Lorca's Connotative Meanings Associated With The Color Green

In literature the connotative meanings associated with the colour green are as wide and varied as they are interesting. To the Latin, Greek, and Old English poets green is usually associated with nature, vitality, and ripeness, but Homer did juxtapose the colour beside ideas concerning fright and fear; it therefore usually possesses a positive connotation which is usually associated with earthly elements or forces, but it can also connote fear, dread, and sin. The famous green sash adopted by Gawain became a sign and reminder to the Knights of Camelot about mankind’s mortal and sinful nature. The connotative meaning shifted slightly over time; consequently, during Shakespeare’s lifetime well into the early Romantic period of Shelley & Byron, the colour took on pretty much a strictly negative connotation associated with envy, jealousy, naivety and foolishness. A disease during the renaissance that afflicted pubescent girls was called the ‘green sickness’ and this may account for the negative shift, although it’s mere theory, the rationale should be obvious - calling the disease ‘green’ literally signified the
I would say these oppositions are a few of the most prominent and interesting stylistic feature of his poetic style. Lorca juxtaposes a kind of connotative permanence, as evidenced in the almost defiant and feminized tree and peasant girl, against the impermanent bravado and raw sexuality associated with the boys. It may be that each opposition (the girl and nature v. the boys and humanity) and the interaction (or lack thereof) is itself a kind of allegory; perhaps Lorca’s showing the experiential truth that human beings are torn between the desire to connect with the land and the agrarian self, but the modern world compels them to deny that desire in favour of satisfying our desire for a more human connection (Marxist & Freudian readings aside, the possibilities are seemingly