Listening through mirrors: Representing Garcia Lorca's Suites.

Abstract

Although Federico Garcia Lorca is one of the most renowned of all Spanish writers, a fundamental area of his poetic development continues to be virtually neglected by contemporary criticism: his posthumously published collection of poetry, <italic>Suites</italic>. Written concurrently with three other of his major works and representing a crucial moment in his production, <italic> Suites</italic> moves beyond its own loosely constructed boundaries and problematizes our understanding of Lorca's other collections, while simultaneously repositioning his poetic evolution. The dissertation is framed by a theoretical exploration of the links between textual materiality and literary-critical reading practices. Given its material complexity as well as its own discourse on reading/writing strategies, <italic>Suites</italic> lends itself to an exploration of both. Working through <italic>Suites</italic>, I first examine the ways in which materiality and context define our reading experiences, the critical construction of Lorca, and this particular collection. I go on to formulate an innovative way of representing and reading <italic>Suites</italic>, foregrounding the way that it challenges us to reconceptualize traditional notions regarding textual construction and editorial work. I advocate and later enact a literary and cultural criticism that emerges from a reformulation of the work of art, one that gives voice to previously silenced aspects and texts of the work. Now seen not only as a product, but also as a process of creation represented by multiple versions, we necessarily highlight the material and contextual nature of its transformations. Through this lens of materiality and conditions of textual production, I then analyze <italic>Suites</italic> and argue that by creating both a metaphoric and textual materialization of silence and reticence, Lorca covertly intersects transgressive sexuality and poetics within the poem. Approaching this collection with a more complex sense of the work of art, then, we can read for the material and metaphoric gaps of the page. This strategy enables an understanding of both Lorca's articulation of poetry as a space of potential socio-political opposition, and his formulation of a sexual/textual politics in the early years of the Spanish avant-garde.