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Introduction to the Source

The poem is copied in Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, VITR/17/7, fol. 153r-154r. This manuscript is a copy of the poetry collection known as the Cancionero de Estúñiga, ca. 1465. It has been digitized: http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000051837. It contains a compilation of mostly Castilian poems, including ballads, as well as a few Italian compositions. Their authors attended the King of Aragon, Alfonso the Magnanimous, in Naples in the mid-fifteenth century.

Introduction to the Text

This poem is a serranilla, an evolution of the Provençal pastorela. Written in short verse (arte menor), serranillas narrate a courtly poet’s encounter with a mountain woman. This is one of six compositions in the genre by fifteenth-century author Carvajal (or Carvajales). Very little is known about Carvajal’s life. His poetry is linked to the Neapolitan court of Alfonso the Magnanimous in Naples (r. 1442-1458) and to that of Alfonso’s son Ferrante (r. 1459-1494). In addition to his famous serranillas, Carvajal is also known for his literary epistles and ballads.

In this poem, the poet subverts some of the genre’s conventions by meeting not a rustic woman but a beautiful and courteous noble lady in a context in which he would have normally met a serrana. The two of them strike up a conversation as they walk together. The end of the composition reveals that the encounter was a dream vision.

Further Reading

Carvajal. Poesie, edited by Emma Scoles. Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1967.

• Critical edition of Carvajal’s poetry.

Gerli, E. Michael. “The Libro in the Cancioneros.” Reading, Performing, and Imagining the ‘Libro del Arcipreste’. U of North Carolina P, 2016. esp. pp. 194-203.

• Reassessment of Caravajal’s serranas in view of their intertextual relationship with the Libro de buen amor.

Marino, Nancy F. La serranilla española: notes para su historia e interpretación. Scripta Humanistica, 1987.

• Study of the serranilla genre, with attention to Carvajal’s poems in chapter 5.

Credits

Transcription By Paulina Ochoa Figueroa, Translation by Paulina Ochoa Figueroa, Introduction by Albert Lloret, Encoded in TEI P5 XML by Danny Smith