Queering the Poetics of Duende: Desire, Death, and Intermediality in Federico Garcia Lorca's Late Poetry, Drawings, and Film Script

Miguel Garcia Lopez

Research output: ThesisDoctoral Thesis

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Abstract

This thesis reassesses the theory and play of duende as a queer poetics of boundary transgressions, offering close readings of Federico García Lorca’s less explored later works. Approaching queerness as the performative transgression of normativity, the study concentrates on the poetic collections Diván del Tamarit and Sonetos del amor oscuro (1934-1936), his late drawings (1930-36), and his film script Viaje a la luna (1929-30), arguing that duende is articulated via transgressions of the notions of sex, gender and sexual identity; notions of desire, death and spatiotemporal stability; and notions of media representations and intermediality. I examine how the queer subjects and objects Lorca creates in his works and their metaphysical mysteries become poetic artefacts with aesthetic value, offering the artist and the reader/spectator a substantial sensory and spiritual experience. The less explored post-New York works must form an integral part of the vast scholarly corpus on Lorca’s late theatre so as to give the poet’s entire artistic project the recognition it deserves. Drawing on duende and contemporary queer theories will help to map Lorca’s aesthetics within the context of critical and biographical analyses of his later period, considering intermediality a key aspect of his more avant-garde phase.
Original languageEnglish
QualificationPh.D.
Awarding Institution
  • Royal Holloway, University of London
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Wright, Sarah, Supervisor
  • Williams, James, Supervisor
  • Robertson, Eric, Advisor
Award date1 Nov 2017
Publication statusUnpublished - 2017

Keywords

  • duende, queer, intermediality, Federico García Lorca, poetics, film, visual arts, poetry

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