10 The Tragic Myth ly constructed. We have seen that it contains no original ideas, yet few writers have suggested the hidden essences of cante jondo as he does here. It is rightly called “‘deep”’ song, he tells us, because it is ‘‘deeper than all the wells and all the seas that surround the world, much deeper than the present heart that creates it and the voice that sings it, because it is almost infinite. It comes from distant races, crossing the cemetery of the years . . .” (I: 982). Beneath the verses a question throbs, he says, a terri- ble question without an answer. Life is seen through an impenetrable veil, as if through the eyes of an ancient sibyl or an Andalusian sphinx. Here we see the first glimmerings of an association between cante jondo and myth, which Lorca would develop in his next lecture and in his poetry. THE THEORY OF DUENDE Sometime after 1928, Lorca delivered a lecture that may contain his most inspired prose. “Teoria y juego del duende” (I: 1067-79) is essential for understanding his poetics and his attitude toward the music of his native region. This lecture does not deal exclusively with cante jondo as such, but is based on an idea from the world of flamenco: duende. The most com- mon opinion is that this word derives from the Latin domitus: domestic or familiar spirit.!5 Its basic meaning is ‘inspiration’ in the root sense, yet no foreign word can hope to convey the wealth of connotations produced by the two syllables in Spanish. The classical idea of poetic inspiration, as an impulse of the Muses compelling creation from without, is much too literary; the Daémonische perceived by Goethe in the playing of Paganini is closer, but still astray. Lorca quotes Goethe’s words to Eckermann: ‘‘a mysterious power which everyone feels but no philosopher can explain.” The poet attempts to explain in his own lyrical manner this “hidden spirit of suffering Spain’’ (I: 1067). All over Andalusia, from Jaén to Cadiz, the people use the expression, ‘Eso tiene duende.’ It can refer to the singing of a siguiriya, to a bullfight, or to any event or moment charged with pas- sion and enveloped in grace. But a distinct quality of duende is its associa- tion with a dark or negative element: perhaps dissonance in music, a cer- tain darkness in painting, death or tragedy in poetry. Lorca tells us that the famous cantaor Manuel Torres once said while listening to Falla play his Nocturno del Generalife: “Everything with black sounds has duende.” The Greco of glowering skies, the Goya of the black murals, and the bloody Christs of Juan de Juni are examples of this strange force inTheory 11 Spanish art. In poetry, the mysticism of Saint John of the Cross, and Quevedo’s obsession with physical decay and death convey the spirit of duende. In fact, duende is usually related to death in one way or another. For this reason it has found its most intense expression in Spain, a ‘“‘country of death” (I: 1073). Only Mexico can be compared to his land, Lorca says. For an alert sensibility, the smallest details of Peninsular life awake secret intimations of mortality: flies, humid cupboards, sand, saints covered with lace, rocks, moss, and thistles. Much of Spanish art revolves around the emotion of death. Among many other examples, Lorca cites his coun- try’s tradition of polychromatic sculpture, with its crucifixions and Dolorosas; the Escorial, the painting of Zurbaran, the poetry of Jorge Manrique. Duende must not be confused with artistic virtue or technical com- petence, Lorca continues. In fact, they may even be inimical to one another. Mere formal ability is not enough; the catalyst of inspiration is also required. Duende is not to be found in the vocal cords of a singer or in the hands of a pianist; its source is much deeper. Its roots sink into the mud from which the first life arose, “‘in tender intimacy with volcanoes, ants, the wind and the vast night embracing the Milky Way” (I: 1079). Asa power that springs from the depths of the earth, Lorca tells us that duende is linked to the dark realm of the unconscious; it is an enemy of reason. It does not descend from Aristotle, but from the Dionysian Greeks, passing through Nietzsche. This demon cannot be summoned at will, but when it arrives its force is irresistible. It shakes the man it possesses like an electric charge.'® Lorca makes a perceptive distinction between duende—the charac- teristic form of inspiration in Spain—and the muse of Germany, or the “angel”” of Italy. The muse dictates to man, awakening his intelligence and imagination. Unfortunately, these are not the faculties that produce the best art. The muse elevates the poet on a marble throne and garlands his brow with a laurel wreath, but makes him forget the subterranean forces that undermine his seat. For its part, the Italian angel flies over man’s head, spilling its grace and light. Man responds with ease, creating forms of beauty and order. In contrast to duende, both the German muse and the Italian angel flee from death in horror. The muse ‘‘composes an epitaph with a hand of wax’’ and the angel ‘‘weaves an elegy of icy tears and daffodils’’ (I: 1075). While they flee from death, the Spaniard opens12 The Tragic Myth his wounds and revels in his own agony. His inspiration, as we have seen, does not come from outside, but from within himself. All the arts can express duende, but it reveals itself most readily in music, dance, and spoken poetry, since they require live interpretation at a precise juncture of time and space. For the same reason, it finds a wide field in bullfighting. Like the sea and sky in a storm, duende cannot repeat itself. It depends on an actual present, being a perpetual baptism of the moment. Its appearance is received with a kind of religious ecstasy. In Arabic music, Lorca tells us that the participants cry ‘‘Allah! Allah!’’—an exact parallel of the ‘‘Viva Dios’ of cante jondo and the “‘Olé’’ of bullfighting. At this hallowed instant, those who are present feel a “‘com- munion with God through the five senses’’ (I: 1072). Something greater and stronger than man has dwelt among them. As in his analysis of the verse of cante jondo, Lorca occasionally seems to be projecting his own poetic ideas and practices onto the subject of his lecture. He tends to praise some of the noble figures of Spanish art in terms of flamenco, which hardly apply in a rigorous sense.'’ Yet beneath the subjectivity and exaggeration lies a remarkable distillation of truths and insights. At times, Lorca’s power of perceiving the subtle filaments that unite sensations and objects becomes almost uncanny. His percep- tions are not couched in the language of philosophy; in accordance with the spirit of duende they are conveyed through image and metaphor, as in poetry. The important point for us is that Lorca selects a word and con- cept of flamenco—duende—as a criterion for judging all works of art. This lecture might be considered a statement of Lorca’s esthetics, his ars poetica. We have seen that cante jondo, while it cannot be called pure folk music, has a definite relation to traditional or popular forms of expres- sion. It is worthy of note that a major Spanish poet of the twentieth cen- tury, Lorca, has taken a word and idea from the margins of society to measure the spiritual depth of all artistic works. A certain disdain of seriousness and organization informs Lorca’s lecture—a preference for in- stinct over reason, poverty over wealth, individuality over convention. To judge from the testimony of those who knew him, the same qualities seem to have characterized his personality. Perhaps the poet understood the essence of duende because it was the hidden force that animated his own life and art. This inspiration is the in- definable power that makes his poetry compellingly attractive to peasantsTheory 13 and literati alike. The phenomenon of Lorca must be understood as the success of an accomplished artist and a magical character.'* In this sense it was a peculiarly Spanish success, and in keeping with the nature of duende. His penchant for reciting his own poetry (he was well known in Madrid before the publication of his first works) and his love of drama, music, bullfighting, and cante jondo are aspects of his search for the unique, unrepeatable moment of plenitude. His was a demon of the in- stant.'9 In contrast to most Western thought from the time of the Greeks— Plato, Christ, Marx—it scorned duration in favor of the present. It only breathed in an atmosphere of tragedy, yet could be playful and ironic in the face of destiny. As we shall see, Lorca’s was the voice of one man at a given moment, but it spoke for a whole race and reverberated with the echoes of centuries.