A refrain-based Spanish and Portuguese fixed form built from an opening estribillo (refrain) and alternating stanzas (coplas) that return to it, originally a popular song form before becoming a literary and, later, devotional Christmas-carol form across the Iberian and Latin American worlds.
Facts
Place of OriginIberian Peninsula, late medieval period, later spreading through Latin America. 1 StructureAn opening refrain (estribillo), followed by one or more stanzas (coplas) that close by returning to the refrain, in varying line lengths. 1 Notable ExampleSor Juana Ines de la Cruz's villancicos composed for church feast days in colonial Mexico. 1 Connections
Associated With
The villancico flourished as a devotional and festive song-poem form during the Spanish Baroque period.
Form Of Genre
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Sources
1. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Princeton University Press
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