In Search of Duende

The muse and angel come from outside us: the angel gives lights, and the muse gives forms (Hesiod learned from her). Loaf of gold or tunic fold: the poet receives forms in his grove of laurel. But one must awaken the duende in the remotest mansions of the blood.

This was the case of Eleonora Duse, possessed by duende, who looked for plays that had failed so she could make them triumph thanks to her own inventions…

With idea, sound, or gesture, the duende enjoys fighting the creator on the very rim of the well. Angel and muse escape with violin, meter, and compass; the duende wounds. In the healing of that wound, which never closes, lie the strange, invented qualities of a man's work.

The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought.