Lorca, icon and polymath in all his manifestations.

Immortalized in death by The Clash, Pablo Neruda, Salvador Dalí, Dmitri Shostakovich and Lindsay Kemp, Federico García Lorca's spectre haunts both contemporary Spain and the cultural landscape beyond. This study offers a fresh examination of one of the Spanish language’s most resonant voices; exploring how the very factors which led to his emergence as a cultural icon also shaped his dramatic output. The works themselves are also awarded the space that they deserve, combining performance histories with incisive textual analysis to restate Lorca’s presence as a playwright of extraordinary vision, in works such as: Blood Wedding The Public The House of Bernarda Alba Yerma. Federico García Lorca is an invaluable new resource for those seeking to understand this complex and multifaceted figure: artist, playwright, director, poet, martyr and in the eyes of many, Spain’s ‘national dramatist’.

Flamenco Music and National Identity in Spain explores the efforts of the current government in southern Spain to establish flamenco music as a significant patrimonial symbol and marker of cultural identity. Further, it aims to demonstrate that these Andalusian efforts form part of the ambitious project of rethinking the nation-state of Spain, and of reconsidering the nature of national identity. A salient theme in this book is that the development of notions of style and identity are mediated by social institutions. Specifically, the book documents the development of flamenco's musical style by tracing the genre's development, between 1880 and 1980, and demonstrating the manner in which the now conventional characterization of the flamenco style was mediated by krausist, modernist, and journalist institutions. Just as importantly, it identifies two recent institutional forces, that of audio recording and cinema, that promote a concept of musical style that sharply contrasts with the conventional notion. By emphasizing the importance of forward-looking notions of style and identity, Flamenco Music and National Identity in Spain makes a strong case for advancing the Spanish experiment in nation-building, but also for re-thinking nationalism and cultural identity on a global scale.

A study of Lorca's poetic trajectory. This volume is one of few surveys in English of the whole of Lorca's poetry and the first to concentrate entirely on self-consciousness, a subject which it sees as central to our understanding of the work of a poet writing in themost self-conscious of literary periods: the Modernist era. Focusing on poems which have the poet, art and creativity as their subject, or which draw attention at a formal level to issues of practice or style, it shows how these poems speak for or against contemporary aesthetic doctrine, thereby revealing the extent of the poet's allegiance to it and the positions he takes up in the process of making his own mark in the literary field. In so doing itcharts the development of a poet whose self-conscious engagement with his art offers an explanation as to why his work, in the space of little more than a decade and a half, should have been so singular and diverse. FEDERICO BONADDIO lectures in Modern Spanish Studies at King's College London.

Emerging as one of the most exciting, fascinating, and special kinds of filmmaking in the world, Spanish cinema has been producing excellent directors, actors, and films for decades, including during the dark times of the Franco regime. With directors (Pedro Almodovar), actors and actresses (Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz), and films (Abre los ojos and Alatriste) amassing popularity, the outlook for Spanish cinema appears brighter than ever, and it is deservedly winning numerous fans abroad. --

In 1926, as a young man of 28 with a growing reputation as an oral poet, Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) toyed with the idea of proving his worth in writing by bringing out a boxed set of three volumes of his verse. Because the Suites , Canciones , and the Poema del cante jondo eventually came out singly (in the case of the Suites , posthumously), readers have not always realised that they formed a single body of work -- one which, Lorca himself was surprised to note, has 'una rarisima unidad', an odd unity of aims and accomplishment. This is poetry which takes up the question of desire in progressively depersonalizing ways, and shows modernism coming into being. Through renunciation, by cutting away the personal and the taboo, Lorca created a poetry that, like no other in Europe, stood between the avant-garde and oral traditions, making their contradictions his truth. Roberta Ann Quance is Senior Lecturer in Spanish at Queen's University, Belfast.

Historical Dictionary of Spanish Cinema covers Spanish cinema, its treasures its constant attempts to break through internationally, reaching out towards universal themes and conventions, and the specific obstacles and opportunities that have shaped the careers of filmmakers and stars. This book contains a chronology, an introduction, an appendix and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 200 cross-referenced entries on titles, movements, filmmakers and performers, and genres (such as homosexuality, nuevo cine español or horror). This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Spanish cinema.