Yerma

by Federico García Lorca, Gwynne Edwards (Introduction), Gwynne Edwards (Translator)

Overview

Yerma (meaning 'Barren') is one of three tragic plays about peasants and rural life that make up Lorca's 'rural trilogy'. It is possibly Lorca's harshest play following a woman's Herculean struggle against the curse of infertility. The woman's barrenness becomes a metaphor for her marriage in a traditional society that denies women sexual or social equality. Her desperate desire for a child drives her to commit a terrible crime at the end of the play.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781408148099
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	02/20/2007
Series:	Student Editions
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Federico García Lorca was born in 1898, in Andalusia, Spain. A poet and
dramatist, and also a gifted painter and pianist, his early popular
ballads earned him the title of 'poet of the gypsies'. In 1930 he
turned his attention to theatre, visiting remote villages and playing
classic and new works for peasant audiences. In 1936, shortly after the
outbreak of Civil War, he was murdered by Nationalist partisans. His
body was never found.
Federico García Lorca was born in 1898, in Andalusia, Spain. A poet and dramatist, and also a gifted painter and pianist, his early popular ballads earned him the title of 'poet of the gypsies'. In 1930 he turned his attention to theatre, visiting remote villages and playing classic and new works for peasant audiences. In 1936, shortly after the outbreak of Civil War, he was murdered by Nationalist partisans. His body was never found.
Gwynne Edwards has prepared a new free adaptation of the play, from a literal translation by Jennifer Bakst. Gwynne Edwards is a specialist in Spanish theatre and cinema and, until recently, Professor of Spanish at the University of Aberystwyth, Wales. He has also translated and adapted more than forty plays from Spanish, French and Italian, many of which have been staged at major theatres in Britain and the United States. He has published three collections of Lorca's plays with Methuen Drama, and also collections of seventeenth–century Spanish and contemporary Spanish–American plays adapted from the correspondence and prose writings of Dylan Thomas. His books include Lorca: The Theatre Beneath the Sand, Lorca: Living in the Theatre, Dramatists in Perspective: Spanish Theatre in the Twentieth Century, The Discreet Art of Luis Buñuel and Almodóvar: Labyrinths of Passion.

Table of Contents

General Introduction by John Lyon
Intorduction to Yerma by Jacqueline Minett
Notes to the introduction
Act I
Act II
Act III
Notes to the play
List of illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

The translation was made for the Peoples Theatre in Newcastle by Professor I.R.Macpherson and Dr J. Minett (University of Durham), and is presented alongside the original Spanish text in which the dramatists own voice is there to speak for itself." The book is enhanced by John Lyons "excellent introduction to Lorcas life and work... and Minetts perceptive discussion of the play"

Choice