García Lorca's "Malagueña"

This time I bring a poem into your attention. It's García Lorca's. This is for several reasons. Firstly, it's called Malagueña, and I have just been to Málaga, another Andalusian city, for a short visit. Secondly, Federico García Lorca is one of my favourite Andalusian poets (from Granada). Thirdly, he was a true devotee (aficionado) of Cante Jondo and flamenco music with what the poem also has to do (for García Lorca's book, see the references).

MALAGUEÑA	MALAGUEÑA
La muerte entra y sale de la taberna. Pasan caballos negros y gente siniestra por los hondos caminos de la guitarra. Y hay un olor a sal y a sangre de hembra, en los nardos febriles de la marina. La muerte entra y sale y sale y entra la muerte the de la taberna.	Death enters, and leaves, the tavern. Black horses and sinister people travel the deep roads of the guitar. And there’s a smell of salt and of female blood in the fevered tuberoses of the shore. Death enters, and leaves, and leaves, and enters, death of the tavern. Translation from here.

The title of the poem has several metaphorical connotations: it refers to a city (Málaga), a song (malagueña) and a woman/death, as malagueña is also understood as a woman from Málaga (I'll make the point on the connection with death clear some time in the future). According to George Boylston Brown, a music historian (please, see the references), malagueña is an example of native folk art of Gypsy influence (but not considered to be pure Gypsy folk art) together with rondena, granadina, cartagenera, murciana, fandanguillo, tango, seguidilla, sevillana and saetas. Basically, it's a traditional style of Andalusian music, a flamenco song used for dance. And, as stated in a study of a Hispanist, Walter Starkie, there is a distinction between Cante Flamenco (flamenco song) and Cante Jondo (deep song): Cante Jondo is limited to the purer and less corrupted style of singing - people have used the word Cante Jondo as a synonym of Cante Gitano (Gypsy song), whereas Cante Flamenco is used for every sort of Andalusian folk songs.

Edward Stanton, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Spanish Studies in the University of Kentucky in Lexington, who has worked on comparative literature and popular Spanish culture and has published on such topics as Hemingway in Spain and the contemporary pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, agrees those for whom García Lorca is an "extremist". García Lorca noted that the poetry of Gypsy music - Andalusian music influencer, as already stressed above - lacks a middle tone. Love and death constitute the two basic poles, leaving little room for the development of intermediate themes. The deepest forms of this music flourish only in extreme states - religious or sensual ecstasy, freedom, death, guilt. Stanton says that the poems do not usually describe or comment on these states. Their involvement is too direct to permit the luxury of moral or philosophical speculation.

For my Estonian readers, here's a very fine video version of García Lorca's Malagueña: