Manrique’s Couplets & the Spanish Ballad
Couplets of Don Jorge Manrique on the Death of His Father
Couplets of Don Jorge Manrique on the Death of His Father, which he composed as an elegy on the death of his father in 1476, is one of the most perfect and emotional funeral compositions of Castilian lyric poetry. This work is formed by 40 couplets of two broken-foot sextinas, also called Manriquean stanzas. In general, each stanza develops a complete idea in itself.
Regarding the internal structure, we can distinguish three parts:
- Couplets I to XIV: The poet reflects on the transience of life and the instability of things in this world.
- Couplets XV to XXIV: These are concrete examples of previous reflections, with references to famous people, in which Jorge uses the rhetorical question of ubi sunt.
- Couplets XXV to XL: Focus on his father figure. The poet praises his personality, tells of the view of death, and Don Rodrigo’s resigned and confident acceptance.
The poem is both a reflection on life and death and a tribute to the deceased. The main topics are:
- The global vanities of contempt.
- The equalizing power of death.
- The vagaries of fortune.
- The reputation that triumphs over death.
Jorge takes a serene and hopeful stance against death in the new mode of life. For the poet, this would lead to an honorable life, i.e., the life of fame.
The Ballad
The ballad dates back to the fourteenth century, its date of birth.
Old and New Ballads
The set of traditional ballads of anonymous creation, oral transmission, and composed for singing is called Romancero Viejo. These arise in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, all writers composed infinite works of traditional imitation. These are called Romancero Nuevo or artistic. Their transmission is written; they are no longer of known authorship and are subject to variations according to oral transmission.
Metric and Stylistic Features
The romance is a poem of variable extension. It comprises octosyllabic verses with assonance rhyme in even numbers and loose odd numbers. Its oral transmission is causal. This happened, for example, in:
- The enactment of the scenes.
- Apostrophes directed at the viewer.
- The emergence of the narrator in the scene.
- The appeal to the hero of romance.
- Repetitions.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature is the tendency to fragmentation.
On the other hand, it is worth noting some characteristics that are also preserved from the epic language, such as:
- The use of epic epithets for characters.
- The taste for archaic vocabulary and pronunciation.
- The particular use of tenses that are sometimes inconsistent.
Classification of Ballads
The most important are grouped into:
- Historical: They are inspired by an event and would include specific historical moments close to the event.
- Literary: They have an epic or literary source. Many center on the same characters and events as epics: El Cid, etc. Others collect the Carolingian tradition, and there are some cases whose source is the Odyssey.
- Adventures: Here, romance or character creations include varied themes: love romance, adventure, mystery, or those based on legends.