Ortega's razón vital and Lorca's duende in ‘Poema doble del lago Edén’

Abstract

The present article examines two aesthetic concepts that inform Lorca's ‘Poema doble del lago Edén’ and shows how these impact the process of signification and the evolving subjectivity in the poem. The first of these is Ortega y Gasset's razón vital, which places the contemplation of the problem of life at the centre of artistic endeavour and also emphasizes the importance of circumstances in the contemplative process. The second is Lorca's duende, which identifies the struggle with a truth-bearing and creative power as the artist's essential task. In ‘Poema doble’ this power is the poet's voz antigua, and represents the early inception of what Lorca later identifies as the duende. This article, which undertakes a comparative reading of ‘Poema doble’ and the works dealing with these aesthetic theories—Ortega's ‘Adán en el paraíso’ and ‘Meditaciones del Quijote’ and Lorca's ‘Juego y teoría del duende’—re-examines the Vermont experience heretofore eclipsed by Lorca's more publicized and longer sojourn in New York City. It also discusses ‘Poema doble del lago Edén’ as a window on to Lorca's own artistic struggle with the duende, cast in the vein of aesthetic mysticism that was nurtured in Lorca's generation by Ortega.