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‘My father was a farmer, a rich man, and a good horseman,’ he once said to an interviewer, ‘and my mother came from a distinguished family.’ He was the eldest of a family of two brothers and two sisters. The first years of his life were spent on the family farm. Owing to a serious illness soon after his birth, he was unable to walk until he was four. He was left with a slight limp hardly noticeable when he was grown-up. But, as his friend R. M. Nadal has pointed out, this physical handicap considerably influenced the formation of his character (without, however, spoiling his natural gaiety). Inability to join in other children’s games increased his powers of imagination and perception, and he expressed himself in make-believe – theatres, marionettes, processions, and dressing-up the old family servants and his younger brothers, thus drawing the family circle round him.With his first savings he bought a toy-theatre in Granada. The fact that there were no printed plays included in the purchase did not deter young Federico, who proceeded to write his own. From then on he never lost his interest in the theatre, which was to become an integral part of his work. There were no spectacular intellectual achievements in his early years. His mother – once a teacher – taught him his first letters. Life was peaceful and happy on the family farm; there he lived in close contact with the countryside and the life of the village, rich in Andalusian tradition. He could hum popular airs even before he learned to speak, and from the old servants he learned folk-tales and popular romances or ballads. Much of what he was absorbing now would later be assimilated into his poetry. It was, as he later acknowledged, an initiation into poetic experience. The following cradle song, of which he was very fond: A la nana, nana, nana, a la nanito de aquel 12
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que llevó el caballo al agua y lo dejó sin beber . . .* and from which he drew inspiration for his lullaby in Bodas de Sangre, is an example of the simple lyric incantation on which he was nourished. When the time came for Federico’s schooling to be taken seriously in hand, the family moved to Granada. There he enjoyed the usual education of a boy in his social position until he reached University age. He started his University studies at Granada University, but never finished them – in the same way in which he never finished his studies when he went to Madrid. He was never in the least academically inclined: his interests lay outside the University curriculum. He was happier in the cafés, talking to friends; exploring the countryside or the gardens of Granada; discovering the many cultures and traditions that went to make the ancient country of Andalusia; and getting to know the gipsies, who were destined to be one of the major inspirations of his work. He learned to play the piano and the guitar, although he soon abandoned the latter. He met Manuel de Falla, who became a great friend and master, and who encouraged and guided him in the collecting of traditional folk-songs and in setting them to music. The greater part of his reading was done outside his set books: it included the classics, in translation, especially Greek plays, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Victor Hugo, Maeterlinck, the Spanish classics, the works of those writers belonging to the so-called ’98 generation, such as Machado, Unamuno, Azorín; also the Spanish Romantic poets and contemporary poets, from Rubén Darío to Juan Ramón Jiménez. * Impossible to translate, but the following is an approximation: ‘Hushaby, hushaby, hushaby, the little lullaby of the one who led his horse to the water and did not let him drink . . .’ 13

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‘My father was a farmer, a rich man, and a good horseman,’ he once said to an interviewer, ‘and my mother came from a distinguished family.’ He was the eldest of a family of two brothers and two sisters. The first years of his life were spent on the family farm. Owing to a serious illness soon after his birth, he was unable to walk until he was four. He was left with a slight limp hardly noticeable when he was grown-up. But, as his friend R. M. Nadal has pointed out, this physical handicap considerably influenced the formation of his character (without, however, spoiling his natural gaiety). Inability to join in other children’s games increased his powers of imagination and perception, and he expressed himself in make-believe – theatres, marionettes, processions, and dressing-up the old family servants and his younger brothers, thus drawing the family circle round him.With his first savings he bought a toy-theatre in Granada. The fact that there were no printed plays included in the purchase did not deter young Federico, who proceeded to write his own. From then on he never lost his interest in the theatre, which was to become an integral part of his work.

There were no spectacular intellectual achievements in his early years. His mother – once a teacher – taught him his first letters. Life was peaceful and happy on the family farm; there he lived in close contact with the countryside and the life of the village, rich in Andalusian tradition. He could hum popular airs even before he learned to speak, and from the old servants he learned folk-tales and popular romances or ballads. Much of what he was absorbing now would later be assimilated into his poetry. It was, as he later acknowledged, an initiation into poetic experience. The following cradle song, of which he was very fond:

A la nana, nana, nana, a la nanito de aquel

12

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