Hunting for Rare Romances in the Canary Islands

Abstract

"What is a Rare Romance? Diego Catalán published in 1959 an article with this same title (1959a:445-77), dedicated to the Portuguese ballad tradition, in which he brought out the importance of that tradition for the knowledge of certain romances which because of their rarity were overlooked or lived in fragmented form in the oral life of other Hispanic traditions. Four romances were studied there, four very powerful examples of how an oral text, a single version, can be the key to the correct interpretation of several romances which tradition has not preserved very well. Here we should like to call attention to the Canarian tradition as one of the most extraordinary in its preservation of romances that are extremely rare in modern oral tradition."--Opening paragraph.