Past event
Centre for Poetic Innovation -- Research Seminar by Prof. Stephen Roberts "Three hundred dark-red roses: Lorca's use of metaphor"
According to philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955), what set the “new” (avant-garde) artists and writers apart from their nineteenth-century counterparts was their particular use of metaphor. The poet Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) agreed, although, when it came to the cultivation of complex metaphor, he, like other members of his poetic generation, sought inspiration in the work of Spanish Golden Age poet Luis de Góngora (1561-1627). This paper will look at Lorca's understanding of the workings of metaphor and at his use of this literary device in his own work.
Steve Roberts is Professor of Spanish at the University of Nottingham. He has published widely on the literature and intellectual history of Spain between the 1870s and the Civil War of 1936-1939 and on the Spanish cinema of the Franco and post-Franco periods. His latest book is Deep Song. The Life and Work of Federico García Lorca (London: Reaktion Press, 2020).