GLR November-December 2024

ESSAY The Love Song of Lorca and Dalí I GNACIO D ARNAUDE

I N THE HEART OF MADRID, amid the vibrant cul tural hub of the Residencia de Estudiantes, fate orches trated a meeting in 1923 that would forever alter the trajectories of two towering figures in Spanish culture: Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) and Salvador Dalí (1904-1989). Lorca would soon become one of Spain’s most important writers and poets and a universal queer icon with timeless classics such as Blood Wedding (1933) and The House of Bernarda Alba (1945). Dalí would turn into a world renowned surrealist painter. This is the story of their extraordi nary relationship, an impossible love story for the ages. Having been born just three years after the Oscar Wilde tri als, which imprinted homosexuality on the social consciousness of Europe, Lorca struggled with his sexuality, which became a constant source of anguish. As a youngster, a teacher called him Federic a for not being boyish enough. At the age of twenty, he wrote to a friend confessing that “in the presence of others I feign a sexual leaning that isn’t in my heart’s truth.” Lorca grew up at a time when homosexuals could be im

prisoned in Spain for up to twelve years. This changed dramat ically under the 1932 Republican Penal Code, which only pe nalized homosexuality in cases of abuse. Spain’s social reality, however, didn’t live up to the new legislation. When Lorca be came the artistic director of La Barraca, a theater group that brought classical Spanish plays to rural audiences, a right-wing critic called him “a faggot surrounded by a nest of homosexu als.” It’s no surprise that Lorca always dreamed of leaving Granada and Spain’s suffocating sexual morality. Like many queer artists before and after him, Lorca used coded language that allowed him to share his unique life expe rience in a way that passed unnoticed right under the gaze of in tolerant observers. Lorca’s dance of veiled metaphors gave birth to his most personal, intimate, and innovative works. Many of his plays are coded allegories about the repression of sexuality. The Curse of the Butterfly (1920) is a barely concealed expres sion of his sexual yearnings. The cry for sexual freedom in Blood Wedding implies that to deny your sexuality is tantamount to dying. The other theme in Lorca’s plays is unfulfilled desire for something one can’t have. In When Five Years Pass (1931), a woman longs to marry a closeted gay man. Yerma (1934) is about a woman’s desperate desire to have a child. The title char acter in Doña Rosita the Spinster (1935) dreams of having a boyfriend, while The House of Bernarda Alba tackles five sis ters’ desire for freedom from a tyrannical mother. Lorca centered many plays on women because he loved spending time with them and he couldn’t write openly about men’s desires. In doing so, he anticipated queer writers such as Tennessee Williams whose female characters experience the same persecution that he experienced in a patriarchal and sex ist culture. But there’s also overt homoeroticism in Lorca’s lit erary work. Gypsy Ballads (1928) is a book of poems that joyously celebrates male beauty and virility. In Lament for Igna cio Sánchez Mejías (1935), another poetry collection, he pro claims his admiration for larger-than-life men such as the title bullfighter. A watershed moment in Lorca’s life came in 1919 when he joined Madrid’s Residencia de Estudiantes, a cultural institution that welcomed Spain’s brightest young thinkers, writers, and artists, exposing them to progressive ideas from abroad with the goal of forging the leaders of modern Spanish society. But even in this progressive environment, Lorca found that it was difficult to be gay. He knew that some students avoided him because of his “defect,” and he used his talents as an artist to counter this re jection. He could gather a crowd with his hearty laughter and funny stories, or with his skills at singing and playing the guitar and piano. One of those who fell under his spell was film direc tor Luis Buñuel. They became inseparable despite Buñuel’s open homophobia. In his autobiography, Buñuel says that he loved to beat homosexuals outside of Madrid’s public urinals.

Lorca and Dalí in Cadaqués, Catalonia, 1925.

Ignacio Darnaude, an art scholar, lecturer, and film producer, is cur rently developing the docuseries Hiding in Plain Sight: Breaking the Queer Code in Art

November–December 2024

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