“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
In English, duende is translated as elf, a term that doesn’t cover the meaning and reverberations of the Spanish word. Duende is a contraction from “master of the house” or “house spirit.”
In the folklore of the peninsula, it is a genderless figure, a force older than the jinns that populate the relatively more recent Moorish tales; it is older than the daemons of the Greek myths, and belongs to the remote tales of a Celtic-Iberian past. In everyday Spanish speech, duende is related and sometimes substituted by ‘angel’ in the sense of personal charisma. It may also allude to grace when speaking about a dancer.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the poet and playwright Federico García Lorca proposed the theory of the duende in his book In Search of Duende, and explained that duendes are what inspires artists, including writers.
According to Lorca, the duende is an impish creature, a daemon that artists struggle with as they pursue the inspiration for their art form. “All art is capable of duende,” he wrote. Music, dance, poetry, song, every type of artistic or performing endeavor is capable of reaching the duende, which doesn’t mean that they actually do. It’s a constant battle. In the case of writing, think about how many drafts go into a published page.
What inspires one artist, doesn’t touch another. Lorca thought that artists must search for their particular duendes and, if they are lucky enough to find them, grapple with them for the rest of their lives. That’s a key difference between the apathetic, uninvolved muse and the duende. Lorca also said that there are no maps or directions to help hopeful artists; the duendes may inhabit things, people, or places. They lurk everywhere.
Here are places where I have found my duende:
Family: My duende has always pointed to the two sides of my family, who fought on opposite factions of the Spanish Civil War. From grandparents to parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins, they have always been endless fonts of love, conflict, and bewilderment.
The Lady of Elche: I first felt the presence of the duende during a school trip to the Prado. I was aimlessly wandering from hall to hall and spotted her, an Iberian sculpture with almond-shaped eyes and an incredible headdress. I was riveted. I couldn’t walk away. Ever since that day, I treat her like a relative and pay her visits when I am in Madrid. The Lady now resides in the Museo de Arqueologia Nacional .
Landscapes: From the shores of the Strait of Gibraltar, across my ancestral Andalusia, to Castile — where I grew up — the natural landscapes, architecture, and the characters that inspire me are rooted in the stormy history of Spain. I may have wandered away from the Spanish language but the duende holds me fast to Spain. I know in my gut that won’t change.
Beatus of Liebana: Medieval manuscript with illustrations brimming with whimsy, wonder, and charming foolishness. It makes me smile when I look at it. It is also an antidote against solemnity.
A Gourmand: My duende loves food and drink. That’s why to me for example, Spanish beaches not only smell of salt air but of fried sardines and cool, foamy mugs of San Miguel beer. The streets too, in late afternoon, smell of latte, or chocolate with churros.
During the creative process, duendes and artists wrestle, and the match leaves traces in the resulting artwork and on the artists themselves. This is another key concept of duende.
Check this recent video of film director Tim Burton at the Prado. His excitement when seeing the painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch is palpable. There is no doubt that he is fascinated, inspired. He gets Bosch’s duende.
I’ve seen duendes on the facial expressions of jazz musicians and flamenco dancers when these performers are transported by their art. What’s more: spectators are not only able to spot the duende but be affected by it. This is why sometimes people cry at a musical performance, or get into a trance-like rave. Think about when reading a book moves you; you are responding to the author’s duende. That’s when people in Spain say that a performance, a play, a painting, or a book has duende.
The duende is NOT a Spanish phenomenon. Lorca simply named it. But these rascally creatures are spread across the planet. The works of Guillermo del Toro, André De Shields, Basquiat, and the great Ursula LeGuin attest to the wild and wonderful variety of duendes.∼
“We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire.”
In The Imp of the Perverse by Edgar Allan Poe