Читать книгу The Study of Spanish and Portuguese Literature - Friedrich Bouterwek - Страница 19

Table of Contents

In ancient Spanish poetry the strictly lyric romances do not form a different class from the narrative romances. On the contrary, these kinds are inseparably confounded. In like manner, no essential distinction between what was called a cancion (song), and a lyric romance, was established either in theory or in practice. A custom prevailed of classing, without distinction, under the general name of romance, any lyric expression of the feelings which ran on, in the popular manner, in a string of redondillas, without distinct strophes, and which, in that respect resembled the greater part of the narrative romances. When, however, the composition was divided into little strophes, or coplas, it was usually called a cancion, a term employed in nearly the same indeterminate sense as the word song in English, or lied in German, but which does not correspond with the Italian canzone. The same name, however, came afterwards to be applied to lyric pieces of greater research and more elevated character, if they were divided into strophes. Compositions in coplas must have been common in Spain about the middle of the fourteenth century; for the traces of their origin lead back to the ancient Spanish custom of accompanying such songs, in the true style of national poetry, with dances. The saraband is one of those old national dances, during the performance of which coplas were sung. Hence the Spanish proverb denoting antiquated and trivial poetry, when it is said of verses that “they are not worth as much as the coplas of the saraband,” in the same way as the romance of Calainos is quoted proverbially.67 But many lyric compositions which are preserved in the collections of the most ancient of the pieces known by the general name of romances, are probably of an older date than those in coplas which appear in the Cancioneros. They have, like the older romances, only a single rhyme, alternating with assonances and blank verses; but, independently of this proof, their old language, which corresponds so naturally with the ingenuous simplicity of their manner, is sufficient to mark their antiquity.68

The Castilian lyric poetry seems to have begun to confer reputation on those who cultivated it, in the latter half of the fourteenth century. The Marquis of Santillana, who lived in the first half of the fifteenth century, relates that his grandfather composed very good songs, and among others some, the first lines of which he quotes.69 According to the statement of the Marquis, a Spanish jew, named Rabbi Santo, celebrated as the author of maxims in verse, flourished about the same time. He also informs us, that during the reign of John I. from 1379 to 1390, Alfonso Gonzales de Castro, and some other poets, were esteemed for their lyric compositions. But all these names, so honoured in their own age, were forgotten in the commencement of the fifteenth century, when under the reign of John II. there arose a new race of poets, who outshone all their predecessors.