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.

What if we defined lyric poetry as truly "lyric," that is, meant for singing along with some kind of string instrument? Then who are the great lyric poets? Campion, Lorca? Petrarch still called his collection of poetry a canzionere. Most poetry is meant to be spoken or read on the page. Dramatic monologues are not "lyric" poems. Lyrics usually lack psychological depth of the modern sort.

We shouldn't talk about the speaker of the poem if it is a lyric. There is the implicit lyric subject, the person singing the song, who is not an author figure, really. Scholars now think that the "canción de amigo" of medieval Spain, whether written in Galician or Castilian, is authored by male poets. The lyric subject, of the poem, however, is female.

These poems are wonderfully fresh, as though they'd been written yesterday. Except that nobody wrote anything this fresh yesterday. They remind me of Lorca, because Lorca obviously knew and imitated these poems

Si la noche hace escura,
y tan corto es el camino,
¿cómo no venís, amigo?

If night is dark, the road short, why don't you come, friend? The "amigo" means "lover" in this particular lyric tradition. That's the word that's used almost always. Darkness is a friend to furtive lovers, I suppose.


What's the difference between the idea of a singer-as-songwriter, and the idea of "cover," in which the singer becomes the song but is not seen as necessarily author of those words? Somehow I prefer the latter.

What happens when a song meant for a woman, like "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered," is sung by a man?