Gacela of the Dark Death by Federico García Lorca
"Gacela of the Dark Death" is a lyric poem by Federico García Lorca, structured in free verse with twenty-four lines across five stanzas. This poem falls under the category of gacela, a poetic form that originated with the Persian poet Hafiz, known for blending themes of mysticism, eroticism, and everyday life. In this particular work, Lorca's imagery is deeply influenced by surrealism and folk culture, emphasizing a journey from the intimacy of lost love to the acceptance of death as an inevitable part of existence. The poem is narrated in the first person, allowing readers to immerse themselves in the speaker's intimate experiences, marked by a longing for a connection to nature and a spiritual understanding of life.
Throughout the poem, Lorca challenges the artificial separations imposed by civilization between humanity and the natural world, suggesting that a deeper union with nature can lead to transcendence beyond the conventional fears associated with death. Key motifs include the recurring imagery of water and apples, symbolizing both the allure and the inevitability of mortality. The poem's repetition of personal desires invites readers to reflect on their own experiences and feelings, leading to a realization of the timelessness that can be found even within the constraints of life and death. Ultimately, "Gacela of the Dark Death" serves as a meditation on the transformative power of nature and the enduring essence of existence, inviting readers to explore these profound themes further.
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Gacela of the Dark Death by Federico García Lorca
First published: 1940, as “Gacela de la muerte oscura,” in Diván del Tamarit; English translation collected in Divan and Other Writings, 1974
Type of poem: Lyric
The Poem
“Gacela of the Dark Death” is a short lyric poem in free verse. The poem is composed of twenty-four lines divided into five stanzas. The title, “Gacela of the Dark Death,” identifies the poem as a gacela, a form perfected by the fourteenth century Persian poet Hafiz. Gacelas are typically short, usually rhymed, verses that often mix religious mysticism, eroticism, and daily experience. In Federico García Lorca’s gacelas, images drawn from his surrealistic and folk-inspired imagination figure prominently. Moreover, “Gacela of the Dark Death” has a place in Diván del Tamarit in that the typical movement of the collection as a whole is from a remembrance of erotic familiarity to a confrontation with and recognition of the inevitability of death. Death is the condition most associated by García Lorca with lost love, and water is a frequent symbol portending death.
The poem is written in the first person. A poet may adopt a first-person narration strategically, to speak through a persona whose outlook on life and point of view may differ from his or her own. No such difference, however, is implied in “Gacela of the Dark Death.” In the intimate, personal tradition of the lyric poet, the narrator speaks directly to the reader, establishing a foundation of personal experience. The reader is placed in a position to experience life as the narrator does, with all of life’s immediate sensations.
“Gacela of the Dark Death” embraces a return to nature, and particularly to the spiritual aspect of nature. In the first stanza, the separation implied between human concepts and conventions and natural experience is established. The poet attacks the artificial distinction created by Western civilization, which separates itself from the natural and spiritual (and therefore eternal) and overly emphasizes mortality. By the third stanza, the poet has transformed himself through a union with nature, and the commonplace in nature serves as the catalyst for this transformation. The transformation renders the artifices of civilization, including mortality, superficial.
Throughout the poem, the speaker emphasizes the personal quality of his experience that permits reunification with nature. Having paid close attention to dreams and learned the lessons offered by everyday experience, the narrator has discovered an alternative—a spiritual, fulfilling alternative—to conventional values. Ultimately, this alternative leads to a self-actualizing, eternal experience that, by comparison, reveals the shallowness of a civilization that is predicated on a narrow view of time. Finally, even such givens as death and time are emptied of their conventional meanings as, in the alternative experience, they are redefined and become nonthreatening, positive forces.
Forms and Devices
Repetition is one important element of “Gacela of the Dark Death.” Emphasis is continually placed on personal experience through the repetition of “I want.” Metaphors of dreams and sleep lend a spiritual, metaphysical quality to the poem; it is through the force of these images that the narrator is able to transcend conventional experience. The image of the child is also central to the poem, in that it is the child’s ability to experience nature completely and without reservations and anticipations that allows an awareness of nature as a transforming entity.
References to apples are frequent in García Lorca’s poetry, and they usually represent the forbidden knowledge Eve attained. In the first and last stanzas of “Gacela of the Dark Death,” the apple is used to confirm the narrator’s desire to merge an eternal moment of sexual communication with a sense of eternal time (that is also death). In Diván del Tamarit the flow of water, which signals timeless death, is reminiscent of an Arabian, especially Moorish, sensual appreciation of water. This twin dread of and fascination with death is characteristic of García Lorca’s poetry.
The sea has usually stood in García Lorca’s work for infinity and death. To be touched by the sea in life is to become ready for whatever destiny awaits. Such a readiness enables the recipient to be better prepared for that destiny.