LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

 These days Federico García Lorca (1898–1936) is all the rage in Spain. Some youngsters seem to have discovered him for ideological reasons rather than because they have been reading him. They harp on the theme that his death was an asesinato injustificado - an “unjustified murder”- as if murder could ever be justified. The Spanish literary Woke movement claims him as its banner and raison d’être. But Federico was honored and popular long before these still-wet-behind-the-ears activists discovered him. My uncle, Reyes Carbonell, wrote and published a book of poems in 1951, Poesías en aire y tierra , which was dotted with verde , green, all over, a small indication of Lorca’s influence on poets of the time. I myself paid homage to him in one of my early articles, “Tres dramas existenciales de Federico García Lorca (Yerma, La casa de Bernarda Alba, Bodas de sangre),” published in October 1965 in Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos . It can still be read in the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Ce...

Bilingualism offers more options. If you are bilingual in English and Spanish, you can enjoy playwrights who are virtually unknown to most English speakers. This somewhat rambling beginning is prompted by a book I had forgotten I owned, one I first read in my youth. And there it was, the line that once stirred my young mind, still underlined in red: “Yo lo que quiero es beberme hasta el último trago de mi juventud.” (“All I want is to drink my youth to the last drop.”) Did I ever heed that advice? Better not answer. Alejandro Casona (1903–1965) wrote Nuestra Natacha (1935), the source of that unforgettable sentence. It is a wonderful and highly readable play. Casona also wrote La sirena varada , Prohibido suicidarse en primavera , La dama del alba , La barca sin pescador , Los árboles mueren de pie , Siete gritos en el mar , among many others. May I suggest you look into the works of this remarkable Spanish playwright? I am sure Casona will not disappoint you.  

  “… una flor vale más que una lección de botánica.”   Alejandro Casona, Nuestra Natacha , 1936. (Delfín Carbonell Basset, Diccionario panhispánico de citas , 2008.) NB. Alejandro Casona, 1903-1965, Spanish playwright, author of Los árboles mueren de pie , Prohibido suicidarse en primavera , Nuestra Natacha and La dama del alba. 

“Yo soy, antes que todo, amigo de la libertad. Roja, negra o azul, la intransigencia me crispa. Los males de España se nutren de nuestra condición de intransigentes feroces.”  J acinto Benavente Entrevista de Francisco Lucientes, El Sol, 27/8/1931. (Delfín Carbonell,  Diccionario panhispánico de citas , 2008. Prólogo de Enrique Vila-Matas, "El lujo de las citas.") NB: Jacinto Benavente, 1866-1954, Spanish playwright, Nobel Prize winner 1922. Wrote La noche del sábado, Los intereses creados, La malquerida. Benavente said the above in 1931.