Two mysterious forces that make for great art and much more

Years ago in a dance competition in Jerez de la Frontera lovely women and girls danced beautifully. Then an 80-year-old woman appeared and danced “merely by raising her arms, throwing back her head, and stamping with her foot on the floor.” She won the competition because she had duende. Shakespeare achieved such extraordinary literary heights—so high, it’s hard to believe that one man wrote all his plays and poems—in part, believed John Keats, because he had negative capability. But what are duende and negative capability? Duende lifts all art—dance, poetry, painting, and music—to a higher level. It may also be important in other human activities like football, surgery, and walking through nature. We can all feel duende when it is present, but what is duende? In his great essay Theory and Play Of The Duende https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Spanish/LorcaDuende.php Federico García Lorca quotes Goethe, who states that duende is “A mysterious force that everyone feels and no…