Soledad Montoya’s Tragedy: A Deep Dive into Lorca’s Poem
Romance de la Pena Negra: Soledad Montoya’s Frustration
PENALTY: Lorca called *Romance de la Pena Negra* “the most representative” of the *Gypsy Ballads*, written between 1924 and 1927, and published in 1928. The poem achieved stunning success, which would eventually overwhelm the poet. It is certainly the cornerstone of the book and one of his poems with the clearest meaning. Soledad Montoya represents the craving for personal fulfillment. She converses with a character who represents the voice of moderation, the limits imposed by reality or by conventions. The theme of the poem is the tragedy of a desire doomed to dissatisfaction.
The vital significance of this myth is obvious: it illustrates the tragic fate that beats through his work. The figures shown are beings outside the conventional world, marked by hostility and frustration. Throughout the book explodes a tremendous will to live that bumps against the impossibility of living. It’s easy to imagine the extent to which Lorca projected onto these characters his own obsessions, his “tragic sense of life.”
Poem Structure
We can divide the structure into three parts:
- The first part includes the initial decryption from verse one through eight; we noted the time that the action develops. A fourth verse begins to describe the character, by his name (clearly symbolic) and through his physical thought. If horse and shade are distinct elements, the horse refers to a dissatisfied sexual passion, while shadow refers to death. If we consider the two elements as parallel, one must consider the anvil to be on par with death. Although strong, it is something that works; it refers to motherhood, but the adjective “smoked” suggests a person that is no longer young, in which motherhood could be recent. We may think it speaks of a frustrated maternity or the death of a child, which might have been the first thing we decided on taking the title character, Soledad.
- The second part, the more extensive, includes the dialogue of verses (9-37) established between Soledad Montoya and a voice full of night. The echo that calls your name shows that there is a familiarity between them, which is also reflected in the treatment of “you” instead of “usted”.
Verses 13 and 14 are crucial because in them the center of the poem expresses the fundamental aspirations of the characters of Lorca, mainly from women. We find ourselves in the early twentieth century, where women are mothers and little more. If Soledad is frustrated by her lack of motherhood, she is looking for the person who can give meaning to her life that the mother can do and have it come out of this state of loneliness. In verses 15-18, the voice speaks, personally identifying two characters in one solo. Verses 19-22 have particular importance because it is the title of the poem; the sentence “black sea” appears again. We know the sea symbolizes death, but in these verses, it is male. What is the black penalty? The memory of a possible location, tranquility, peace, and the penalty is black independence that leads to loneliness, isolation from others, to live embittered. - The third of the poem ends with another description of the scenery, including verses 36-46. It is a cheerful landscape, river water, and symbols of life. The symbols of life are closed to Soledad because his punishment is a hidden channel, that is, a sentence without exits. The poem closes tragically.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Lorca uses in the *Ballads* the lyrical and the dramatic, in connection with the traditional romance, using the same resources. Direct expressions are mixed with bold metaphors. The role of metaphors is significant and revealing, not just decorative. If on the one hand, we say that Soledad represents Lorca, we can also say that its counterpart, the voice, is also the same author, who, through the poem, made a remark in which and through self-questioning, Soledad responds to their own personal situation.