This last century has been one of the world's most decisive eras. Progress in all fields has been lightning fast and spectacular - another Renaissance, whose technologically "upgraded" alchemy has changed the face of the earth radically and irrevocably. And of course, art and poetry had to reflect all the unavoidable vicissitudes, while also keeping an eye on its equally inescapable archetypal foundations.
Folk or formal, classical or modern, rhymed or in free verse, idyllic or melancholy, from any country and in any language, poetry is the most reliable vehicle for a dream trip through time and space, in the known and unknown universe.
The Sonnets to His Dark Love (Sonetos del Amor Oscuro - written in 1936 and published posthumously, in 1983) are Lorca's last poetic work, inspired by the style and themes of San Juan de la Cruz, Shakespeare and Gongora. They are his personal statement about love and poetic art, made even more poignant by the fact that he was arrested and executed by his country's dictatorial government the very same year the poems were written. The Sonnets are therefore not a complete work, cut horifically short by the poet's unjust and untimely death at the age of 37.
