Una copla flamenca en el siglo XXI: ¿todavía tradicional y popular?

Abstract

The present paper examines one concrete copla to point out the characteristics of traditional poetry in current flamenco singing. Traditional poetry has long been known to be a dynamic system, in which a single poem has been modified unconsciously by numerous transmitters in oral tradition. Their varieties are due to the fact that tradition was based on memory. In current flamenco, the singers still select song texts that are defined as traditional lyric. Analyzing different versions of a specific flamenco copla, this paper reveals that slight modifications are still realized by the singers, indeed, every cantaor has his own version of the basic text. Nevertheless, actual circumstances of flamenco are extremely different to the ones of previous ages. The contemporary flamenco artists have received their lyrics of numerous different sources, so they know that there is no definitive form of a traditional text. Thus, they realize the modifications of the dynamic oral text consciously, always respecting certain rules.