Joseph [Guiseppe] Baretti, A Journey from London to Genoa

Baretti writes that the art of poetic improvisation is not exclusive to the Tuscans, though the improvisation of the Tuscans is supposedly better than that of the Spaniards. He suggests that Spanish authors do not write of Spanish poetic improvisation because it is too common to be noted. Baretti goes on to suggest that the Greeks and Romans improvised poetry as well.

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Author:
Baretti, Joseph [Guiseppe]
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Language:
English
Publication Title:
A Journey from London to Genoa, through England, Portugal, Spain, and France
Article Title:
 
Page Numbers:
2:187-92; 3:217-19
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Place of Publication:
London
Date Published:
1770

Text:

[187] Mean while I am sure of this, that this faculty of singing extempore does not belong exclusively (as I always thought) to the Italians, or, to speak with more correctness, to the Tuscans. Perhaps the extempore poetry of the Tuscans is better upon the whole than that of the Spaniards, because the rules of criticism are more generally spread, as far as I could observe, through Tuscany than through any part of Estremadura, and frighten a smaller number of people there than in our country: But these are conjectures, grounded as yet upon slight information, which I must endeavour to enlarge. Mean while it seems, that the Spaniards never employ in their singing that sort of stanza which we call ottava, though they have it as well as ourselves, and though they make use of it, as we [188] do, in compositions of the epic kind. We employ it in our extempore compositions oftener than any other metre, but the Spaniards only make use in theirs of short lyrick measures, chiefly strings of Seguedillas, each consisting of four short lines, sometimes all four of equal measure, sometimes the second and fourth shorter than the first and third, sometimes the contrary. To such stanzas of four lines they will sometimes tag an Estrevillo, which is a kind of second part consisting of only three lines. But all this, I suppose, depends on the tunes to which they chuse to sing; and of such tunes I have already taken notice that they have several. Here you have the Seguedilla followed by the Estrevillo.

 

SEGUEDILLA.

Porque todes me dicen
Que eres muy fino
Yo por esso he pensado
Que seas mio.

[189] ESTREVILLO.

Que quiero sea
El que a mi me llevare
Como jalea.

This was one of the many Seguedillas sung by Teresuela at Elvas. While singing she stole a pretty smile upon a young fellow, to whom, as I was told, she was soon to be married, and he bowed to her for it. The words, the smile, and the bow gave me the first hint of the Spanish extempore singing, and a few more of that girl’s lines put it in my mind to turn my attention towards the ascertaining of this Spanish characteristick, which I think is now nearly effected.

In a language however, so versatile as the Spanish, so easily thrown into measure, and used by people who will not stick close to regular rhymes, it cannot be very difficult to form such compositions as those quoted above. But the [190] greater the facility, the less must likewise be the delight to a delicate ear; and it is sure, that, if instead of taking great liberties with their measures as they do, and using rimas and assonancias just as it happens, they would subject themselves (like the Tuscans) to exact forms of stanzas and exact rhymes; it is evident, I say, that the pleasure of seeing several great difficulties give way at once before a warm and rapid imagination, would be little short of ecstasy to him who is sensible to the charms of poetry. This would be an approach towards the perfection of the art of improvvisare, which would prove the most delightful of all arts, was it ever carried to perfection: but this, I am afraid, will never be done either by Spaniards or Italians. The man among those I have heard, who carried this power furthest, was one Giovanni Sibiliato in Venice. Though but a mean tradesman, he was a man of very great parts, and a close and constant [191] reader of our best poets. It is not impossible but that many in Spain subject themselves to strict rhymes and regular metres, as the Tuscans generally do; but I fear it will not be in my power to stay so long in this kingdom as to decide with tolerable justness which of the two nations deserves the preference upon this subject.

Be the Spanish Improvvisatori better or worse than ours, don't you think it strange that no traveller ever mentioned them? That no native ever did, I am pretty certain, as I never found any thing approaching towards such an information in the considerable number of Spanish books that I have looked into when I was young. Yet I am not surprized at the general silence of Spanish authors upon this head. Little do people think of writing to the world what they suppose generally known: and if extempore singing is quite familiar, as you will begin to believe, to the generality of the [192] Spaniards, no wonder if they all think, that all nations can do in their respective languages what their countrymen can do in their own, the lowest individuals not excepted, and of course omit to give the world such an information.

But that no stranger travelling amongst them should ever have taken notice of a practice so very uncommon in other countries, and likewise so easily to be noted throughout this, is what appears to me still more surprising than the practice itself.

[217] [on Baretti's experiences in Tortuera, Aragon] I own, brothers, that I am not a little proud when I think I am probably the first traveller who took notice of this peculiarity of extempore-singing in these regions. Whether the Greeks and Romans sung thus, or not, I have not erudition enough to ascertain. But there is a passage in Homer, and one in Virgil, that lead us to think their respective countrymen were not perfect strangers to this custom. Homer introduces the poet Phemias to sing extempore at the table of Penelope's suitors; and though the verses sung by Phemias are composed by Homer, yet Homer would not (I think) have produced an extempore-singer in the Odyssey, if the custom of unpremeditated singing had not been practised in Greece. Then Virgil gives us the dialogue of two shepherds: Arcades ambo, / Et cantare pares, & respondere parati; [218] and their being both ready to answer, indicates, or seems to indicate, that the practice of singing extempore was not unknown to the ancient Romans.

Whether we can infer from these two passages, that the Romans and Greeks were addicted to this pleasing exercise of the mental powers, I dare not take upon me to decide; but it is sure, that neither the French nor the English (the two most polished nations of the age) have this practice; and I do not recollect any account of any other people, ancient or modern, that had it. Yet it cannot be presumed that the Spanish and Italian are the two only nations endowed with imaginations sufficiently fiery, as to possess this gift exclusively of all other nations. There are, possibly, many more that do, or have done the same; but which they are, or were, we know not; or, to speak more properly, I know not. I only know that I read the article through in Casiris's Catalogue of the [219] Arabic Poets; but could find neither trace nor hint that the Arabs had this practice, though the Arabs seem to have been as poetical a breed as ever existed.

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