The Soneto con Estrambote in Spain's Golden Age
In his "Consejos de don Diego" Mendoza vacillates between two burlesque forms: the capitolo and the tailed sonnet. The latter, known in Spanish as the soneto con estrambote, was inextricably linked to burlesque verse in late-sixteenth- to early-seventeenth-century Spain. Although not all classical Spanish tailed sonnets were burlesque, a considerable proportion of them were. Erasmo Buceta has studied the soneto con estrambote in Spanish literature in a series of four articles.[21] Although he insists that comicality is neither a characteristic nor even an important factor of the soneto con estrambote, his own classification of the sonnets he lists would seem to negate his contention. Of the four series of tailed sonnets Buceta mentions, 17 percent, 29 percent, 57 percent, and 43 percent of the poems, respectively, are designated by him as burlesque. Nor are these lists complete. Many sonnets are overlooked, including all of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza's except one, Baltasar del Alcázar's, and even Cervantes's "En el soberbio trono diamantino" from Don Quixote I . The elevated percentages of burlesque poems among his tailed sonnets would indicate that comicality is, contrary to what Buceta contends, a very important characteristic of the soneto con estrambote .[22] This is additionally supported by the fact that during a burlesque academy (poetic competition) held in Madrid's Buen
Retiro in 1637, a prize was offered for the best "soneto con estrambote o sin él, si al que miente siempre le pueden acusar de que ha mentido [tailed or nontailed sonnet expressing whether a liar may always be accused of having lied]."[23] The fact that this asumpto called for a tailed sonnet within the confines of a specifically burlesque poetic competition clearly reveals the link between this poetic form and the burlesque. In another such certamen, three of the eight sonnets composing the vejamen —a notably burlesque part of the competition—were also tailed.[24]
Juan de la Cueva indicates this contemporary link between the burlesque and the tailed sonnet in his 1606 Ejemplar poético . In Epistle III he says first regarding ocatava rima and then the sonnet:
No guarda ley en acabar forzosa,
cuando quiere, y del modo que le agrada,
puede con facultad licenciosa.
Esta licencia no será otorgada
al soneto, que es lícito y no puede
alterar de su cuenta limitada.
Y cuando en esto alguna vez ecede,
y aumenta versos, es en el burlesco,
que en otros, ni aun burlando se concede.
Esto usó con donaire truhanesco
el Bernia, y por su ejemplo ha sido usado
este épodo, o cola, que aborrezco.
Sólo en aquel sujeto es otorgado,
mas en soneto grave, o amoroso,
por sacrílego insulto es detestado.[25]
[It observes no rule in forced endings,
it can end when and how it wishes
with free authority.
This license is not granted to the sonnet,
which is licit and cannot alter
its limited number of verses.
It may only exceed this number and increase
its verses in the burlesque; in other sonnets
this is not allowed, not even in jokes.
Berni used it with buffoonish grace,
and this epode or tail, which I abhor,
has been used following his example.
Only in such a subject is it allowed,
but in a serious or love sonnet
it is detested as a sacrilegious insult.]
Once again the influence of Berni on the Spanish burlesque sonnet is acknowledged. Although Cueva does not use the term "estrambote, " "cola" obviously means the same thing. The very fact that he bothers to censure its usage is an indication of its popularity. And in spite of his condemnation, Cueva himself composed at least one soneto con estrambote . His "Un mal de madre a Venus le dio un día" is an extremely vulgar account of how Venus is cured one day of menstrual cramps.[26] Notwithstanding Cueva's comments, the tailed sonnet was, in fact, often used for serious verse, as can be seen from Buceta's lists.[27]
In the Golden Age, the soneto con estrambote was variously called "con hopalandas," "de conterilla," "de coletilla," and "con cola."[28] Nevertheless, estrambote was by far the most widely accepted term, and the one that survives today in Spanish to indicate the three-verse addition (estrambotes of more than one stanza were extremely rare after Mendoza) of one heptasyllable plus a rhyming hendecasyllabic couplet. However, the term had an additional meaning in the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century.
In two early articles, H. R. Lang has investigated the meaning of the etymologically similar terms estribote and estrambote, as used in Spanish poetry.[29] Lang reports that estribote appears in the 1454 Cancionero de Baena to indicate a certain lyric addition to compositions of varied subject. It was meant to serve as a musical sequence or conclusion to another song. He concludes that the estribote, as transmitted in the courtly verse of the Cancionero de Baena, is "a type of folk-song which rose into the realm of literature simultaneously with its Italian congener, the strambotto " in the fifteenth century.[30]
The term estrambote or estrimbote appears in the thirteenth century with the general meaning of song. Later, in the sixteenth century, Barbieri notes in his edition of the Cancionero Musical de los siglos XV and XVI that the sixteenth-century estrambotes were identical to the Spanish villancico and canción, and to the Italian frottola .[31] Thus one meaning of estrambote in Golden
Age Spain was a type of song or lyric composition on varied subject matter.[32] However, at this time it was also used in our modern acceptation of "versos o copla añadida al fin de alguna composición poética especialmente en los sonetos, para mayor expresión, lucimiento y gracejo [verses or strophe added to the end of a poetic composition, especially sonnets, for greater expression, display, and wit]."[33] Although Lang does not make the connection between "estribote" and "estrambote," it seems likely that given the etymological proximity of the terms, this meaning of addition to a poetic composition is a development of the term estribote as used in the, Cancionero de Baena . What had been a detached conclusion to another song—the estribote —became an incorporated conclusion or extension to a poem—estrambote .
The most graphic application of this second meaning of estrambote is Salvador Jacinto Polo de Medina's cruel epigram directed against the playwright Ruiz de Alarcón, so often the butt of similar jokes:
Dicen que estás afrentado
los que la giba te ven,
y algunos, Fabio, lo creen
porque siempre estás cargado.
Yo digo que eres pipote
con alma, y aun hombre en brete,
que en la espalda traes juanete
o cual soneto, estrambote.[34]
[Those who have seen your hump
say that you are offended,
and some believe it, Fabio,
because you are always burdened.
I say that you are a wine keg with a soul,
and even a man in shackles,
for on your back you carry a buttress
or, like a sonnet, an estrambote .]
Thus the term estrambote has a double meaning in Spain's classical literature: (1) an autonomous lyric composition and (2) a stanza irregularly added to another poem, especially the sonnet, that very often indicated burlesque or satirical content.
This second meaning is, of course, the only one that concerns this study.