‘Inarticulate cries’: Arthur Symons and the Primitivist Modernity of Flamenco

Abstract

In his essay ‘Moorish Secrets in Spain’ (1899), the British poet and critic Arthur Symons (1865-1945) described Spanish flamenco music as the expression of primal creative forces, which were nonetheless connected to modernity: ‘it is music before rhythm, music which comes down to us untouched by the invention of the modern scale, from an antiquity out of which plain-chant is a first step towards modern harmony.’ Symons revealed flamenco as an art form caught in transition, faltering between Romantic spirit, Orientalist eroticism, and an emerging Modernist primitivism.