Geometry Book

While many who have heard of Lorca know that his sexuality influenced his works, how exactly that comes across in his writing has remained a bit of a mystery. In this exceptional study of Lorca's poetry and plays Paul Binding traces the emergence of a gay aesthetic from its allusive and symbolic representation in this Spanish writer's early works to its explicit treatment in his later poems and plays.

The author demonstrates that a homosexual subtext pervaded much of Lorca's writing from the very beginning, and that his poetry and other works strikingly reflect the stages of his coming out process. Lorca, we find, was acutely aware of his sexuality even as a teenager, and he came to terms with it partly by means of his literary output.

This book is accessible to readers with no special knowledge of poetry. For gay readers, it's certainly something off the beaten path. To trace somebody's internal state of mind in this way is an intriguing project. But the use of Lorca's splendid, rich and vivid poetry, letters and plays, given in both Spanish and English, is what really makes this such a superb and satisfying piece of reading.