Only Mystery: Federico Garcia Lorca's Poetry in Word and Image [Hardcover]

Sandra Forman (Author), Allen Josephs (Author), Federico Garcia Lorca (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1992

Weaving together twenty-one drawings and new translations of prose pieces and poems, Only Mystery presents a textured life of Spain's greatest modern poet and playwright. The guiding principles for selecting poems, prose, and paintings were dramatic effect and narrative cohesion. Originally designed for performance in Readers Theatre, Only Mystery may be appreciated as both a dramatic text for performance and an illustrated narrative of the poet's lyrical world.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Presented here as the "script" of a 1988 "chamber theatre" staging of a broad selection of poems and prose by Garcia Lorca (1898-1936), this text does not really reveal the merits of Forman and Joseph's production, but serves to introduce splendid new translations of some of Garcia Lorca's written work. The book also unveils his line drawings and paintings (used as projections in Forman and Joseph's staging), intriguingly suspended, like the poems, between folk art and 20th-century modernism. Although the writer's rhythmic nuances, perhaps best typified in the sobbing fatalism of "Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias," are too irreducibly Spanish to come across entirely, translator Josephs brings to his task a seeming artlessness, typical of the original, which accentuates the compressed shock of the images in almost any randomly selected phrase: "The spilt blood is moaning / the mute song of the snake." The arrangement of works is roughly chronological, although no particular progression is apparent until near the book's end, with the inclusion of the New York poems and the "Lament," which seems to foreshadow the poet's murder by a Fascist death squad two years later.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This sensitively prepared theater script based on Lorca's writings as translated by Josephs is supplemented by outstanding and seldom reproduced black-and-white photographs, color photographs of landscapes, and color and black-and-white sketches by Lorca himself. The script has been successfully performed at the universities of North Carolina and Western Florida. The 16-page introduction explains the genesis and fulfillment of the project and provides insight into Lorca's life and influences. Taking its title from Lorca's dictum that "only mystery makes us live," the collage moves from his ostensibly privileged childhood ("my childhood was a rat fleeing through the darkest garden,/ a rat with golden funeral ribbons clutched in his tiny teeth") to his prophetic inklings of assassination. The translations are competent enough but, lamentably, the publisher has not included the Spanish originals en face. Recommended for college drama and poetry collections.
- Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll., Cumberland, Md.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Florida; First Edition edition (August 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813011337
• ISBN-13: 978-0813011332
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,796,578 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must for Lorca Lovers, July 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Only Mystery: Federico Garcia Lorca's Poetry in Word and Image (Hardcover)

A beautiful collection of Lorca's poetry and artwork, a treasure for anyone who loves his poetry and a brilliant introduction to other those who may be unfamiliar with his work. eva