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Coffee, Spring Reflections, and Music

Thinking of Lorca

Reflections on the Hertford Union Canal. The view from Victoria Park (photo by author)

For Lorca a duende wasn’t an elf or goblin, the two common English translations. Duende was a state of mind, ecstasy, a primal and wild element, an uncontrollable force. Above all, the duende is all around us. It’s struggle, pain, tragedy.

A good example is his poem Romance Sonámbulo*. I just love the way he sets the scene:

“Verde que te quiero verde./Verde viento. Verdes ramas/El barco sobre la mar/y el caballo en la montaña/Con la sombra en la cintura/ella sueña en su baranda/verde carne, pelo verde/con ojos de fría plata/Verde que te quiero verde/Bajo la luna gitana/las cosas la están mirando/y ella no puede mirarlas.”

We’re being watched but we can’t see what’s watching us.

From then on the poem becomes a tug-of-war between the themes of love and death, and the dark, and often mysterious forces that govern our innermost desires.

The atmosphere is conducive to this dream-like state. We have a wounded smuggler, a lover in despair, and a doom-heavy, unsettling mise-en-scène.

Lorca wraps up the poem in the same way he started it: with a green motif. Under the apparently placid image he presents to us there’s a turmoil of…