The Spanish Ballad: History, Origin, and Characteristics
The Spanish Ballad
The epic began to decline in the fourteenth century, and by the fifteenth century, epic poems were no longer being written. Public taste had shifted, and minstrels favored romances. These were epic poems with primarily narrative themes, though occasionally lyrical, that circulated through oral channels, separate from formal literature. In the late fifteenth century, learned poets took an interest in these poems, incorporating them into songbooks and poetic repertoires to be sung in court. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, several collections of ballads were printed, and the great poets of the Spanish Golden Age composed new ones, imitating the traditional style.
Old Ballads vs. New Romances
Old ballads refer to the set of ballads sung in the late Middle Ages that belonged to the oral tradition. In contrast, those created by known authors with artistic intentions are grouped under the designation of new romances. One might also speak of modern oral ballads, a vast collection of romances passed down orally from the late nineteenth century to today. This ongoing tradition allows us to reconstruct the transmission methods of medieval romances.
Multiple versions of most romances exist, each differing to a greater or lesser extent. There might be changes in character names, added or deleted episodes, and so on. These variations could be due to the singers’ desire to rework the romance, adapt it to a new circumstance or time, or simply because of memory lapses. The survival of the romance over time is remarkable, but the rapid changes of the modern world make it an endangered phenomenon.
Structure and Meter
The romance is a poem of variable length composed of eight-syllable verses with rhyming pairs. The odd verses are left unrhymed. The rhyme scheme is generally assonance. This metric structure connects the romance to the epic genre, which also provides the narrative material for many of them. This connection led to the belief that romances were initially fragments broken off from larger epics.
Theories of Origin
Two main theories attempt to explain the origin of romances:
- The traditionalist theory: This theory posits that romances are fragments of epic poems. These fragments, due to their particular beauty or interest, broke away from the original poems to be sung independently. The standard line of singing, sixteen syllables, was divided into two eight-syllable lines, leading to the assonance rhyme in pairs. For example:
Tears of his eyes, then said Mansur:
“Well I know these heads, for my sins, sir.”became:
Tears of your eyes
Mansur said then:
“Well I know these heads,
for my sins, sir.”
- The individualist theory: This theory argues that romances were created from the outset as a genre independent of epic poems. Proponents point out that the oldest romances are lyrical and romantic, not epic. They suggest that the genre arose from a single poet’s act of invention, which achieved immediate success.
Characteristics of the Spanish Ballad
Epic-Lyric Nature
Despite sharing many features with epics, romances differ in the importance they place on emotional communication. They utilize expressive techniques more common in traditional lyric poetry. Therefore, the ballad can be defined as an epic-lyric genre.
Variety of Themes
The range of topics covered in ballads is extraordinarily diverse. Romances are broadly classified as:
- Historical Ballads: These ballads contain information about historical events close to the time of their composition. In the fifteenth century, romances were composed about the civil war between Pedro I the Cruel and Enrique de Trastámara, and later about the War of Granada. A group of romances, called frontier ballads or Moorish ballads, narrate events on the border with the Muslim kingdoms. In these romances, Muslim characters are often portrayed as sensitive and chivalrous.
- Epic or Heroic Ballads: These ballads recount episodes related to the deeds of heroes from Spanish and foreign epics (El Cid, Roland, Bernardo del Carpio, etc.).
- Novelistic Ballads: These ballads draw on legendary themes popular in European literature. They often tell stories of love, with women playing a fundamental role.
- Lyrical Ballads: These ballads focus on the expression of poetic sentiment.
Stylistic Features
In terms of style, the most salient features of ballads are their conciseness and dramatic intensity:
- Conciseness: As in traditional ballads, everything superfluous is removed to achieve the greatest concentration of expression. For this reason, many narrative ballads present only the climax scene or episode of a longer story. This characteristic is known as fragmentariness.
- Drama: Emotional intensity is achieved through the use of techniques common in traditional ballads, such as exclamatory phrases. Along with these, other resources appear to enhance the dramatic effect:
- Dialogue
- Abundance of repetitions: “Abenamar, Abenamar”, “Fontefrida, Fontefrida.”
- Action brought to life by the adverb “now” or the historical present: “We are out of Castilla”, “Amores is Rodrigo.”
- Expressions that appeal to sight and sound to bring the events vividly before the listener’s eyes: “Then spoke the good king, / you shall hear what he said.”
Language
In terms of language, romances share with lyrical poetry a simple syntax, while adopting the use of epic formulas and epithets. They often feature archaic language and a distinctive use of tenses: “What castles are those? / Altos are and shining.”
tos are and shining.”