The Demon and the Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration

A work of art, whether a painting, a dance, a poem, or a jazz composition, can be admired in its own right. But how does the artist actually create his or her work? What is the source of an artist's inspiration? What is the force that impels the artist to set down a vision that becomes art? In this groundbreaking book, poet and critic Edward Hirsch explores the concept of duende, that mysterious, highly potent power of creativity that results in a work of art. It has been said that Laurence Olivier had it, and so did Ernest Hemingway, but Maurice Evans and John O'Hara did not. Marlon Brando had it but squandered it. Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith had it, and so did Miles Davis. From Federico Garciacute;a Lorca's wrestling with darkness as he discovered the fountain of words within himself to Martha Graham's creation of her most emotional dances, from the canvases of Robert Motherwell to William Blake's celestial visions, Hirsch taps into the artistic imagination and explains, in terms illuminating and emotional, how different artists respond to the power and demonic energy of creative impulse. A masterful tour of the minds and thoughts of writers, poets, painters, and musicians, including Paul Klee Federico Garciacute;a Lorca Robert Johnson Miles Davis Billie Holiday Louis Armstrong T. S. Eliot Ezra Pound Wallace Stevens Charles Baudelaire Herman Melville Nathaniel Hawthorne William Blake Rainer Maria Rilke Arthur Rimbaud Walter Benjamin Mark Rothko Robert Motherwell Anthony Hecht Benny Goodman Ella Fitzgerald William Meredith Sylvia Plath Jackson Pollock

Edward Hirsch is the author of many books, including five books of poetry. He also writes a weekly poetry column for the Washington Post Book World. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Book Critics Circle award, the Prix de Rome, and a MacArthur Fellowship. He is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and lives in New York City.