{"id":7810,"date":"2020-10-06T11:57:18","date_gmt":"2020-10-06T11:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/obra-literaria\/the-butterflys-evil-spell\/"},"modified":"2021-11-16T10:20:18","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T10:20:18","slug":"the-butterflys-evil-spell","status":"publish","type":"obra_literaria","link":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/obra-literaria\/the-butterflys-evil-spell\/","title":{"rendered":"The Butterfly\u2019s Evil Spell"},"content":{"rendered":"

El maleficio de la mariposa (The Butterfly\u2019s Evil Spell)<\/em> was the first theatrical work premiered by Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca, then a 21-year-old boy who arrived in Madrid in 1919 from his native Granada. It is a fable written from a lost poem that was to be part of the Book of Poems<\/em><\/a>. The artistic result of the performance was a resounding failure.<\/p>\n

The comedy, divided into two acts and a prolog, stars characters representing insects such as Mrs. Cockroach, Witchcockroach, Sylvia Cockroach, Boycockroach, several worms numbered from one to three, the Alacrancito Scorpy<\/em> and the Butterfly.<\/p>\n

The first act, composed of six scenes, takes place in a meadow “green and humble under the dense shade of a large cypress” at the “chaste hour of dawn”. The second consists of seven scenes and takes place in a garden “with a great cascade of ivy” and “the whole area covered with giant daisies”.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cThe\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The manuscript was lost for many years and when it appeared it was incomplete: the last pages were missing, which meant that the outcome had to be assumed. Francisco Garc\u00eda Lorca<\/a> adventure that ends with the suicide of the protagonist, an assumption that seems to be deduced also from the comments that appeared in the press after the premiere (“The illusion is truncated and the existence of the audacious dreamer too”) and from the prolog itself: “There is no use telling you that the enamored little bug died, because Death is disguised as Love!\u201d.<\/p>\n

The fable takes place in a community of cockroaches (curianas<\/em> in Lorca’s language) where several insects of different character and sensibility live together. One of them, Boycockroach, suffers the scorn of the other members of the group because of his vocation for poetry. A snub shared by his mother, Mrs. Cockroach, and his suitor, Cockroach Sylvia, whom he treats with disdain. One day, however, a dying butterfly with a broken wing lands in the community. This unexpected arrival causes a great commotion. Boycockroach will end up falling in love with the new tenant, who, however, will not be able to reciprocate due to her poor condition. Once she has recovered, and at the moment when Boycockroach declares his love, the Butterfly begins a dance that drained her of her strength and lead to her death. Boycockroach embraces the Butterfly: “Tienes el cuerpo fr\u00edo [Your body is cold]. Ven conmigo [Come with me], \/ que es mi cueva templada [which is my warm cave] \/ y desde all\u00ed ver\u00e1s el prado verde [and from there you will see the green meadow] \/ perderse en la distancia [fade away in the distance]”.<\/p>\n

The supposed candor of the plot contains deep symbolic references. According to Ian Gibson, the thesis of the play is that love is a purely fortuitous phenomenon. In his opinion, young Lorca projected in The Butterfly’s Evil Spell<\/em>\u00a0“his erotic desires, his fears and his metaphysical doubts on the desperate Boycockroach, since the orthopteran’s complaints repeat, almost word for word” similar ones that appear in the poems Minor Song<\/em> and Alba<\/em>. “The Buttefly\u2019s Evil Spell <\/em> is a thinly disguised excuse for erotic expression, and it is striking that, for his mistress, he has chosen an insect considered repugnant,” he concludes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":7813,"template":"","genero_obra_literaria":[102],"class_list":["post-7810","obra_literaria","type-obra_literaria","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","genero_obra_literaria-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/obra_literaria\/7810"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/obra_literaria"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/obra_literaria"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"genero_obra_literaria","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genero_obra_literaria?post=7810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}