García Lorca as theologian: The method and practice of interlacing the arts and theology

Federico Garcia Lorca's works offer a richly stimulating theological reflection of consequence to the Christian church. His poetry and theater may be better appreciated in the fullness of their art if one takes into account their theological density. To facilitate such a study of his works this dissertation presents a two-step approach. The first step deals in some detail with the construction of a method of inquiry for engaging art and theology in a mutually respectful encounter. Following upon this as the second step, four of García Lorca's works are engaged as sources of theology.

In the first part, the research considers the wider "art and religion" matrix at the beginning of the twenty-first century through a major an exhibition of Christian religious art and the critical response, both scholarly and popular, to it. Following this contextualizing step, the proposed method of interlacing is systematically assembled. The contours of the method are gleaned from the work of scholars Frank Burch Brown and Alejandro García-Rivera, along with other formative influences in aesthetics, such as Plato and Aristotle. The resulting method of interlacing is explicated in some detail, as well as outlined in the appendices for the purposes of teaching and replicating.

The second part of the dissertation is an application of the interlacing method to four works by Federico García Lorca. This section begins with a biographical sketch narrowly focused on Lorca's Catholic identity and the very difficult religious/political historical milieu of early twentieth-century Spain. It is followed by an exemplar of the practice of the interlacing method that is applied to four of Lorca's works: the poem "Cry Toward Rome (From the Tower of the Chrysler Building)," the "Ode to the Blessed Sacrament on the Altar," the short poem "Cross," and the early unfinished play "Christ, Religious Tragedy." This section also includes new translations into English of all four of these works. The dissertation concludes with a brief assessment of Lorca's religious insights into a theology of Redemption as exemplified in these works.