Aristocracy of the Solar Plexus

" 'All that has dark sounds has duende.’

And there’s no deeper truth than that."

 

          Those dark sounds are the mystery, the roots that cling to the mire that we all know, that we all ignore, but from which comes the very substance of art. 

‘Dark sounds’ said the man of the Spanish people, agreeing with Goethe, who in speaking of Paganini hit on a definition of the duende: ‘A mysterious force that everyone feels and no philosopher has explained.’

        

  So, then, the duende is a force not a labour, a struggle not a thought.

 I heard an old maestro of the guitar say: ‘The duende is not in the throat: the duende surges up, inside, from the soles of the feet.’ Meaning, it’s not a question of skill, but of a style that is truly alive: meaning, it’s in the veins: meaning, it belongs to the most ancient culture of immediate creation.

Angel and Muse come from outside us: the angel brings light, the Muse form (Hesiod learnt from her). Golden bread or fold of tunic, it is her norm that the poet receives in his laurel grove… while the duende has to be roused from the furthest habitations of the blood.

Reject the angel.  Give the Muse a kick and conquer his awe of the scent of violets that eighteenth century poetry breathes out, and of the great telescope in whose lenses the Muse, made ill by limitation, sleeps.

The true struggle is with the duende.