‘Cómo canta la zumaya’: An Ornithological Excursus on Lorca's ‘Romance de la luna, luna’

NOTES

• F. García Lorca, Obras completas, 18th ed. (Madrid: Aguilar, 1973), I, 1086. All references are to this edition.
   Google Scholar
• See J. Blanquat, ‘La lune manichénne dans la mythologie du Romancero gitano’, Revue de Littérature Comparée, XXXVIII (1964): 376–99; G. Correa, La poesía mítica de Federico García Lorca, 2nd ed. (Madrid: Gredos, 1970); J. C. Lisboa, ‘Verde que te quiero verde’: ensaio de interpretação do ‘Romanceiro gitano’ de García Lorca (Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 1983), 18–30, esp. 21 and 30.
   Google Scholar
• See H. H. Chapman, ‘Two Poetic Techniques: Lorca's “Romance de la luna, luna” and Goethe's “Erlkönig”’, Hispania, XXXIX (1956), 450–55; J. B. McInnis and E. E. Bohning, ‘The Child, the Daemon and Death in Goethe's “Erlkönig” and García Lorca's “Romance de la luna, luna”’, García Lorca Review, IX (1981), 109–27.
   Google Scholar
• See L. Beltrán Fernández de los Ríos, La arquitectura del humo: una reconstrucción del ‘Romancero gitano’ de Federico García Lorca (London: Tamesis, 1986), 23.
   Google Scholar
• See C. Feal Deibe, ‘“Romance de la luna, luna”: una reinterpretación’, Modem Language Notes, LXXXVI (1971), 284–88; M. Ramond, Pyschotextes: la question de l'Autre dans Federico García Lorca (Toulouse: Echo, 1986).
   Google Scholar
• C. Panebianco, Lorca e i gitani (Rome: Bulzoni, 1984), 47–48.
   Google Scholar
• Beltrán de los Ríos, op. cit., 23.
   Google Scholar
• Cf. ‘Cuando grazna la lechuza en lugar habitado, anuncia luto’ and ‘Es malo tener en las casas aves nocturnas, porque están en relación con las almas en pena’, from A. Guichot y Sierra, ‘Supersticiones populares andaluzas’, in El Folk-Lore Andaluz (1882–1883), ed. A. Machado y Álvarez (ed. J. Blas Vega and E. Cobo [Sevilla: Alatar, 1981], 63, 295).
   Google Scholar
• Cf. ‘La lechuza es objeto de multitud de supersticiones; en España, la circunstancia de encontrársela tan a menudo en las iglesias ha hecho crear al vulgo que acude a ellas por la noche para sorber el aceite de las lámparas; en otros países se ha supuesto que chupa la sangre de los niños y en casi todos es considerada como ave de mal agüero’ (Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada, Vol. 29, 1337). Such superstitions explain Alberti's line from Sobre los ángeles, ‘Las penumbras se beben el aceite, y/un ángel la cera’. F. García-Sarriá (‘¿Lenguaje surrealista?’, Romanic Review, LXXII [1981], 349–56; at pp. 352–53) has developed a paradigm of poetry and folklore that is useful here.
   Google Scholar
• See Lorca, trans. J. L. Gili (Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin, 1960), 36; C. W. Cobb, Lorca's ‘Romancero gitano’: A Ballad Translation and Critical Study (Jackson: Mississippi U.P., 1954), 3; The Gypsy Ballads of Federico García Lorca, trans. R. Humphries (Bloomington: Indiana U.P., 1953), 20; H. T. Young, The Victorious Expression: A Study of Four Contemporary Spanish Poets (Madison: Wisconsin U.P., 1966), 169.
   Google Scholar
• See L. Parrot, M. Schveitzer and A. Guibert, Federico García Lorca: une étude (Paris: Pierre Seghers, 1949), 122; F. García Lorca Oeuvres complètes, trans. A. Belamich (Paris: Gallimard, 1981), 418.
   Google Scholar
• Quoted in K. Whinnom, A Glossary of Spanish Bird-Names (London: Tamesis, 1966), at p. 18. See also pp. 9–13.
   Google Scholar
• See A. M. Pollin, A Concordance to the Plays and Poems of Federico García Lorca (Ithaca: Cornell U.P., 1975), 58 for the information given here.
   Google Scholar
• J. Coraminas, Diccionario crítico etimológico de la lengua castellana, 4 vols. (Madrid: Gredos, 1954, 1967), III, 395.
   Google Scholar
• D. S. Bunn, A. B. Warburton and R. D. S. Wilson, The Barn Owl (Carlton, Staffs.: Town Head House, 1982), 47.
   Google Scholar
• Richard Fitter, Herman Heinzel and John Parslow, The Birds of Britain and Europe with North Africa and the Middle East (London: Collins, 1972), 176.
   Google Scholar
• Cobb, op. cit., 3 (cf. Belamich, op. cit., 418); and M. Pomès, quoted in Parrot op. cit., 122, in French.
   Google Scholar
• Humphries, op. cit., 20.
   Google Scholar
• Young, op. cit., 169.
   Google Scholar
• Fitter, op. cit., 38.
   Google Scholar
• Fitter, op. cit., 182.
   Google Scholar
• J. R. T. Pollard, Birds in Greek Life and Myth (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), 51.
   Google Scholar
• B. Bruun, The Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe (London: Hamlyn, 1970), 178.
   Google Scholar
• Fitter, op. cit., 184.
   Google Scholar
• R. Campbell, Lorca: An Appreciation of his Poetry (Cambridge: Bowes & Bowes, 1952), 42.
   Google Scholar
• See H. Ramsden, Lorca's ‘Romancero gitano’: Eighteen Commentaries (Manchester: Manchester U.P., 1988), 5.
   Google Scholar
• See Constantino Cabal, ‘Mitología ibérica’, which forms part of the standard work Folklore y costumbres de España, ed. F. Carreras y Candi (Barcelona: Alberto Martín, 1934), 1, 167–288, at p. 208. Carreras y Candi's work was only published in 1934. However, all the source materials in Cabral's essay are dated well before the earliest date of composition of the romance and belong to a common heritage accessible to Lorca. See also how R. O. Jones and G. Scanlon have used this source in their interpretation of Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez: ‘Ignacio Sánchez Mejías: The “Mythic Hero”’, in Studies in Modern Spanish Literature and Art, ed. N. Glendinning (London: Tamesis, 1972), 97–108; at pp. 103–04.
   Google Scholar
• See Cabal, ‘Mitología ibérica’, ed. cit., 209, 226.
   Google Scholar
• A. F. Chamberlain, The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1896), 141.
   Google Scholar
• The original ‘court for owls’ Dámaso Alonso may have had in mind in ‘un lúgubre concierto de lejanísimos cárabos, de agoreras zumayas, de los más secretos autillos’ in his poem ‘En el día de los difuntos’ (see Dámaso Alonso, Hijos de la ira, ed. E. L. Rivers [Barcelona: Labor, 1970], 49).
   Google Scholar
• See J. Porter, ‘Witchcraft and Magic in the Old Testament and their Relation to Animals’, in Animals in Folklore, eds. J. R. Porter and W. M. S. Russell (Ipswich: D. S. Brewer, 1978), 70–85; at p. 80.
   Google Scholar
• See J. C. Holte, ‘The Vampire’, in Mythical and Fabulous Creatures. A Source Book and Research Guide, ed. M. South (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 243–69; at p. 31.
   Google Scholar
• Quoted in Coraminas, op. cit., 872.
   Google Scholar