The Guitar

Influenced by the traditions of flamenco guitar music in his country as well as his other role as dramatist, Lorca begins his poem as though he were a narrator setting the scene for his main character, or a musician playing the first few notes to set the mood. Line 1 directly states the action of “the weeping of the guitar” (Line 1). Line 3 expresses that “the goblets of dawn/are smashed” (Lines 3-4), suggesting spectacular destruction as well as the breaking of glass when musicians reach a particular note, especially the high-pitch cry of cante jondo singing. A relentless and even melancholic tone results. Line 5 repeats that the guitar is weeping, enhancing the major action of the poem and reinforcing the personification of the guitar. Using repetition once again, Lorca shows the intensity of the sobbing: “Useless/to silence it” (Lines 7-8) and “Impossible/to silence it” (Lines 9-10). To address the intensity even more clearly, as if building the rising actions of a play or increasing to a crescendo in music, he uses similes to compare the drone of the guitar’s weeping to the crying of