Proust: Collected Essays on the Writer and His Art by J. M. Cocking (review)

Abstract

That Lorca intended volante to be skirt-flounce is a possibility; but Cobb notes, in his commentary on "La pena negra": "At the same time, the river is 'Skirt-flounce of sky and leaves,' which at the real level can be leaves eddying in the water and sky reflecting, but the word 'flounce' suggests the skirt worn by the flamenca dancer . . . ." There is a kind of completeness to Cobb's book; he deals with Lorca's life, formative influences, gypsies, and Spanish balladry. Every article and book on Lorca seem to have something to offer. Perhaps it is like Lorca's "Palimpsestos," but instead of an incompletely erased manuscript, Lorca's poetry bleeds through the translations and commentary of the critics. When Cobb, in his "A Summing Up," writes, ". . . Lorca is contemporary man enmeshed in time, . . . This radical insecurity seeks a faith, aground in reality, but Lorca, like many modern poets, has found faith only in the poem achieved, whose very fragility is a source of pride," the reader may be reminded of Lorca's own words: