La copla andaluza y los poetas

From the so-called «fin de siglo» to the thirties some of the Spanish poets relied on the folk song –and more specifically on the «cante jondo» or flamenco– to define an alleged Andalusian soul. In opposition to the cheerful, colourful and folkloric Andalusia described by poets like Reina and Rueda, there are other Modernist authors like Villaespesa, Sánchez Rodríguez, Juan Ramón Jiménez or Darío who refined the literary image of Andalusia from the distinctive notes of sadness or grief, thus initiating a thematic chain which from the twenties extended Lorca’s image of «Andalucía del llanto» under Neopopularism and the Vanguard movement. This trend continued in the next decade, when Cansinos Assens and the Caba brothers placed similar emphasis on tragic Andalusia, based on an analysis of the «cante jondo» in which metaphysical, social and historical aspects were mixed. This paper aims to examine some of the key aspects of the relation between the sadness of the Andalusian song and Spanish poetry in the first third of the 20th century.