Lorca After Life

A reflection on Federico García Lorca’s life, his haunting death, and the fame that reinvigorated the marvelous in the modern world “A galaxy of critical insights into the cultural shock waves circling and crisscrossing Lorca’s execution and his unknown resting place, there is not a single book on Lorca like this one.”—Andrés Zamora, Vanderbilt University There is something fundamentally unfinished about the life and work of Federico García Lorca (1898–1936), and not simply because his life ended abruptly. Noël Valis reveals how this quality gives shape to the ways in which he has been continuously re-imagined since his death. Lorca’s execution at the start of the Spanish Civil War was not only horrific but transformative, setting in motion many of the poet’s afterlives. He is intimately tied to both an individual and a collective identity, as the people’s poet, a gay icon, and fabled member of a dead poets’ society. The specter of his violent death continues to haunt everything connected to Lorca, fueling the desire to fill in the gaps in the poet’s biography. There is something fundamentally unfinished about the life and work of Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936), and not simply because his life ended abruptly. Noël Valis reveals how this quality gives shape to the ways in which he has been continuously re-imagined since his assassination. The specter of his violent death continues to haunt everything connected to Lorca, fueling the desire to fill in the gaps in the poet's biography. Lorca's execution at the start of the Spanish Civil War was not only horrific but transformative, setting in motion many of the poet's afterlives, including those related to his sexuality and gender identity. Lorca is intimately tied to both an individual and collective identity, as the people's poet, a gay icon, and fabled member of a dead poets' society. His fame is a reinvigorated expression of the marvelous in the modern world, with homosexuality as one of its most fascinating manifestations There is something fundamentally unfinished about the life and work of Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936), and not simply because his life ended abruptly. Noël Valis reveals how this quality gives shape to the ways in which he has been continuously re-imagined since his death. Lorca's execution at the start of the Spanish Civil War was not only horrific but transformative, setting in motion many of the poet's afterlives. He is intimately tied to both an individual and collective identity, as the people's poet, a gay icon, and fabled member of a dead poets' society. The specter of his violent death continues to haunt everything connected to Lorca, fueling the desire to fill the gaps in the poet's biography Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction 16 PART ONE 42 1. Why Dead Poets Matter 44 2. Lorca’s Grave 84 3. The People’s Poet and the Right 114 PART TWO 170 4. Fabulous Fag (I), or the Politics of Celebrity Murder 172 5. Fabulous Fag (II), or the Celebrity of Sex 201 6. Fabulous Fag (III), or a Face in the Crowd 246 Postscript 302 Notes 308 Bibliography 378 Index 442 A 442 B 442 C 443 D 444 E 445 F 445 G 446 H 447 I 448 J 448 K 448 L 448 M 449 N 450 O 450 P 450 Q 451 R 451 S 452 T 453 U 453 V 453 W 454 X 454 Y 454 Z 454 "To quote the introduction: "Lorca After Life is about how the poet has been remembered and imagined and, in this manner, brought back to life in a strange kind of afterglow. It is thus also about his fame, just as his posthumous life serves as a springboard to consider the larger question of why certain dead poets matter and why we obsess over them.""-- Provided by publisher