Romancero tradicional argentino (review)

Reviews Gloria. B. Chicote. Romancero tradicional argentino. Papers of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar. 25. London: Qiteen Mary, University of London, Department, of Hispanic Studies, 2002. 149 pp. ISBN 0-904188-67-1 Among the most urgent problems attendant upon the study of PanHispanic traditional ballads in Sjianish America is the woeful lack ofregional text-tyjie indices that would make possible far-ranging comparative studies with other branches of the Iberian tradition, as well as with Pan-European balladry. Costa Fontes's recent and richly doaimented tyjie-index of the Portuguese and Brazilian Romanceiro (RPI) otters a model for future work. Tending toward a similar goal for Spanish America, Merle E. Simmons took an imjiortant preliminary step in his massive Bibliography (1963), which took in the entire geographic scojie of Spanish America -a grand total of 2 1 08 entries- but specifically in regard to romances, his briefcritical comments, in most cases, failed to identify which narrative text-types were included in the jiublications in question, leading, as I can aver from personal experience, to very considerable and quite arduous archival work. More recently a series of regional Romanceros have apjieared, which have notably facilitated our task: for Colombia, Bender (1977); for Costa Rica, Cruz Sáenz (1986); for México, Díaz Roig & A. González (1986); and two important Cuban collections, informed by different criteria, Mariscal (1996) and Trapero & Esquenazi Pérez (2002). Of crucial importance, of course, is Diaz Roig's Romancero tradicional de América (1990), which strives to present the Romancero's comjilete American jianorama. In the context of important achievements such as these, Gloria Chicote's book now takes an invaluable step forward by offering us a text-type index, with exhaustive bibliographical data for the Argentinian tradition and a thorough analysis of each narrative, its variations and its contaminations. The hill apjiaratus jirovided for each narrative includes: 1. Título, with crossreferences to mv CMP, to CGR, and to Diaz Roig (1990); 2. Versiones seleccionadas; 3. Resumen de la intriga; 4. Documentación; 5. Dispersión geográfica; 6. Incipits; 7. Otros tínilos; 8. Contaminaciones; and 9. Notas y comentarios. La corónica 34.1 (Fall, 2005): 259-63 260Rev/exesLa colònica 34.1, 2005 After reviewing the most important collections and studies of the Argentinian Romancero, Gloria Chicote provides, in her introduction, a chronological "nómina de las obras consultadas": a total of nineteen publications. Her type-index includes thirty-five narratives. ,Among the rarest and most interesing are 2. Conde Amalaos (though the two known versions are clearly based on written sources); 3. La bastarda (in Hispano-Anierica, uniquely documented in Argentina); 4. La bella en misa (well adapted to an .Argentinian cultural context, nine versions have been documented so far; 1 know of no other texts from Sjianish America): 9. Conde Claros y la princesa (another ballad luipca, as far as Spanish America is concerned; desjiite the cteolizcicion of Mova's unique text. 1 cannot but believe that it is ultimately based on print); 10. La condesita (notablv rare in Sjianish .America); 14. Fray Diego (otherwise almost exclusively documented in Sejihardic Morocco); 20. La Gallarda (clearly of immediate Peninsular origin, but unique in Sjianish America, as far as 1 know); 21. Geriueldo (jirobablv based directly on Menéndez Pidal's Flor nueva); 31. La mujer del gobernador ( a unique seventeenth-century congener of the well-known Moroccan Sejihardic ballad, Raquel lastimosa): 33. El prisionero (another great rarity in Sjianish .America). As in most other branches of the Sjianish .Vmerican Romancero, the thirty-five .Vrgentinian lext-tvjies contrast, as notably limited, in comparison to Old World traditions: e.g.. 298 text-tvjies in my CMP and 296 in Costa Fontes's RPI (though, in both cases, niaiiv strojihic and other nun-romance narrative songs are included in these statistics). We should hear in mind, all the same, that, in Sjianish America, the romance must compete with other enormously jiopular forms oftraditional jioetn (corridos, décimas, for examjile), which do not represent a similar threat in the European and Judeo-Sjianish traditions. Notable too is the strong tendency, in .Argentina, as elsewhere in Sjianish America and in Spain, for the traditional...