Idea

Ok, here's another idea: I will take my earlier idea about the fragmentation of the Lorca field, and add to that the relatively unitary idea of Lorca, compounded around two or three major clichés.

These two things seem to be in contradiction, but they are not.

Explain why.

Because...

1) With the field so fragmented, isolated work on one aspect or another of Lorca will not have any effect on the total image of the author. Nobody will pay attention unless they are working on exact same, sub-sub specialty.

2) Both are cause or effect of hypercanonical status. The charismatic overall image of Lorca: his death, his charisma, the duende. The hyper-detailed nature of scholarship: he is so significant that no detail is too small. Lorca's commas.

3) The field is bad in a kind of structural way. There are really excellent people in the field, and those who know more about Lorca than I do. But the weakness of the field is structural.

So what I am working toward is:

1) A more general view of Lorca, not hyperspecialized but not introductory. More like an "elegy for Lorca studies." Something that makes major claims without reinterpreting each play and poem.

2) A critique of the kitsch of the duende, but one that takes the duende seriously, its romantic lineage, etc...

3) Just, generally, I want to kick some ass the way Lorca's kicked mine.