Bodas de sangre

"Bodas de sangre" (Blood Wedding), premiered in 1933, is the first part of Federico García Lorca's rural trilogy and stands as one of the undisputed pinnacles of 20th-century Spanish theater. Based on a real event (the "Crime of Níjar" of 1928), Lorca elevates a local news story into a universal myth, blending the stark reality of rural Andalusia with a profound poetic symbolism.

The tragedy centers on a wedding day that turns fatal. The Bride, driven by an unstoppable, primitive passion, flees with Leonardo, her former lover, moments after marrying the Groom. This act of rebellion against social norms triggers an inevitable cycle of vengeance and death, prophesied and overseen by supernatural forces: the Moon (demanding blood to warm itself) and Death (disguised as a Beggar Woman).

Unlike the bourgeois theater of his contemporaries (such as Benavente), Lorca returns to the essence of classical tragedy. In *Bodas de sangre*, characters are stripped of psychological nuance to become archetypes moved by forces beyond their control—Blood and Earth. The play is saturated with organic and agricultural imagery (knives, plants, horses), creating a universe where human destiny is inextricably linked to the cycles of nature and violence.

This Stockcero edition, edited by Borja Rodríguez-Gutiérrez, offers a deep dive into the play's symbolism and its place within Lorca's oeuvre. It highlights how the work functions not just as a drama of passion, but as a ritual sacrifice where the male figures (the "flowers") are cut down, leaving the women to mourn in a timeless landscape of grief. It is essential reading for understanding the tragic sense of life in Spanish literature.