aaBBB: The Strophic Form of Fernan Rodriguez de Calheiros 7

Abstract

The refrain of a cantiga d’amigo by Fernan Rodriguez Calheiros (B 632/V 233), heretofore misunderstood as consisting of five verses, should be taken as a 3-verse refrain with two internal rhymes in the middle verse, conforming to the strophic form aaBBB. This analysis is confirmed by two virtuoso features: the middle verse of the BBB refrain scans longer than the outer ones but corresponds to the verses of the distich; and the text constitutes an example of a BBB refrain where the third verse repeats the first.

Keywords

• Galician-Portuguese lyric
• antigas d’amigo
• textual criticism
• strophic form
• historical poetics