I know this is pretty specific but I feel that I can write the full paper on just relating Federico Garcia Lorca to Whitman. I plan to broadly focus on the poetic relationship with nature that both these figures profoundly share. In one of my sources, an article by Frank Wood, he explains Lorca’s work as primarily, “rooted in a sense of earth, with a central concern to uncover buried bonds between humanity and the clay we have sprung from. “ I think this is very interesting in context with Whitman. I want to also include Lorca’s essays concerning the Duende, and how those concepts relate to his Whitmanian relationship with nature.
Lorca seems to have a very Whitmanian vision, but due to the historical difference, his version seems very revised. I want to specifically explore how Lorca used America to portray his vision, it appears he used it to display an over the top picture of industrialization, using New York to symbolize the whole nation. As a guiding research question, I want explore the reasons which induced Lorca to choose Whitman as a major theme in his poetry. I also want to explore both poets relationship, to Utopia, Elegy, apocalypse, crisis and recovery.
Lorca seems to evoke a number of different Whitman personas discussed in class, such as the homosexual Whitman, the socialist/worker Whitman, the natural Whitman discussed with the Native American poets, and the Civil War Whitman, as Lorca was very involved in his own country’s civil war, which he lost his life in. I plan to focus on the poems, “Ode to Walt Whitman,” as well as poems from a collection, “Poet in New York,” by Lorca, as well as some Whitman poems.
Edgar Meyer, Mary. “Walt Whitman’s Popularity Among Latin American Poets.” Americas 9.1 (1952): 3 15. Web. 16 Nov 2010.
Nandorfy, Martha. “Duende and Apocalypse in Lorca’s Theory and Poetics.” Revista Canadiensede Estudios Hispánicos 26.1 (2002): 255-270. Web. 16 Nov 2010.
Wood, Frank. “Three Poems On Whitman.” Comparative Literature 4.1 (1952): 44-53. Web. 16 Nov 2010
Garcia Lorca, Federico. In Search of The Duende. 3rd ed. New York, NY: New Directions, 1998. Print.
