SENSE AND ORAL TRADICIONAL PAN-HISPANIC BALLADS

Abstract

Oral traditional pan-hispanicballads (romances) are composed by multiple versions orally transmitted alongdifferent spaces and time, which made them suffer a dynamic process oftransformation. Their elliptic form characterized by rare descriptions, astrong dominance of dialogues and frequent use of formulistic expressions andmotives may be mistaken for a lack of narrative resources and lead to asuperficial interpretation of meaning. However, romances are endowed withcomplex and highly structured contents. Nevertheless, in order their sense maybe fully revealed, it is necessary that meaning procedures are identified andanalysed. Some of them are formulistic expressions and the use of motives. Theaccess to their complete narrative program is made by dividing the text intosequences, both the ones present in discourse and those which are implicitaccording to a normative and values set, having in mind that romances reproducesocial human behaviour. Besides the identification of a romance sense lines, itis necessary to consider too the creative and transformation activity of humanagents upon verbal and thematic structure, with repercussions on sense.