Medieval Iberian Lyric Poetry and Folk Traditions

Traditional Cultured and Folk Lyric Poetry

Traditional learned lyric: This form of poetry was developed in Catalonia, the Kingdom of Galicia, and Andalusia.

Cultured Catalan Lyric

The Cultured Catalan Lyric arose in Provence during the twelfth century. Troubadour poetry moved to Catalonia in the following century. This was a troubadour poetry of lyric character, written by known authors and expressed in a homogeneous language. It was cultivated by troubadours, and their compositions for song were released by minstrels. The troubadours created a fine art subject to rigid laws.

Genres of Catalan Lyric

• Canso: A love composition that reflects feudal ideology and the relations between lord and vassal through the feudal language used.
• Sirventes: A composition used as an expression of anger, repression, or personal attack, often due to political conflicts among the nobility.

The Concept of Courtly Love

Courtly love was the art of courtesy in love and was understood as a service to the lady, who was considered a superior being.

Galician-Portuguese Cultured Lyric

This tradition features the songs of love cultivated in the western peninsula between the 12th and 14th centuries. They are the heirs of the Provençal style. The poetic persona is a man addressing a lady. In these love songs, the joy of loving often becomes weary sadness and torment. The environment is typically palatial. It presents a varied and artificial metric with complex strophic divisions.

The Galician-Portuguese cultured lyric also included songs of ridicule, composed of songs of scorn and songs of cursing.

Religious Songbook

It consists of the Cantigas de Santa Maria, the work of King Alfonso X "The Wise." The verses vary between two and 24 syllables, including the Alexandrine verse.

Primitive Popular Lyric

The primary manifestations are the Andalusian Jarchas, the Galician-Portuguese Cantigas de Amigo, and the Castilian Villancicos.

Jarchas

These are the verses that closed the moaxajas. They were composed in Arabic, Hebrew, or vulgar Romandalusi. Jarchas typically consist of four lines, often eight-syllable or hexasyllabic. The sender, a young lover, tells of her suffering to her mother, sisters, or friends within an urban environment. Jarchas are characterized by simplicity and a limited use of expressive resources. A characteristic feature is the mention of the beloved using the noun Habib.

Cantigas de Amigo

In the Cantigas de Amigo, the issuer is a girl in love expressing her feelings to her mother, sisters, or friends. These feelings include sorrow for the death or absence of her love, anxiety, sadness, or joy at his return. Nature becomes very important in these works. They present a popular language and specific vocabulary. The usual shape is a monorhyme stanza, followed by a monorhyme chorus with a different rhyme. The main stylistic device used is parallelism.