Despite being forced into comparative obscurity by the great literary artists of the Spanish Golden Age, of Góngora, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, and, of course, Cervantes, Federico García Lorca is undoubtedly one of Spain’s greatest dramatists and poets. Born in Fuente Vaqueros on the 5th of June 1898, to a farmer and former school-teacher, Federico García Lorca’s childhood was shaped by the influences of his mother and the family’s servants which sparked an interest in the culture of rural Andalucía that would last into his adulthood and feature prominently in his later works.   Lorca moved to Granada with his family at the age of 11, and the vibrant, multi-cultural city would later bring Lorca into contact with the great writers and artists of the age; H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, the guitarist Angel Barrios and the critic Jose Fernandez Montesinos. At 16, Lorca began his studies at the University of Granada, published his first book four years later, and the following year, in 1919, left Granada for a ten year stay in Madrid, followed by two years of travel in the United States and Cuba, before he finally returned to Spain in the autumn of 1930.  Each of the successive stages of Lorca’s travels reflect a different aspect of his work; whilst in Madrid, his work displays frustration over his homosexuality, particularly in the 1921 Book of Poems, and a combination of the traditional dramatic subjects presented through farce and tragedy. Whilst Lorca was in New York, however, there is a clear change; his plays When Five Years Pass and The Public are surrealist, although they were not published until after his return to Spain, and the poem Poet in New York is dark, clearly showing Lorca’s feelings of isolation and loneliness and the social injustice inherent in New York.   On his return to Spain, Lorca’s writing changed yet again, this time the result of the creation of a republican government in 1931, under which artistic freedom abounded. Federico García Lorca’s life was tragically short; at just 38 years old, he was shot near the villages of Alfacar and Viznar in August 1936 by the Assault Guard and paramilitary ‘Black Squad’, yet his contribution to Spanish literature was incredible. Comparatively little is known about Lorca’s personal life, though there is much speculation, particularly over whether or not Lorca...