Celestiales palabras: considering the sky in Federico García Lorca's Poeta en Nueva York

Abstract

The elevating of thoughts, or raising of eyes to contemplate the heavens is a relatively common feature of Poeta en Nueva York that can easily be taken for granted. Yet these shifts in perspective, whether fleeting or sustained, involve complex factors which shed significant light on the work's core themes and preoccupations. By analysing relevant textual examples, this discussion aims to elucidate how such changes of focus serve not only to place the collection's urban environment in a broader context but also to bring Lorca's poetry closer to methods and motifs characteristic of a contemporary pictorial and literary avant-garde. The speaker or spectator's consciousness of higher things, his upward glance or gaze, reveal a fusion of the internal and external that has implications for Nature, spirituality and identity. Indeed, Lorca's view of the celestial realm constitutes an invaluable lens through which to see some often cryptic verse with unaccustomed clarity.