well as Mariana Pineda, uncovering in these early offerings an explicit proposal of the supremacy of love over desire. A meditation on the fragmentary and challenging El público yields a vivid panorama of identity in crisis, and a paradigmatic Lorcan sacrifice of self for love. The ostensibly more conventional tragedies of Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín and Yerma are also reassessed in terms of self-sacrifice and self-love. The study concludes with an argument for a practical re-reading of La casa de Bernarda Alba, which emphasises how the play might be saved from po-faced realism with music, humour and drag performance.BR> PAUL McDERMID lectures in Spanish at Queen's University Belfast.

Table of contents

• FRONTCOVER
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• I. Jesus of Love: The Profane Passion and Holy Spirit of The Young Poet’s Cristo
• II. Mariana Pineda: Iconic Martyr to Love
• III. The Sacrifice of Identity in Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín
• IV. El público: Struggling with Identity
• V. ¡Hijo de mi alma! – Gender Inversion and the Metaphysical Reproduction of the Self in Yerma
• VI. Beyond the Outer Walls: Transvestite Masquerade and Transcendent Escape in La casa de Bernarda Alba
• CONCLUSION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX