Medieval and Epic Poetic Forms Defined

Serranillos: Medieval Poetic Encounters

A minor medieval poetic composition, typically featuring an encounter in the mountains and a dialogue, generally a love exchange between a knight and an idealized peasant woman. (Also known as Serranilla)

Jarcha: Mozarabic Love Poems

Mozarabic jarchas are short, popular amatory poems. Generally, the speaker is a young woman recounting her love experiences to her family. Salient features include: an abundance of exclamations, questions, and repetitions; the use of a simple lexicon with many endearing terms; and construction in versos de arte mayor (lines of more than eight syllables).

Cantiga de Amigo: Galician-Portuguese Lyric

A lyrical composition originating from traditional poetry, written by educated authors, primarily in Galician-Portuguese during the Medieval period. There are four main types: cantigas de amigo (love songs from a female perspective), cantigas de amor (love songs from a male perspective), cantigas de escárnio (songs of ridicule), and cantigas de maldizer (songs of cursing). The primary subject is love, expressed in a simpler language than jarchas, often employing the stylistic device of parallelism.

Maya: Songs of Spring and Love

Songs extolling the triumph of Spring and love, typically sung in the month of May.

Alba: Morning Songs of Anticipation

Songs sung by a woman in the morning, awaiting the arrival of her beloved. These poems often feature the woman calling her beloved 'friend' (a common motif also found in ballads and jarchas), demonstrating a widespread tradition across the Iberian Peninsula.

Epic Poetry: Heroic Narratives and Features

The epic recounts legendary or historical events of great importance to an entire people. It typically centers on a hero with superhuman capabilities, often possessing immense strength, who persistently fights against adversity. Epic poems are deeply mindful of societal values and frequently introduce supernatural forces that shape the action. Detailed descriptions of battles are common. An omniscient narrator, who seems to be everywhere and know everything, is a characteristic feature. Key features of epic poetry include:

• Epic epithets
• Specific verb tenses
• Archaic language
• Formulas appealing directly to the audience
• Shifting narrative points of view
• A mixture of narration, dialogue, and monologue
• Archaic paragogic '-e' used in cantares de gesta (songs of heroic deeds). This '-e' was added to the end of assonant, final verses to regularize the rhyme, stemming from a musical tradition that required sharp words to be transformed into flats. Sometimes, even in published romances, both procedures were mixed within a single poem, with some assonant '-e' endings and others without.