La Ballade espagnole (document en espagnol)

The Spanish ballad is a literary form that appeared in the 14th and 15th centuries, when people asked for a new form of entertainment. Initially, it was defined as being a “short narrative song preserved and transmitted orally among illiterate or semi-literate people”1. Also called the “romance” or “romancero”, the Spanish ballad was unique in its genre and really popular in the culture of the country. It can be considered as the descendant of the epic poetry, but with its distinct characteristics as the use of repetitions, dialogue and its eight-syllable lines. However, it took a long time to consider it as part of the Spanish literary heritage, as it was first of all an oral piece of work.

Throughout the centuries, the Spanish ballad underwent a lot of changes in the form, but also in the themes that were covered. Indeed, depending on the period studied, we can find different forms of the Romancero - historical, novelesque, frontier and Carolingian ballads – which deal with mainly three important issues : historical, emotional and intellectual. We can therefore wonder if the Spanish ballads were more effective in dealing with one of those issues. To answer this question, we will first analyse how the Spanish ballads deal with historical issues, by showing the interest in epics and medieval stories at the beginnings of the ballad. Then, we will focus on the emotional issues, showing how the authors used to deal with feelings mainly during the Romantic period. Last but not least, we will see the importance of intellectual issues, with the presence of philosophical and abstract ideas in the Spanish ballads of the 20th century.

To begin with, we can find many ballads that deal with historical issues, such as the historical ballads, or the frontier and Carolingian ballads. Indeed, the historical ballads are a direct adaptation of the epic poems, and deal with legendary heroes and subjects such as the conquest of Spain of 711, with the Muslims and King Roderick. In the same vein, the frontier and the Carolingian ballads deal with other historical issues like the Moorish Rebellion of 1492 in Grenade, or the world of Charlemagne. As we can see, all those ballads take their sources from the real History, with characters and places that have existed, and events that have occurred. This is a way to save the memory of the History and past, which are part of the heritage of the country.

To illustrate this point, we can use one of the numerous ballads of the time. Lope de Vega (1562-1635) was a famous playwright of the Golden Age, well known for his historical ballads and plays, as the one dealing with King Roderick (Smith, 2002 : 5), in which we can clearly notice the lexical field of the war and battle (“octava batalla” (line 3), “enemigos” (line 4), “caballo” (line 9), “muerto” (line 15), “sed y hambre” (line 15), “sangre” (lines 17 and 37), “armas” (line 19)…). This ballad tells the conquest of Spain by the Muslims in 711, through the point of view of King Roderick, who has been surprised by this invasion as he was not prepared : “Ayer era rey de España, hoy no lo soy de una villa”. This is an example of an historical ballad, showing the historical and religious issues of the time.

However, even if the historical issue was one of the first aims of these Spanish ballads, as they were a direct descendant of the epic poems, the Romanceros were also dealing with other issues such as the emotional one, which had an important role in the 16th century and the Romantic period.

Indeed, throughout the centuries, the ballads have changed in content, as they were influenced by new authors. They started to be filled with more emotions, generating a mood and creating an atmosphere. This change can be explained by the historical changes of the period, characterised by the period of Renaissance, with in 1492 the discovery of the world and the conquest of Grenade. There was a huge economic and political boom, but also social changes, in education for example, with the need to move away from the old medieval system. By the end of the 15th century, there was a much larger reading public. This had an effect on the ballad which started to sound more lyrical. The ballad in the Golden Age was called the “Romance Artificioso”, which meant that it was made with artifices, and was more sophisticated.

As a good example, we can use the ballad telling the feelings of the King of the Moors (Smith, 2002: 70), hurt by the loss of his town. Even if the context is very historical, as we are situated at the heart of the Moorish rebellion of 1492, here the historical issue is used only as a background, and the author insists on the lyrical sense of the ballad. Contrary to

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