Leaping with Duende: Triangulating Dionysian Aesthetic and Spanish Surrealism in the Selected Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca

Abstract

This paper explores selected poems from Federico Garcia Lorca's two poetry volumes, A Poet in New York and Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias, from the perspective of his poetic thesis expounded in the lecture titled Theory and Play of Duende. The available scholarship on Lorca fundamentally focuses on the socio-politico-cultural undertones in his poetry. By bringing a fresh perspective to his poetry through the technique of Duende, this research challenges pre-existing notions popular in the available critical scholarship. A robust creative force that artists’ work exudes without their control on it, Duende leaves a trance-like effect on the spectators/audience (and readers in case of poetry). Understood by many cultural critics and writers as an artistic inspiration deeply rooted in Spanish soil, Duende has long been riddled with mystical abstractions and subject to scholarly misconceptions. The current study makes it accessible through Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of Dionysian Aesthetic from his book Birth of Tragedy. Inspired by the Greek god Dionysus that stands for orgiastic energies, dance, and transgression, Dionysian Aesthetic is the manifestation of creative energies in art. This investigation also employs a Spanish concept called “Leaping” that bridges the gap between Duende and Dionysian Aesthetic, as this paper illustrates by reading Lorca's selected poems. Having its origin in Spanish poetry, Leaping is a technique characterized by associative jumps from subject matter to the unconscious mind keeping in perspective the emotions emanating from the poem. This essay triangulates Duende and Dionysian Aesthetic as theoretical props with Leaping technique in order to analyse Lorca’s poetry, and this is how it intervenes in contemporary scholarship on Lorca.

Keywords

• keywords: duende,  leaping poetry, dionysian aesthetic, triangulation