Canciones and the Early Poetry of Lorca

(Hardback)

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'Canciones' and the Early Poetry of Lorca is concerned with an area of Lorca's work that has received surprisingly scant consideration. The English-speaking world knows Lorca best as a playwright, while it is his poetry after 1925 that has attracted most attention, notably Romancero gitano and Poeta en Nueva York. This book therefore attempts to right the imbalance in critical studies by focussing on Canciones (begun in 1921, published 1927), a work the author regards as the culmination of Lorca's early poetry. D. Gareth Walters focuses on the constitution of meaning and sense in Lorca's poetry and therefore adopts a polemical approach that takes issue with extra-literary interpretations of the texts. He traces the development of Lorca's work up to Canciones and offers a full and detailed reading of that collection which explicates many poems often thought to be obscure or enigmatic. At the same time, Lorca's poetry is also placed in useful critical and comparative contexts.

Reviews

'An outstandingly good study which will no doubt prove to be something of a landmark in Lorca criticism, and cannot be recommended too highly' 'a first-rate study, highly original and very well written' 'excellent discussions of what on the surface can seem very enigmatic poems' '...Walters's poetic analysis is thorough, logical, very well constructed from a critical point of view, and yet very approachable. The resulting text is exceedingly useful...a well-constructed discussion and analysis, well narrated and cogent.' Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies. '...it is written in a clear style and language that make it accessible to the non-specialist.' British Bulletin of Publications

Author Bio

Gareth Walters is Professor of Spanish at the University of Exeter, where he moved from a chair in Spanish at Glasgow University.