Spanish Poetic Forms, Spanish Prosody Options

[Tinker]

For expediency I group Castilian, Catalan and Galician poetry under the title Spanish poetry. Technically the poetry comes from three different regions and languages of what is now known as Spain. The early history of the poetry was influenced by the traveling troubadours, the Church, the Moors and French Romanticism.

Galician in the western region of what we now know as Spain was the first Hispanic lyrical poetry and dominated Hispanic literature from the 12th century to the 14th. The Galician language and culture are closer to the Portuguese than Spanish and the language was eventually pushed to the background and Castilian became the language of Spanish literature by the 15th century. Only a few of the original Galician poems have been preserved. The lyrical poems were influenced by French Romanticism, the cantigas de amor which include the viralai’s and rondeaus, traditional French forms and saudades, poems of longing, carried a fatalistic tone. The narratives found in the cantigas de santa maria tell of Marion festivities and describe the life of the Virgin Mary in very human terms. In the 19th century there was a resurgence of Galician poetry, often political in nature.

Catalan poetry in the eastern region began as prose poetry. By the 15th century narratives in octo-syllabic couplets became popular. Eight syllable lines became a standard in both Catalan and Castilian poetic forms. By the 16th century Catalan poetry experienced a similar fate to the Galician and Castilian became the language of the east. The only poetry that remained in the Catalan language were ballads and a popular religious song.

The term Spanish poetics usually refers to poems written in the Castilian language which began in the central region of Spain. This poetry has a rich history. The earliest poems have survived in fragments recorded in Arabic or Hebrew letters, these include the Hispano-Arabic zejel. In the 13th century the clerical poets competed with the troubadours and the strict monastic form cuaderna vida became prominent, quatrains in 14 syllable lines in mono rhyme. Lyrical poetry developed in Castilian much later than in both the Galician and Catalan regions. The Castilians used the hendecasyllabic line in much of the metered verse borrowed from the Italians.

The richness of Spanish verse has spilled over to the verse forms of Central and South America which are also included here.

Spanish Prosody

My elementary understanding of Spanish prosody is still growing. Here are some basics one should know when studying Spanish verse forms.

In English, Spanish verse forms are measured by simply counting syllables. In Spanish prosody the counting of syllables is a little more complicated. In Spanish, syllable count is added or subtracted depending on where the accent lies in the end word of the line. Therefore what appears to be a 7 syllable line in English could in Spanish be counted as 6, 7 or 8 syllables depending on the placement of the accent in that last word. A verse that ends with a word with the accent on the final syllable is given the count of one extra syllable because the end accent counts as 2 syllables. An accent falling on the penultimate syllable of the last word stays true to the actual syllable count and verse with the accent on the antepenultimate or 3rd to last syllable of the last word loses a syllable.

In English prosody the term consonant rhyme means vowel sounds are disregarded and only the last consonant or penultimate and last consonants are considered. However in Spanish prosody, consonant rhyme is full rhyme, considering the last stressed or accented vowel, a following consonant and if any, a following unstressed vowel. The only other rhyme is Assonant or half rhyme in which only the last stressed or accented vowel and a following unstress vowel are considered the consonant sound between the accented vowel and unaccented vowel is disregarded. casa and casta half rhyme. (this gets even more complicated when a dipthong is involved, the weeker unstressed vowel isn't considered at all, iglesia rhymes with fuerza - the si between e and a are ignored as is the rz between the e and a )

Like the Japanese onji, this is one more example of how verse form is modified by language. A better explaination of this the syllable count can be found at Metrification

Some of the verse forms included here in chronological order (as best I could determine) of appearance are:

Soledad
Cuaderna Vida
Glosa or Glose, or Retruécano
Zéjel
Tetrasyllabic Couplets
Cantar
Copla
Copla Real
Endecha
Decima or Decuna Espinela or Espinela
Decima Italiana or Rima
Lira
Quintilla (the Spanish Cinquain)
Flamenca Seguidilla Gitana
Seguidilla
Redondilla and Seventesio
Silva
Folia
Copla de Arte Major
Cueca Chileana
Cancion or Petrarchan Cancion