The Old Spanish Ballads: A Literary Genre of Medieval Romance
1.1 The Ballad as a Literary Genre
The ballad, a genre of oral origin popular in the late Middle Ages, is a collection of romances sung and later compiled into written texts during the 15th and 16th centuries. These texts, preserved in manuscripts, printed books, and loose sheets, reflect a selection process favoring certain romances while neglecting others. This dual nature—oral origin yet subject to written forms—catered to a gentrified and courteous audience, signifying a revaluation of popular culture and a folklorization of literature. This trend continued into the 16th and 17th centuries, influencing eminent poets to compose new, artistic ballads.
Modern oral ballads, collected from the late 19th century to the present day, demonstrate the genre’s persistence. However, modern cultural changes, the decline of rural customs, and media-driven cultural uniformity pose a threat to this tradition.
1.2 The Origin of the Ballads
The late Middle Ages witnessed the decomposition of epic poems. The fragmentation of long epic lines resulted in the odd, unrhymed verses of romances, while the even, assonant verses retained rhyme. The shift from sixteen-syllable verses in epic poems to octosyllabic lines further contributed to the ballad form.
Some scholars argue for the ballad’s independent origin, attributing it to a single poet’s invention. This theory accounts for the numerous romances and lyrical themes. The blurred lines between lyric and narrative ballads, along with shared features with traditional lyric songs, suggest that ballads should be considered part of this tradition. The ballad can thus be defined as an epic-lyric form.
1.3 Structural and Formal Characteristics
Shaped by oral transmission and folk song traditions, ballads exhibit ductility, allowing for recreation and creative adaptation. Formal and thematic reasons, along with a traditional style, play significant roles in this process. Oral dissemination introduces variations in syllables, wording, and length. The focus is on adaptation rather than refinement, allowing ballads to reflect their environment.
Common formal elements include repetition, enumerations, antithesis, tense alternation, epic formulas and epithets, archaic language, and the use of adverbs or the historical present to update the action. Dialogues, syntactic simplicity, and the absence of complex similes and metaphors contribute to the ballads’ apparent clarity and simplicity. This simplicity, however, is not devoid of artistry. The expressive power and drama are achieved through concentration, conciseness, and emotional suggestion.
Ballads characteristically begin in medias res and end abruptly, presenting open narrative structures with diverse themes and motifs, facilitating constant innovation.
1.4 The Meaning of Romance: Worldview
The oral tradition shapes the worldview of ballads. Their adaptability is evident from their early features: an objective and impersonal narrator, lack of didacticism and religious references, dramatic questions and answers, frequent tragic endings, and the use of symbolism.
With the disappearance of the moralizing narrator, ballads depart from the typical medieval world. Heroes face a troubled life in isolation, and their attempts to escape often lead to tragedy or frustration. The fragmentary nature of ballads and their preference for abrupt, dramatic endings emphasize this sense of an uncertain fate.
Thematically, ballads encompass Castilian epic themes, Moorish border ballads, French epic themes, and romantic and lyrical ballads.