1910 Reviews

Hanssen, F., La Seguidilla (Book Review)

Lang, H. R.

This publication embodies a most welcome contribution to the study of the poetic types of the Spanish Peninsula, which are still far from receiving the attention which they demand. This is especially true of the popular lyric of Spain which, as the artistic expression of an unlettered community, is of very great value for the historical and comparative treatment of poetry. Dr. Hanssen has divided his discussion of the Seguidilla into forty-five paragraphs dealing, in a sequence which is perhaps not as well adapted as one might wish to a clear exposition of the essential questions involved, with a brief bibliography of the subject, the origin of the name seguidilla, the various metrical forms affected by this type at the present as well as in former times, its geographical distribution, the popular and literary sources in which it is found (here we miss, among other references, one to the two specimens offered in the Picara Justina, i p. 1. 2, c. 4; iii p. 1. 2, c. 5, to which attention is called in Revue Hispanique, 1906, p. 93), the origin of the rhythms of popular poetry, the primitive rhythm of the folk-song of Castile, the classification of seguidillas according to the shifting of the final accent in the verses employed in them, and general observations regarding the rhythm and the origin of the Seguidillas.