The University of Granada was where Federico García Lorca’s university studies began and where his academic education intersected with the early formation of his literary and cultural life. He enrolled in Philosophy and Letters and Law in 1914–15, continued his studies over several years, and completed his law degree in 1923; the institution’s importance in his story lies less in academic distinction than in the intellectual influences and creative pursuits accompanying his time as a student.

Studies and Teachers

After failing the second part of his final secondary examinations in 1914, Lorca passed it on a retake the following year. At his parents’ instigation, he then entered the Faculties of Philosophy and Letters and of Law at the University of Granada. His university career was described as less than remarkable, but it brought him into contact with two distinguished professors: Martín Domínguez Berrueta, who taught the Theory of Literature and the Arts, and Fernando de los Ríos Urruti, professor of Political and Comparative Law.

His university education did not displace his musical interests. Lorca’s piano abilities continued to develop under the teaching of Don Antonio Segura, while his formal studies proceeded. The combination of literary, artistic, legal, and musical influences gives the university years a broader significance than the record of his academic performance alone would suggest.

Cultural Life and Early Writing

During his years in Granada, Lorca joined the Arts Club and began frequenting the Café Alameda, a meeting place for local intellectuals and artists as well as visiting figures. These associations placed his university experience within a wider cultural setting, although the café, rather than the university itself, is identified as the gathering place for this community.

In 1916, Lorca took study trips to Spanish towns and cities organized by Domínguez Berrueta; further trips followed in the spring and summer of 1917. That year he began writing poetry, prose, and short plays. Much of his early poetry concerned sexual love and registered a conflict between desire and Catholic sexual morality. The evidence establishes this writing as part of the period of his university education, without making it a direct product of any particular course or professor.

Degree and Retrospective Significance

Lorca completed his law degree in January 1923, several years after beginning his studies. In the same month, he organized a puppet show with Manuel de Falla, including his own play, The Girl who Waters the Basil Plant, at the García Lorcas’ large flat in Granada. He also began an important friendship with Salvador Dalí at the Residencia de Estudiantes. These events show that the completion of his degree coincided with creative and social activity extending well beyond university study.

The University of Granada is thus a formative setting in Lorca’s early biography, but the available evidence does not identify it as the sole source of his development. His teachers, music, writing, study trips, and participation in Granada’s cultural life all belong to the same period. The distinction between his modest academic record and the range of intellectual and artistic activity around his studies is central to understanding the university’s place in his life.