El romancero viejo is a collection of Spanish romances from the 13th to 16th centuries (maybe some fall outside of this time period, but they are not modern). These poems were originally transmitted orally and accompanied by music, but written records of them have been collected, studied and published in various forms and editions throughout the years. I enjoyed them because they provided a different perspective on an era of Spanish literature that I love. They seemed like a much more direct representation of the language and stories of the epoch than most of the plays that I've read, which often seem very refined and polished (except perhaps La Celestina). My edition provided background information on each romance, including the historical and literary sources, and also later works that were inspired by the romance. Reading these was like receiving another series of pieces in the giant puzzle of Spanish literature.

I enjoyed the sequence that my edition follows in dividing the romances: rather than chronologically, the romances are grouped thematically. First, there are romances set on the frontiers of Spain's conflict with the Moors and epic romances about actual kings, queens and heroes of a historical nature. The characters in these romances have been traced to actual people in Spain's past, and again, in each case the real people who are referenced are explained in footnotes. I thought these were cool because they provide a very interesting documentary perspective on specific moments in history. Most of the romances are no more than a page or two in length, corresponding to roughly ten to one hundred lines. In fifteen minutes, I could read seven or eight specific tellings of heroic acts, betrayals, victories, sieges and defeats. The romances really brought the past to life, and they were a lot of fun to read.

Next came romances about el Cid, Bernardo del Carpio and other heroes whose real-life exploits have been represented in literature to the point where they are almos mythological figures. Again, I liked the emphasis on specific moments: Rodrigo at the siege of Zamora, his conflicts with the King, and other moments that I hazily recalled from reading el Cid last year, but which were brought back into focus in these poems. Again, I enjoyed seeing another perspective on the events in the lives of famous heroes that I'd previously read about in a more extended form.

Next were a series of romances about the knights of the round table. These are also very cool. Lots of famous characters, such as Lanzarote, Reinaldo de Montalbán and Don Gaiferos, along with repeated motives and stories that interweave with the books that I love, such as the case in the romance that begins:

Nunca fuera caballero--de damas tan bien servido
como fuera Lanzarote--cuando de Bretaña vino,

Lines which are cited in Don Quijote when he first arrives to the venta after leaving his home. Finally, the book ends with a series of novelistic romances that tell stories of romantic conflicts and other more everyday tales of human interaction.

I really enjoyed the language, the episodic nature, and the constant rhymed, octosyllabic structure of the romances. Also, in many cases the stories were much more graphic than I might have expected. In one romance, a king´s mistress is wrongfully slain, so he brings the murderer to the grave of the mistress, digs her up, puts the knife in her hand and has her kill her murderer. Then he marries her dead body so that her kids are taken care of and receive part of the wealth of the crown. That's pretty raw.

It'll be nice to have the Romancero Viejo around as a resource as I read other old Spanish books, and I think I'll pull it back out from time to time when I'm reminded of the historical figures and characters whose stories are told in its pages. The amount of research and documentation that went in to the preservation of these romances is also very interesting, and I appreciate the fact that they have been preserved and printed in collections such as this one. ( )