The publication of Gypsy Ballads, a collection of 18 ballads, made the dramatist Federico García immediately successful and popular.
The collection is made up of a series of poems, written in the ballad style. Gypsies and other Andalusian-related subjects are dealt with by means of metaphors and symbols such as the moon, knives, colours (green, black, white), the horse, water and the mirror, all of which reveal the obsessive concerns to be found in Lorca's writings: love and passion, death and freedom.
The Gypsy Ballads establishes a new synthesis between the popular ballad tradition and poetry, which displays itself by means of avant-garde images - far removed from the Spanish costumbrismo (customs and manners) and folklorist styles - as well as in the displaying of dramatic action, which is not presented completely, but rather in subtle references that arise, in the popular song style.
