Celestina’s Influence on La casa de Bernarda Alba

This study argues that the breadth and depth of influence of Fernando de Rojas’s Celestina on Federico García Lorca’s La casa de Bernarda Alba is much greater than previously acknowledged. García Lorca borrowed from Rojas not only motifs, images, and characterization, but also symbols, structure, and the effusive rhetoric that characterizes Celestina and Melibea’s mode of expression. Lorca’s La casa contains a microcosm of the social institutions and cultural dynamics that predominate in Celestina’s world and, by extension, in Rojas’s society. In this comparative analysis, I hope to show the far-reaching influence that Celestina has had since its publication in 1499 up to the twentieth century. By reading Lorca’s play from this perspective, I also uncover new levels of meaning that help us interpret La casa based on the systems of intertextual relations that underprop La casa’s foundations.