Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In "Spain: 2. Granada," Derek Walcott evokes the weight of Spain’s historical and cultural memory, using the landscape of Granada as a symbolic setting for the country’s enduring sense of suffering and tragedy. The poem reflects on the deep-rooted connection between Spain’s physical geography—its red earth, olive trees, and cypresses—and the emotional and historical scars that continue to shape the nation’s identity. Walcott masterfully intertwines themes of loss, violence, and the inevitability of the past, suggesting that Spain’s history is not only ever-present but also inescapable.

The poem opens with the vivid image of "red earth and raw" olive trees, immediately grounding the reader in the harsh, unyielding landscape of Granada. The olive trees, "smaller than you thought they were," embody the theme of expectation versus reality, as their size reflects a sense of diminished grandeur or power. The wind, "like a cape shaping the car," evokes the image of a matador’s cape, suggesting a connection to Spain’s bullfighting tradition and, by extension, its cultural and historical confrontations with death and violence. The olives, both "olive and silver," reflect a duality—earthy yet precious—that mirrors the emotional landscape of the poem, where sadness is "not incalculable but measured." This sadness, though vast, is manageable in its scope, and it permeates the road leading toward Granada.

Walcott’s description of Granada as widening "astonishingly" suggests that the city, like Spain itself, reveals its true depth and significance only upon close reflection. The road coils like memory, and the speaker suggests that the only way to truly understand Spain is to "read [it] backwards, like memory, like Arabic." This statement underscores the importance of the past in shaping the present, as well as Spain’s historical ties to Moorish (Arabic) influence, which remain embedded in the country’s culture and architecture, particularly in cities like Granada. The speaker asserts that "the only tense is the past," indicating that Spain is trapped in its history, unable to fully escape the sins and tragedies that define it.

The poem introduces the figure of Federico García Lorca, the Spanish poet and playwright who was murdered during the Spanish Civil War. The landscape itself seems to embody Lorca’s presence: "It writhes in the olive’s trunk, it gapes in the ochre echo of a stone hillside, like a well’s dry mouth: 'Lorca.'" Here, Lorca becomes both a symbol of Spain’s cultural brilliance and its violent, tragic history. The "black olives of his eyes" evoke Lorca’s dark, expressive vision, while the "bread dipped in its saucer" suggests both a mundane, everyday image and a Eucharistic symbol, highlighting Lorca’s sacrifice and the sacredness of his memory. Lorca’s legacy, much like Spain’s own history, is tied to the land itself, embodied in the twisting olive trunks and the dry, unyielding hillsides.

Walcott continues to explore Spain’s violent history through the imagery of a man in a "torn white shirt with its wine-stains, a black suit, and leather soles stumbling on the stones." This figure, dressed in mourning, symbolizes the countless lives lost to violence, both during the Spanish Civil War and throughout Spain’s long history of conflict. The staccato rhythm of "carbine-fire" and "the dancer’s heels" further reinforces the connection between Spain’s cultural expressions—flamenco, dance, and song—and the violence that has marked its history. The "O of the flamenco singer" and "the mouth of the guitar" become symbols of both artistic expression and a collective cry of suffering, linking Spain’s artistic heritage to its national trauma.

Walcott invokes Francisco Goya’s painting "The Third of May", a depiction of Spanish civilians being executed by French soldiers during the Peninsular War, to further illustrate Spain’s historical pain. The reference to "the clown that dies, eyes open, in "The Third of May" emphasizes the senselessness of violence and the perpetual cycle of death that Spain endures. Goya’s painting, often seen as a representation of Spain’s suffering and resistance, becomes a focal point for understanding why "the heart of Spain" continues to be marked by sorrow. Walcott suggests that this history of suffering is intrinsic to Spain’s identity, a reason "why Spain will always suffer."

The poem’s closing lines return to the landscape, asking why the figures from Spain’s past "return from this distance, this far away from the cypresses, the mountains, the olives turning silver." This question reflects the inescapability of history in Spain; the past is ever-present, no matter how far one travels from the physical markers of that history. The cypresses, mountains, and olives—symbols of Spain’s landscape—are imbued with the memories of violence, art, and cultural legacy. Even in their beauty, they carry the weight of the past, suggesting that Spain’s natural and cultural landscape is haunted by the tragedies that have unfolded upon it.

In "Spain: 2. Granada," Derek Walcott delves into the deep and intertwined relationship between Spain’s physical landscape and its historical and cultural identity. Through the imagery of olives, mountains, and the echoes of figures like Lorca and Goya, Walcott captures the sense of a country marked by both beauty and violence, where the past is always present and the future remains uncertain. The poem reflects on the ways in which memory and history shape a nation’s identity, revealing that, for Spain, the scars of the past are ever-present, inscribed into the very land itself.

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