Four Major Plays (Paperback)

Paperback. `I have made a terrible discovery . I have not yet been born . I live off borrowed substance; what I have within me is not mine.'In his four last plays Federico Garcia Lorca offered his disturbed and disturbing personal vision to Spanish audiences of the 1930s - unready, as he thought them, for the sexual frankness and surreal expression of his more experimental work. The ill-fated lovers of Blood Wedding, the desolateYerma, the fading spinster Rosita, and Bernarda Alba's abused household of women all inhabit a familiar Andalusia. Their predicaments are starkly plotted, with a stagecraft rooted in classical theatrical tradition. Insuch figures Lorca addresses the cultural and political ferment of his time with a fiercely libertarian assault on 'old and wrong moralities', fusing the personal and the political through his virtuoso mastery of images.Yet all that mastery can barely keep at bay the anguished contradictions of these doomed human lives. Hence the authentic sense of danger - the duende, to use his own word of Lorca's theatre, finely conveyed here in John Edmunds's fluent and rhythmicnew translations that lend themselves admirably to performance.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around theglobe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. In his four last plays (Blood Wedding, Yerma, The House of Bernarda Alba, Dona Rosita the Spinster) Federico Garcia Lorca offered his disturbed and disturbing personal vision to Spanish audiences of the 1930s—unready, as he thought them, for the sexual frankness and surreal expression of his more experimental work. The authentic sense of danger of Lorca's theatre is finely conveyed here in John Edmunds's fluent and rhythmic new translations that lend themselves admirably to performance. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…