Mythic Unity in Lorca's Camborio Poems

Abstract

FEW READERS would take issue with judgment that Federico Garcia Lorca's poetic conception of gypsy in Romancero gitano and Poema del cante jondo clearly exalts this enigmatic wanderer. In view of several critics, this exaltation variously fixes itself upon innocence and dignity of gypsies (Edwin Honig), their instinctive aristocracy (Guillermo Diaz-Plaja), their impulse toward integration, to be themselves (Juan L6pez-Morillas), their passion and imagination (C. M. Bowra), their spirit of opposing life to death (Christoph Eich); and to those qualities could be added beauty, grace and commitment to an ethical code.' Yet, some observers have found an apparent exception to this laudatory treatment in presentation of Antonio Torres Heredia in Prendimiento de Antoflito el Camborio en el camino de Sevilla, first of two back-to-back Camborio poems in Romancero gitano. Still other critics have for their special reasons preferred to concentrate their commentary on second poem, Muerte de Antofiito el Camborio. In our view, those who see in Antonio's earlier behavior only a grave dereliction of honour as Bowra terms (p. 208), and those who are concerned only with youth's manner of dying in second poem, overlook basic unity of two ballads, a unity provided by a systematic structure of contradictions presided over by a strong mythic impulse. Lorca himself once explicitly identified Antonio as prototype of true gypsy and on at least one other occasion enunciated his mythic intent in Romancero gitano.2 Of several critics who have noted presence of myth in Lorca, however, most limit themselves to either mere mention of specific allusions to traditional mythology or to undeveloped statements about mythic inspiration of poems. Bowra, for instance, sees in presence of civil guard ground upon which a mythic struggle occurs passionate, imaginative, simple life and cruel, unnatural forces of senseless authority which attack it (p. 201). Pedro Salinas attributes presence of myth in Lorca's work to his metaphoric capacity to convert natural world into an orb populated by supernatural forces and beings.3 Diaz-Plaja also notes that las fuerzas oscuras predominate in eight of eighteen ballads comprising Romnancero gitano, though he does not specifically attribute to them a mythic portent and notably categorizes Camborio poems as belonging to another group, mundo real (p. 124). Angel del Rio earlier had commented that Lorca elevates a small gypsy universe to category of a mythic hierarchy,4 and Ricardo Gull6n characterizes Lorca as contemporary poet mas inclinado a la trasposici6n mitica.5 In a somewhat more analytical vein, L6pez-Morillas has elucidated lyrical primitivism of ballads, seeing in their violence foundation for Lorca's dramatization of the conflict between primitive myth and modern ideas (p. 134). It is, however, Gustavo Correa who has given us most systematic and thorough study of over-all mythic structure of six principal works by Lorca: Poenza del cante jondo, Romancero gitano, Bodas de sangre, Yerma, Llanto por Ignacio Sdnchez Mejias, and Poeta en Nueva York.6 In process, Correa isolates several characteristics which contribute to mythic unity of six works: (1) feeling of continuity between man and nature and his total immersion in cosmos (p. 156), as seen in poet's metaphoric treatment of drbol and flor categories, (2) tend-