1 mar 2007

The medieval Spanish anonymous lyric holds up pretty well, whether written in Spanish, Catalan, or Galician-Portuguese. The speaker of the poem is usually female, though scholars want to claim that the actual "authors" are men. The "amigo" is the figure of the lover, hence the "cantiga de amigo." There are certain archetypical situations:

The young girl doesn't want to become a nun ("niña namoradica soy.")

The woman is married, but to someone she doesn't love. ("la mal casada")

She was born with white skin, but working outside has made her "morena."

She went to the fountain or well to get water, or to the sea to bathe, and fell in love. ("ferida de amor"}

The mother speaks to her daughter, the daughter to her mother.

I don't have the scholarly knowledge of this particular field to challenge the attribution of these lyrics to an exclusively male authorship. I'm suspicious, but I can't back it up, which is frustrating.

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