In Search of Duende
1933
First Published
4.30
Average Rating
52
Number of Pages
The notion of "duende" became a cornerstone of Federico Garcia Lorca's poetics over the course of his career. In his lecture "Play and the Theory of Duende," he says, ". . .there are no maps nor disciplines to help us find the duende. We only know that he burns the blood like a poultice of broken glass, that he exhausts, that he rejects all the sweet geometry we have learned..." The duende is portrayed by Lorca as a demonic earth spirit containing irrationality, earthiness, and a heightened awareness of death. In Search of Duende gathers Lorca's writings about the duende and about three art forms most susceptible to dance, music, and the bullfight. A full bilingual sampling of Lorca's poetry is also included, with special attention to poems arising from traditional Spanish verse forms. The result is an excellent introduction to Lorca's poetry and prose for American readers.
Avg Rating
4.30
Number of Ratings
1,055
5 STARS
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4 STARS
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3 STARS
14%
2 STARS
2%
1 STARS
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Author
Federico García Lorca
Author · 58 books
Born in Fuente Vaqueros, Granada, Spain, June 5 1898; died near Granada, August 19 1936, García Lorca is one of Spain's most deeply appreciated and highly revered poets and dramatists. His murder by the Nationalists at the start of the Spanish civil war brought sudden international fame, accompanied by an excess of political rhetoric which led a later generation to question his merits; after the inevitable slump, his reputation has recovered (largely with a shift in interest to the less obvious works). He must now be bracketed with Machado as one of the two greatest poets Spain has produced in the 20th century, and he is certainly Spain's greatest dramatist since the Golden Age.
