THE IMAGE OF THE BULLFIGHT AND BULLFIGHTER IN 20TH CENTURY SPANISH POETRY: LORCA'S ELEGY LAMENT FOR IGNACIO SANCHEZ MEJIAS

Abstract

The Spanish people worship bulls with the characteristics like aggressiveness, power and fearlessness, and also worship the bullfighters that fight a duel with bulls. The tradition of bullfight defines the basic character of a nation which perceives life as becoming continuously face to face with death. This character makes the Spaniards consider bullfights as a form of art and the possibility of death becomes an inspiration of this deadly art. The famous Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca calls as duende, the muse that comes up at the time when the bullfighter comes face to face with death. In this study it's aimed to indicate the roots of the Spaniard's affection for bullfighting. As in 20th century Spanish poetry bullfights theme and image of death is cultivated rather frequently, we'll take Lorca's poem Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias as the object of the study and we'll intend to analyze this elegy in the aspects of Ignacio's bullfighter figure, the expression of death and mourning and also the symbolical images drawn by Lorca.