Reading Song in Sentimental Romance: A Case Study of Juan de Flores's Grimalte y Gradissa

READING SONG IN SENTIMENTAL ROMANCE: A CASE STUDY OFJUAN DE FLORESS GRIMALTE YGRADISSA Louise M. Haywood University of St Andrews Lyric is present at all stages in the development of sentimental romance and in all three of the earliest sentimental romances.1 From the central nucleus of sentimental romance, Diego de San Pedro's Tractado de amores deArnalteyLucenda contains two extended poems, five letras and a canción; the continuation ofhis Cárcel deAmorby Nicolás Núñez has twenty-three letras, a canción and a villancico;whileJuan de Flores's Grimaltey Gradissa has forty-two verse compositions, including five letras. In the latest stage of the development of sentimental romance its use is also marked, as in the Question de amor or Pedro Manuel Jiménez de Urrea's Penitencia de amor. While lyric is not present in all sentimental romance (San Pedro's Cárcel de Amoris the most notable exception), Regula Rohland de Langbehn's view that it is "algo como una tendencia centrífuga de estos textos" (1999: 78) is widely accepted. Elsewhere I have argued that sentimental romance as host narrative for lyric gives us an important context from which to develop our understanding of contemporary use and reception (Haywood 1997a: 191 and 202; 1997b; 1998: 175 and 182). Sentimental romance seems to have begun in a courtly environment, circulating in manuscript. With the advent of the printing press, in the second half of the fifteenth century, the medium of dissemination of sentimental romances and romances of 1 The three earliest sentimental romances are Juan Rodriguez del Padrón's Siervo libre de amor, the Constable of Portugal, Dom Pedro's Sàtira de la felice e infelice vida, and F. d. A. C.'s Triste deleytación. La corónica 29.1 (Fall, 2000): 129-146 130Louise M. HaywoodLa corónica 29.1, 2000 chivalry shifted from script to print. As this process took place, their audiences widened and some of them began to circulate in printed versions that differ considerably from the extant manuscripts.2 An excellent case of this transformation is Juan de Flores's Grimalte y Gradissa, extant in two manuscripts (Seville, Biblioteca Colombina, MS 5/3/20, fols 90r-10T; Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS 22018; hereafter, S and M, respectively) and one early printed edition (Lérida: Enrique Botel, c. 1495; hereafter L). ML have forty-two lyrics and other verse insertions, which are ascribed to Alonso de Córdoba, possibly making this version a collaborative one.3 Manuscript 5presents a shorter text without the lyrics or the description of Fiometa's tomb and with a divergent ending (Flores 1988: xli-lxxiii) .4 Studies of manuscript S by Carmen Parrilla García (Flores 1988: xlvi-li) and Antonio Gargano (Flores 1981: 13-24) suggest it may be earlier than the other witnesses. Parrilla García (Flores 1988: lxix-xxi and lxxiii) suggests a process of revision of Grimalte, including the incorporation of the lyrics and of other material, 'acaso con el fin de llevarlo a la imprenta' (1988: lxxiii) . Joseph J. Gwara argues that Flores's Grisel underwent a similar procession of composition, authorial revision -possibly for a new audience- and preparation for the printing press "perhaps by Flores himselfbut most probably by an anonymous editor" (1988: i, 377). Parrilla García's hypothesis is corroborated by codicological evidence that suggests that .Smay be earlier: ?/was copied on paper of 1486 and 1496 (Flores 1988: xlii) in a semi-cursive book hand of the second half of the fifteenth century, while 5was copied on paper of 1483 in two late fifteenth-century cursive hands (xlvi, Flores 1981: 14-15). Manuscript S may therefore represent an earlier copying of Grimalte and, possibly, an earlier version; however, paper with a very similar watermark as that found in ,Swas used in part for L (Flores 1988: li) , possibly indicating that the paper was from the same source and that S is later.5 Parrilla García (Flores 1988) was the first to use manuscript 5"in the preparation ofa modern edition and, consequently, its evidence was not 2 On the implications of this shift in sentimental romance see Severin 2000a and 2000b...