Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Birth of Poetry from the Spirit of Flamenco:

Federico García Lorca and José F. A. Oliver’s Ballade vom Duende

Die Geburt der Dichtkunst aus dem Geiste des Flamenco

Federico García Lorca und José F. A. Olivers Ballade vom Duende

  • Beitrag
  • Published:
Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Oliver is considered one of the main representatives of German-language writers with a migration background. Thus, research has hitherto focused on topics related to so-called »migrant literature«, such as the xenophobic violence against minorities, or the feasibility of a hybrid identity or a transcultural »third space«. This essay differs from these content-based readings in that it foregrounds Oliver’s innovative poetics. Apart from Celan, Mayröcker, and Domin, the richest inspiration for Oliver’s poetics is Lorca, above all Lorca’s works Romancero gitano and Poema del cante jondo, and his two extensive lectures on »Duende«, the creative spirit that, according to Lorca, animates the performance of flamenco. Transcending Lorca, in his Ballad of Duende, Oliver embarks on a quest for a Duende which blends the »Andalusian« and the »German«, relying on poetic means, including a variety of prosodic, metaphoric, and rhetoric modes of expression. Furthermore, his striking use of neologism, syllabification, punctuation, and syntax engenders an associative expansion of meaning. Oliver thereby creates a language that is fundamentally ambiguous. His Duende empowers a kind of performative speaking that allows for multiple readings – roughly, from myth to Marx – and that is, importantly, an expression of resistance.

Zusammenfassung

Oliver gilt als einer der Hauptvertreter deutschschreibender Autoren mit Migrationshintergrund. Die bisherige Forschung konzentriert sich deshalb vor allem auf Themen der sogenannten »Migrantenliteratur«, wie etwa die xenophobische Gewalt gegen Minoritäten, oder die Realisierbarkeit einer hybriden Identität oder eines transkulturellen »dritten Raumes«. Im Gegensatz zu diesen inhaltsbezogenen Untersuchungen stellt dieser Essay Olivers innovative Poetik in den Vordergrund. Neben Celan, Mayröcker und Domin ist Lorca die wohl ergiebigste Quelle für diese Poetik, vor allem die Gedichtbände Romancero gitano und Poema del cante jondo und zwei umfangreiche Vorträge über »Duende«, den schöpferischen Geist, der laut Lorca die Flamenco-Aufführung beseelt. Über Lorca hinausgehend begibt sich Oliver in seiner Ballade vom Duende auf die Suche nach einem Duende, der das »Andalusische« mit dem »Deutschen« verquickt und sich dabei vorab poetischer Mittel bedient, insbesondere einer Vielfalt prosodischer, metaphorischer und rhetorischer Ausdrucksweisen. Hinzu kommen assoziative Sinnerweiterungen durch frappierende Wortschöpfung, Silbentrennung, Zeichensetzung und Syntax. Auf diese Weise schafft sich Oliver eine Sprache, die grundsätzlich mehrdeutig ist. Sein Duende verwirklicht sich in einem performativen Sprechen, das unterschiedliche Lesarten zulässt – grosso modo, von Mythos bis Marx – und nicht zuletzt auch ein Ausdruck von Widerstand ist.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Lorca’s lectures and other relevant texts have been edited and translated by Christopher Maurer in the collection In Search of Duende, New York 1998; hereafter cited as D and page number. My understanding of »duende« has been guided by Maurer’s »Introduction« to the lectures (D, vii–xii) and his essay »Poetry«, in: Federico Bonaddio (Ed.), A Companion to Federico García Lorca, Woodbridge 2010, 16–38, here: 22–28. I am also indebted to Jonathan Mayhew, Lorca’s Legacy. Essays in Interpretation, New York 2018, Roberta Ann Quance, »On the way to ›duende‹ (through Lorca’s Elogio de Antonia Mercé, ›la Argentina‹, 1930)«, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 17/2–3 (2011), 181–193, and Edward Hirsch, The Angel and the Demon. Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration, Orlando 2002. Emphasizing the importance of sound and song for Lorca, the »Ohrenmensch«, Manolo Lohnes, in his sensitive overview of »Lorca und der Flamenco«, in: Anita Awosusi (Ed.), Die Musik der Sinti und Roma, 3 vols., Heidelberg 1998, III, 49–79, includes a discography of Lorca poems set to music (62, 78–79). In his »Cante Flamenco«, in: Claus Schreiner (Ed.), Flamenco. Gypsy Dance and Music from Andalusia, Portland 1990, 57–87, Christof Jung describes the elements, the structure, and the typical styles of flamenco singing. Ehrenhard Skiera and Bernhard-Friedrich Schulze, »Guitarra Flamenca«, in: Claus Schreiner (Ed.), Flamenco. Gypsy Dance and Music from Andalusia, Portland 1990, 121–146, elaborate on the flamenco guitar, its playing techniques, scales, cadences, and rhythms. For concise cultural-historical and musicological introductions to flamenco, see Marion Papenbrok, »History of Flamenco«, in: Claus Schreiner (Ed.), Flamenco. Gypsy Dance and Music from Andalusia, Portland 1990, 35–48, and Peter Manuel, »Flamenco in Focus. An Analysis of a Performance of Soleares«, in: Michael Telzer (Ed.), Analytical Studies in World Music, Oxford 2006, 93–119. See also Israel J. Katz, »Flamenco«, in: Grove Music Online, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000009780 (2 July 2020). For a comprehensive multidisciplinary investigation of flamenco as primarily a musical style, see Timothy Mitchell, Flamenco Deep Song, New Haven 1994. To get a taste of the variety of lyrics for the different musical forms of flamenco (e.g., siguiryia, fandango), see Will Kirkland, Gypsy Cante. deep song of the caves, San Francisco 1999.

  2. The quotation is from Goethe’s conversation with Eckermann (2 March 1831) on the notion of the »demonic«: »The Demonic is that which cannot be explained by Reason or Understanding« (Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe, trans. by John Oxenford, New York 1998, 392). Note Lorca’s »creative« misreading of the original. Goethe’s concept of »das Dämonische« is a can of worms that need not be opened here, cf., for instance, Walter Muschg, Goethes Glaube an das Dämonische, Stuttgart 1958.

  3. For an expert introduction to the history and culture of 800 years of Islamic rule on the Iberian Peninsula (from 710–1492), see Georg Bossong, Das Maurische Spanien. Geschichte und Kultur, 3rd ed., München 2016. For an introduction to »Deep Song«, see J.B. Trend and Israel J. Katz, »Cante hondo« [Deep Song], in: Grove Music Online, <https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000004759> (17 April 2020). For a history and survey of flamenco as a Romani art form, see Marion Papenbrok-Schramm, »Geschichte und Entwicklung des Flamenco gitano-andaluz«, in: Anita Awosusi (Ed.), Die Musik der Sinti und Roma, 3 vols., Heidelberg 1998, III, 11–23, and Faustino Nuñez, »Die Kunst des Flamenco und die andalusischen Gitanos«, in: Anita Awosusi (Ed.), Die Musik der Sinti und Roma, 3 vols., Heidelberg 1998, III, 25–49.

  4. Cf. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, West-Eastern Divan, trans. Eric Ormsby, London 2019, xv; Hafez, The Divan -i-Hafiz, transl. H. Wilberforce Clarke, Bethesda 2007, xxxv.

  5. Hirsch (note 1), 9.

  6. Hirsch (note 1), 52.

  7. Rainer Maria Rilke, Sämtliche Werke, 6 vols., Frankfurt a.M. 1965, II, 287–288.

  8. Friedrich Nietzsche, Sämtliche Werke, Kritische Studienausgabe, 15 vols., München 1980, II, 889. The dactylic »grüßenden« interrupts the essentially iambic pattern.

  9. Hirsch (note 1), xiii.

  10. Cf. Hirsch (note 1), 49–50, 52–53; Maurer, »Introduction«, in: Christopher Maurer (Ed.), Federico García Lorca. Collected Poems, New York 2002, xl–lxii.

  11. Maurer (note 10), lxi.

  12. Except for the works listed in note 13, Oliver’s poetic oeuvre comprises in alphabetical order: 21 Gedichte aus Istanbul 4 Briefe & 10 Fotow:orte, Berlin 2016; Auf-Bruch. Lyrik, Berlin 1987; austernfischer marinero vogelfrau. Liebesgedichte und andere Miniaturen, Berlin 1997; fahrtenschreiber. Gedichte, Frankfurt a.M. 2010; fernlautmetz. Gedichte, Frankfurt a.M. 2000; finnischer wintervorrat. Gedichte, Frankfurt a.M. 2005; Gastling. Gedichte, 2nd ed., Berlin 2015; HEIMATT und andere FOSSILE TRÄUME. Lyrik, Berlin 1989; nachtrandspuren. Gedichte, Frankfurt a.M. 2002; unterschlupf. Gedichte, Frankfurt a.M. 2006; Vater unser in Lima. Gedichte, Tübingen 1991; Weil ich dieses Land      liebe, Berlin 1991; wundgewähr. Gedichte, Berlin 2018. For Oliver in English, see Marc James Mueller (Transl.), Sandscript. Selected Poetry 1987–2018, Buffalo 2018. See also, José F. A. Oliver, Mikael Vogel, zum Bleiben, wie zum Wandern – Hölderlin, theurer Freund. 20 Gedichte und ein verzweifeltes Lied, Tübingen 2020.

  13. The ballad was published as a separate book, Duende. Meine Ballade in drei Versionen. Die Ballade vom Duende. La balada del Duende. S Duendelied, Gutach 1997. It will be quoted in its entirety later in this essay. The two volumes of essays, Mein andalusisches Schwarzwalddorf. Essays, 4th ed., Frankfurt a.M. 2015, and Fremdenzimmer. Essays, Frankfurt a.M. 2015, are henceforth cited as ASD and FZ, respectively, with page number. All translations of Oliver’s original German are mine.

  14. The exception is Raluca Rădulescu’s »José F. A. Oliver«, in: Raluca Rădulescu, Monologe und Dialoge der Moderne. Gottfried Benn, Paul Celan und José F. A. Oliver, Zürich 2016, 165–239. She uses Mein andalusisches Schwarzwalddorf to explore Oliver’s »dialogic poetics« (165–177). Our discussion, while not focused on »dialogue«, overlaps with her assessment that the essay collection can be read as a »poetics« (167; my transl.).

  15. On the issue of nomenclature, see Carmine Chiellino’s critical overview, »Interkulturalität und Literaturwissenschaft«, in: Carmine Chiellino (Ed.), Interkulturelle Literatur in Deutschland. Ein Handbuch, Stuttgart 2007, 387–398. For a detailed discussion of the themes and approaches alluded to here, see Áine McMurtry’s analysis of Oliver’s engagement with the »human catastrophe« in the Mediterranean Sea in the poem »ostersonntag, travestien (aprilvierzeiler)« (fahrtenschreiber, 72–73) in »Sea Journeys to Fortress Europe. Lyric Deterritorializations in Texts by Caroline Bergvall and José F. A. Oliver«, The Modern Language Review, 13 (2018), 811–845. Read through the lens of Agamben, Benjamin, Deleuze and Guattari, McMurtry discovers that »the sea is figured as a site of human catastrophe, as the poem obstructs and dissects the German language to force reflection on the crass discrepancy between forms of language and the unspeakable fact that people have been driven to death« (844). Oliver’s engagement with this crisis has not subsided: see the cycle of poems entitled »totentanz« in wundgewähr, 188–193. Furthermore, see Elke Sturm-Trigonakis’s investigation of Oliver’s early poetry against the backdrop of »alterity«, a concept based on the theories of Bernhard Waldenfels and Alois Wierlacher, in »Formen der Alterität in der neuen deutschen Dichtung. José F. A. Oliver und Durs Grünbein«, Wirkendes Wort 48 (1998), 376–407. Accordingly, she explains »alterity« as a kind of archetype involving a dialectic of »das Fremde« and »das Eigene«. »Alterity« is understood as both hermeneutical and experiential, phenomenological and perceptional. Focusing on poems from Gastling, for instance, »angezählt« (7), »Poem eines mir anvertrauten Gastlings« (8–15), or »im gerippe eines tages« (18–25), she identifies »neologisms«, »Spanish-German analogies«, »synesthesia«, the interrelation of ambiguity and rhythm, and, above all, Brechtian »alienation techniques« as »self-conscious polyvalent literary strategies« that aim at exposing and undermining non-inclusive discourses (382, 387, 388, 403, my transl.). On the poetics of Oliver’s »multilingualism«, see Elke Sturm-Trigonakis, »Formen und Funktionen des Multilingualismus im poetischen Werk des José F. A. Oliver«, in: Eleni Butulussi et al. (Eds.), Sprache und Multikulturalität. Festschrift für Käthi Dorfmüller-Karpusa, Thessaloniki 2005, 381–399. Petra Fachinger’s study of »oppositionality in ethnic-minority writing in Germany« is based on a theoretical foundation laid out by, among others, Arlene Teraoka and Helen Tiffin, »Re-Placing Language. The Poetry of Zehra Çirak and José Oliver«, in: Petra Fachinger, Rewriting Germany from the Margins. »Other« German Literature of the 1980s and 1990s, Montreal 2001, 46–56. She focuses on poems from Oliver’s pre-2000 collections, such as »dorfidylle heimattduft« in HEIMATT und andere FOSSILE TRÄUME, 15–16, or »Woher« in Auf-Bruch, 51. In them, she analyses »textual strategies« (e.g., »allusion, code-switching, neologism, interlanguage, and syntactic fusion«) that allow for the characterization of his writing as a form of resistance against a dominant »nationalist« discourse (3, 5, 8, 46–52, 54–56). Roberto Di Bella’s »›W:orte‹. Poetische Ethnographie und Sprachperformanz im Werk von Yoko Tawada und José F. A. Oliver«, in: Andreas Kramer, Jan Röhnert (Eds.), Literatur – Universalie und Kulturspezifikum, Göttingen 2010, 242–257, is more like a tour d’horizon of issues that »intercultural« literature and research grapples with than an in-depth analysis of Oliver. In applying his concept of an »ethnographic poetics« to Oliver and Tawada, he maintains that they enact »a socially imagined reality« that transcends, via »linguistic alienation strategies and intertextual references, […] monocultural and national boundaries, and cultural profiling« (244). An example of defamiliarizing the familiar through language is Oliver’s frequent use of the colon in spelling, such as in the poem »fremdw:ort« (fernlautmetz, 9). The colon, according to Di Bella, »separates and unites«, thus creating a »void« which the reader either has »to fill with meaning or tolerate in its ambiguity« (250). Di Bella also alludes to (without identifying any text by Oliver) the notion of »being-in-transit«, which allows for »open-ended blueprints of identities« based on »the experience of mutual estrangement and oscillating perspectives« (251, all Di Bella translations are mine).

  16. Somewhat of an exception is Sturm-Trigonakis (note 15, »Alterität«), who, based on a significant Lorca passage in »im gerippe eines tages« (Gastling, 18–25), argues for Andalusia as a »memory trace« in which the »origin« of Oliver’s »metaphoric language« is encoded (391–392, my transl.); one example for the oversight is Joseph Jurt, who, in »Die Fremde als Verlust, die Fremde als Gewinn. Zu José F. A. Olivers Lyrik«, in: Thomas Keller, Freddy Raphaël (Eds.), Lebensgeschichten, Exil, Migration, Berlin 2006, 223–250, alludes to the Ballade vom Duende as a translation of an original Lorca text (241); another is Rădulescu (note 14) who mentions Lorca and Oliver’s translation of his poems El grito and El silencio (see the discussion of this translation in this essay) but maintains that Oliver’s musings on translation deteriorate into a »poetological gloss« (172, my transl.), which presages her later incomprehension of the significance of the »cante jondo« poem (finnischer wintervorrat, 39) (189). In her »Lyrik im Dialog. Ein Interpretationsversuch zu José Olivers Lyrikband Duende (1997)«, Acta Germanica, 30/31 (2004), 127–138, Hannelore van Ryneveld’s close reading of the first twenty lines follows, according to her, the method practiced by Michael Hamburger in his The Truth of Poetry. Tensions in Modern Poetry from Baudelaire to the 1960s, New York 1969. Even though Hamburger elaborates on Lorca’s duende (203, cf. 69), van Ryneveld’s attention to Lorca and duende is negligible. Nonetheless, she makes a number of keen observations about the aesthetics of the ballad’s opening, including its dialogic structure, rhetoric (e.g., alliteration, synesthesia, anaphora), and polyglot figurations.

  17. One such bed is the Chamisso-Prize. Oliver received the award the same year that the ballad was published (1997). Even a critic as empathetic and sensitive as Harald Weinrich, the laudatio speaker, gets trapped in the self-other binary thinking of migrant-literature, when he applauds Oliver (who was born and raised in Germany) for his perfect German proficiency and for writing a poem, »im gerippe eines tages« (Gastling, 18-25), that a »Binnendeutscher« could hardly have written, »Laudatio auf José F. A. Oliver: Rede zur Verleihung des Adelbert-von-Chamisso-Preises«, Jahrbuch der Bayerischen Akademie der schönen Künste, 11 (1996–97), 535–541, here: 536, 538.

  18. Conversation with Hannelore van Ryneveld, »Im Gespräch mit José F. A. Oliver –›viel stimmig und meersprachig‹«, Acta Germanica 36 (2008), 119–140, here: 120, cf. 127, 129; henceforth cited as RG and page number; cf. Marie T. Martin, »›Alles Leben ist Peripherie und Zentrum zugleich‹: José F.A. Oliver im Gespräch mit Marie T. Martin«, Poet 15 (2013), 164.

  19. In the conversation with Ryneveld, Oliver identifies the colon as a poetic device with which he tries to create a »Bewusstheit in Sprache« (RG, 134). Cf. Marc James Mueller, who in »Zwischen Heimatt und Fremdw:ort: Über poetische Identitäts-Mobilität in der deutsch-spanischen Lyrik José F. A. Olivers«, in Glossen 26 (2007), in: http://www2.dickinson.edu/glossen/heft26/article26/marc-mueller26.html (17 April 2020), argues that »w:ort« frees »word« and »space« from overdetermination by linguistic conventions and cultural-historical contingencies (n. p.).

  20. See Jurt (note 16), who discerns in Oliver’s poetry up to fernlautmetz (2000) a kind of chronological dialectic at work, in which »heimatt« (thus Oliver’s spelling) as a cipher for uprootedness and unfulfilled longing signals loss; however, as a cipher for a twofold source of inspiration, it signals gain. The motor that energizes the dialectic is the continuous questioning of language and the increasing awareness of its potential for »poetic innovation« (227). One poem that engages »Heimat« as loss is »heimatt« (HEIMATT und andere FOSSILE TRÄUME, 23), where the anaphoric »übriggeblieben sind« connotes nostalgic dreams, worsened by the confrontation with far-right posters in the old and new homeland, respectively (235–236). Gain emerges, paradoxically, from the relativizing juxtaposition of »idealized« images of the Black Forest and Andalusia, as in the first stanza of »weißt du noch, damals?«, in the HEIMATT-collection (19), and the second stanza in »Unterwegs« (Auf-Bruch, 15). Significant for our investigation is that poetic innovation is tied to Oliver’s acute sense of hearing. »Sound, melody, rhythm«, writes Jurt, are for Oliver the »springboard for writing«, they »put in motion a search, fill thinking with wonder, create a sound poem«, such as in »Monterrey, (Königs berg?)« (fernlautmetz, 101), where it says: »sagt man mir im wort sei klangherkunft/ laut- / vermächtnis« (245, my transl.). See also Sturm-Trigonakis (note 15, »Alterität«), who applies her concept of »alterity« to the dynamic of loss and gain, maintaining that Oliver’s »poetic multilingualism« generates a »completely new lyrical language« (385). Mueller (note 19) sees in Oliver’s idiosyncratic spelling of »Heimatt« an expression of exhaustion (the connotations of »matt« include »weary«, »feeble«, »listless«) brought about by the vain search for a »homeland«, but that this futility opens up an amorphous »third space« (as Homi Bhabha understands it) in which (poetic) language is »fluid« and identity is »flexible« (n.p.).

  21. Already in 1988, in a conversation with Ulrike Reeg, Oliver argues that the question of a (n)either-(n)or identity is an »existential« one but that he refuses to let himself be defined by it as a poet, »Aufbruch in ein neues Selbstverständnis: Im Gespräch mit dem Lyriker José F. A. Oliver«, in: Ulrike Reeg, Schreiben in der Fremde. Literatur nationaler Minderheiten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Essen 1988, 211-217, here: 213-214.

  22. For a portrait of Lorca as a maverick poet defying categorization – a »nomad« between Romanticism and the Avant-Garde – see Maurer (note 1), »Poetry«, 16–38, and Maurer (note 10), »Introduction«, xi–lxiv.

  23. On the lectures’ cultural-historical background and their interrelation to the »Poem of the Deep Song«, as well as recent criticism – such as Mitchell (note 1) accusing Lorca of promoting orientalist, avant-garde primitivism (160–177) – see Federico Bonaddio, Federico García Lorca. The Poetics of Self-Consciousness, Woodbridge 2010, 44–77.

  24. See the secondary literature on »deep song« in notes 1 and 3.

  25. In HEIMATT und andere FOSSILE TRÄUME, 47.

  26. The poem’s title is »blick auf die Moldau (Vltava) oder ›realitätssplitter‹ erster stunden (Masarykovo nábřeži 16)«; see wundgewähr, 77–83.

  27. On the history of the term’s »untranslatability«, see Barbara Cassin et al. (Eds.), »duende (Spanish)«, Dictionary of Untranslatables. A Philosophical Lexicon, Princeton 2014, 236–237.

  28. The Spanish and German versions are quoted here as they appear in Oliver’s essay collection. For an English translation of the original Lorca poems, which are part of the »Poem of the Deep Song«, see Collected Poems (note 10), 101, 103.

  29. Cf. the third stanza of »herkunftsstimmen. 1 vision in Kairo & erinnere 1 namenloses grab in Málaga«, in: unterschlupf, 47; cf. 83–84.

  30. On Oliver’s dialogue with Celan, see Rădulescu (note 14).

  31. Mayhew (note 1), 33, 37.

  32. Collected Poems (note 10), 145–146; cf. Hirsch (note 1), 11–12.

  33. For harmonic and rhythmic details of the siguiriya, with examples of notation, see Bernhard-Friedrich Schulze, »Leistung und Funktion der Flamencogitarre als Solo- und Begleitinstrument«, in: Anita Awosusi (Ed.), Die Musik der Sinti und Roma, 3 vols., Heidelberg 1998, III, 95–162; here: 96–100, 114–121, 152; see also Jack Sage and Susana Friedmann, »Seguidilla [siguiriya]«, in: Grove Music Online, <https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000025331> (28 June 2020). Cf. Lorca’s own set of siguiriyas, entitled »Poema de la Siguiriya gitana« in his cycle »Poem of the Deep Song«, Collected Poems (note 10), 98–107; cf. Bonaddio (note 23), 62–69. The poems »El grito« and »El silencio« that we quoted above are part of this set.

  34. Quance (note 1), 181–182, 183.

  35. Cf. Quance (note 1), 190.

  36. See Dieter Lamping, Handbuch der literarischen Gattungen, Stuttgart 2009, 37–46.

  37. My gratitude to José Oliver for granting me permission to quote his ballad in full. Note that, for the sake of identification in the analysis, the stanzas are numbered (which they are not in the original).

  38. Manuel (note 1), 99.

  39. See Madeleine Claus, »Baile Flamenco,« in: Claus Schreiner (Ed.), Flamenco: Gypsy Dance and Music from Andalusia, Portland 1990, 89–120.

  40. Ryneveld (note 16), 131.

  41. Oliver emphasizes the performance aspect of his poetry readings, often involving music (jazz, guitar); cf. his conversation with Reeg (note 21), 211–212, 215.

  42. Ryneveld (note 16), 132.

  43. Hilde Domin, Wozu Lyrik heute: Dichtung und Leser in der gesteuerten Gesellschaft, 4th ed., München 1981, 17. Cf. Oliver’s conversation with Reeg (note 21), in which he recognizes Domin’s credo as a prerequisite for a thought-provoking poetry, 213–214.

  44. Cf. ASD, 134.

  45. On »Sevillana« and »Petenera«, see Katz (note 1), and Matteo [Matteo Marcellus Vittucci], with Carola Goya, The Language of Spanish Dance, Norman 1993, 174, 226–227, 274. On »Sarabande«, see Richard Hudson and Meredith Ellis Little, »Sarabande«, in Grove Music Online, <https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000024574> (21 May 2020).

  46. Hirsch (note 1), 16.

  47. On the Fandango and its local variant, fandango de huelva, see Matteo (note 45), 84–85, 273, and Israel J. Katz, »Fandango«, in Grove Music Online, <https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000009282> (2 July 2020).

  48. Manuel (note 1) explains that Flamenco tonality is non-Western but Phrygian, meaning, schematically, that the »use of a major tonic triad … rather than a minor … occasions the use of the raised third …, affording the characteristic (›Oriental‹-sounding) augmented second interval between second and third scalar degrees (F and G♯)« (96–97); see also Schulze (note 33), 96–98, 143–146; Ehrenhard Skiera and Bernhard-Friedrich Schulze (note 1), 121–146, 136–38; and Harold S. Powers, »Phrygian«, in: Grove Music Online, <https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000021600> (28 May 2020).

  49. Similarly, in the poem »p:ostkarte« in nachtrandspuren, 85.

  50. See Charles Garrett, »Paso doble«, in: Grove Music Online,<https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002257751> (3 July 2020), and Matteo (note 45), 170–171.

  51. In his conversation with Ryneveld, Oliver admits that in Spanish duende is male (el duende) but that in German he prefers (the genderless version) »Duende« (RG, 131).

  52. Domin (note 43), 15.

  53. Cf. Domin (note 43), 17–19.

  54. Cf. HEIMATT und andere FOSSILE TRÄUME, 11–12.

  55. Martin (note 18), 165.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. German Studies Program, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504, USA

    Franz R. Kempf

Authors
  1. Franz R. Kempf
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Franz R. Kempf.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kempf, F.R. The Birth of Poetry from the Spirit of Flamenco:. Dtsch Vierteljahrsschr Literaturwiss Geistesgesch 95, 163–197 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41245-021-00129-3

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41245-021-00129-3

Search

Navigation