Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter

poem by García Lorca

Also known as: “Lament for a Bullfighter”, “Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejía”

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Article History

Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter, four-part poem by Federico García Lorca, written in Spanish as “Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías” (“Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías”) and published in 1935. Each part of the poem is written in a different poetic metre, and each addresses a different aspect of the goring and death of a bullfighter who had been Lorca’s friend. A haunting and powerful elegy, it is Lorca’s greatest poem. It contains the famous insistent refrain “A las cinco de la tarde” (“At five in the afternoon”).

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.