Lorca and the Duende

Excerpt-Noel Cobb-Archetypal Imagination

Sometime between the end of his law studies in 1928 and his visit to Buenos Aires in 1933, Lorca wrote his most inspired prose in the form of a talk called The Theory and Play of the Duende. Here he grappled with a true daimon, naming it after a familiar household spirit of Spain, adapted by the people of Andalusia to refer to a distinct quality of inspiration. Lorca quotes Goethe, who seemed to be defining duende when speaking of the playing of Paganini, saying it contained something Damonisch—“a mysterious power which everyone senses and no philosopher can explain” (OC 1.1098). Lorca described how all over Andalusia people spoke constantly of the duende and identified it accurately and instinctively whenever it appeared. He quotes his time's most honored singer of cante jondo, or deep song, Manuel Torre, “who had more culture in the blood” than anyone Lorca could think of, as saying of Manuel de Falla's playing of his Nocturno del Generalife that “all that has black sounds has duende” (OC 1.1098). Lorca adds:

These black sounds are the mystery, the roots fastened in the mire we all know and all ignore, the mire that gives us the substance of art...The duende, then, is a power, not a work; it is a struggle, not a thought. I have heard an old maestro of the guitar say, “The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet.” Meaning this: it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation. (OC 1.1098; CM 43)14