Corpus d'antiga poesia popular (review)

Reviews277 Josep Romeu i Figueras. Corpus d'antiga poesía popular. «£/5 Nostres Classics», Coliecció B, no. 18. Barcelona: Barcino. 2000. 421 pp. ISBN 84-7226-688-5 Josep Romeu i Figueras's contributions to our knowledge of Hispanic traditional poetry have been many and they have been consistently of major importance. Best known among them, perhaps, has been his monumental, two-volume, massively documented and meticulously edited Cancionero musical de Palacio (1965). Now he brings us yet another enormously important and eminently useful additiorr to our knowledge. The Corpus d'antiga poesía popular ( = Cap) embodies a total of437 "poesies de base popular. ... Totes elles son textos évidemment literaris, poetics, recollits al Uarg de molts aiiys de testimoniatges escrits". In other words, the inclusion of each item in the present volume implies a refined critical judgment based on the author's life-long contact with and profound knowledge oftraditional poetry, leading to the identification of"detenninats trets realment populars perqué poguéssim parlar de poesía d'aquesta mena en textos cultes i personals" (5). Similar problems have also been faced bv Margit Frenk in bringing together her Corpus de antigua linca popular hispánica (1987; now available in a greatly expanded and enriched second edition, the Nuevo Corpus, also reviewed in this issue). In working through Cap, we are inevitably led to see it as an enonnously useful Catalan companion volume to Frenk's Nuevo Corpus, which indeed also includes some Catalan materials, in addition to songs in Castilian and Galician-Portuguese. Cap embodies the following components: a most useful Introduction (540 ), in which the concept ofpoesía popular is discussed in detail, followed by a discussion of various genres included in the present collection: "temas de la poesía profana"; religious poems; traditional prayers and incantations; metrical problems and formal structures. Finally Romeu i Figueras lists an impressive number of manuscript sources and early prints he has consulted and the characteristics of his edition. In the present context, the term poesía popular is perhaps unavoidable, but for a "card-carrying and unrepentant" Pidalista, it is, perhaps, a bit troubling. Years ago Menéndez Pidal established, in a lecture given at Oxford in 1922, an important distinction, which I, for one, have always found very useful: poesía popular over against poesía tradicional (El Romancero 38-40), but none of this detracts in the least from this wonderful book. In Romeu i Figueras's collection we will find few, ifany, poems genetically connected to the Castilian xrillancicos or Galician cantigas de amigo: At least, La corónica 34.1 (Fall, 2005): 277-79 278ReviewsLa coránica 34.1, 2005 I have not been able to discover anv airtight examples. But what we do find, and in rich abundance, are numerous lopoi, which point over and over again to the need for ongoing comparative work in studying the Pan-Iberia n primitive lyric, also including, of course, the Mozarabic kharjas. as well as the Romancero (Annislead. L'Kharjas and villancicos"). I will list below a series of examples which 1 found particularly suggestive. • "Lassa, mavs m'agra valgul / que los maridada o cortés amich aguí, que can suv mongada" (no. 35). The theme of the malmonjada is shared with the Roman/ ero (Monja contra su gusto), as also with villancicos: "-Meteros quiero monja, hija mía de mi coracón. -Que no quiero vo ser monja, non'' (X/ievo Corpus, no. 211). • "Rosivolet de mon verger, e vav-ra'n. vav-ra'iil a nravmia" (41, 101 1. Bird messengers -and specifically nightingale messengers- abound, not only in the early Ivric, but in romaines and in Medieval narratives as well. Note, for instance. Marie de France's Laattic: "Si I'apelenr [Ii Bretiin] en Impars ; Ceo est russignol en franceis ; F. nihlegale en dreit engleis". .\moug the most famous of modern Catalan lvric songs is perhaps the nostalgic "Rossignol que vas á Fiança, rossignol, eucoiiiaiiam à la mare, rossignol'. • "-Anau-vos-en. la mia amor, anau-vos-én, . que la geni se va despertant e lo gai vos diu en caillant: «Anau-vos-én»" (85) is identical in theme to the Castilian: "Ya cantan los gallos, buen...