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A décima is a ten-line stanza of poetry. The most popular form is called décima espinela after
Vicente Espinel Vicente Gómez Martínez-Espinel (; 28 December 15504 February 1624) was a Spanish writer and musician of the Siglo de Oro. He is credited with the creation of the modern poetic form of the '' décima'', composed of ten octameters, named '' es ...
(1550–1624), a Spanish writer, poet, and musician from the
Spanish Golden Age The Spanish Golden Age (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Siglo de Oro'', , "Golden Century"; 1492 – 1681) was a period of literature and the The arts, arts in Spain that coincided with the political rise of the Spanish Empire under the Catholic M ...
who used it extensively throughout his compositions. The décima deals with a wide range of subject matters, including themes that are philosophical, religious, lyrical, and political. Humorous décimas would typically satirize an individual's weakness or foolish act. A decimero would frequently challenge the target of the satire or his/her defender to respond in kind with a décima, thereby setting up a duel that tests the originality and wit of contending composers.


Styles


Latin America and Spain

The ''décima'' in all Latin America and in Spain is a style of poetry that is
octosyllabic The octosyllable or octosyllabic verse is a line of verse with eight syllables. It is equivalent to tetrameter verse in trochees in languages with a stress accent. Its first occurrence is in a 10th-century Old French saint's legend, the '' Vie d ...
and has 10 lines to the stanza. The espinela
rhyming scheme A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other. An example of the ABAB rh ...
(ABBAACCDDC) is the de facto scheme in use. It is spoken, sung and written throughout
Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...
with variations in different countries. It is often improvised. Each country has its own melody and tone ("tonada") and a different instrument, but the style and structure is exactly the same. A person who writes or improvises décima is known as a ''decimista'' or ''decimero''.


Décima Afro-Pacífica

The décima afro-pacífica is an extension of the décima espinela into four décima stanzas with an introductory four-line stanza (or copla) that often summarizes the entire work using the 10th line of each décima stanza, making a total of forty four octosyllabic lines (one quatrain plus four décima espinelas). The term "octosyllabic" may be misleading to English speakers as in Spanish the term refers to "metric syllables", meaning that the number of syllables is counted by the amount of spoken syllables the line carries. For example the line "Allá arriba en esa loma" carries ten grammatical syllables, but when spoken naturally it sounds like "A lláa rri baen e sa lo ma" which amounts to 8 spoken syllables. The variations based on the word's accents (agudas, graves, and esdrújulas) in the last word of the verse also allows for different numbers of metric syllables: * If ending in an "aguda" word like "corazón" the line should have 7 metric syllables. * If ending in a "grave" word like "loma" the line should have 8 metric syllables. * If ending in an esdrújula word like "brújula" then the line should have 9 metric syllables.


Poetry

''"Juyzio hallado y trobado"''
''"La vida es sueño"''
Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño (17 January 160025 May 1681) (, ; ) was a Spanish dramatist, poet, and writer. He is known as one of the most distinguished Spanish Baroque literature, poets and ...
wrote in décimas some stanzas of Life is a Dream.
Nicomedes Santa Cruz Nicomedes Santa Cruz Gamarra (June 4, 1925 – February 5, 1992) was a Peruvian singer, songwriter and musicologist. He was primarily a ''decimista'' (or ''decimero''), a singer of ''décimas''. He researched most forms of Afro-Peruvian music and ...
made poems about Afro-Peruvian life and culture in décimas.


Songs

Many songs are in the form of décima. For example,
Violeta Parra Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval (; 4 October 1917 – 5 February 1967) was a Chilean composer, singer-songwriter, folklorist, ethnomusicologist and visual artist. She pioneered the Nueva Canción Chilena (The Chilean New Song), a renewal and a ...
's ''Volver a los Diecisiete'' and ''21 son los Dolores''.


Folk singing manifestation

A '' payada'' is a sung duel of improvised décimas.


Ecuador

The
Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
ian décima is an
oral The word oral may refer to: Relating to the mouth * Relating to the mouth, the first portion of the alimentary canal that primarily receives food and liquid **Oral administration of medicines ** Oral examination (also known as an oral exam or ora ...
poetic form Poetry (from the Greek word '' poiesis'', "making") is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any particul ...
that exists among the black population of the
Esmeraldas Province Esmeraldas () is a northwestern coastal province of Ecuador. The capital and largest city is Esmeraldas. Esmeraldas is one of the three provinces of Ecuador that borders Colombia, and it is the most northern province in the country. The provin ...
. A décima consists of 44 lines, each of which generally has eight
syllables A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...
. A décima consists of one
stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. ...
of four lines, and four more stanzas of ten lines each. Each of the four lines of the first stanza is repeated later in the poem. Sometimes when these lines are repeated, they are slightly altered. Patterns of rhyme and meter are not governed by any particular rules.Rahier, Jean Muteba. "Creolization and African Diaspora Cultures: The Case of the Afro-Esmeraldian Decimas". In ''The Ecuador Reader'' (Carlos de la Torre & Steve Striffler, eds.), pp. 226-236. Duke University Press (2008). . During
declamation Declamation (from the Latin: ''declamatio'') is an artistic form of public speaking. It is a dramatic oration designed to express through articulation, emphasis and gesture the full sense of the text being conveyed. History In Ancient Rome, decl ...
, there is a pause between stanzas, as well as a pause between the fourth and fifth lines of each ten-line stanza. This is reflected in the structure of the poems as well: a transcription of a décima will invariably have a period or a semicolon at the end of the fourth line. Some older decimeros add an additional pause between the eighth and ninth line of each ten-line stanza. The structure of the décima suggests that it is derived from the Spanish ''
glosa Glosa is a constructed international auxiliary language based on Interglossa (a previous ''draft of an auxiliary'' published in 1943). The first Glosa dictionary was published 1978. The name of the language comes from the Greek root ''glossa'' m ...
'', which also employs eight-syllable lines and a break between the fourth and fifth lines of a ten-line Istanza. Décimas are generally
anonymous Anonymous may refer to: * Anonymity, the state of an individual's identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown ** Anonymous work, a work of art or literature that has an unnamed or unknown creator or author * Anonym ...
. Though many decimeros claim to have composed the décimas they recite, this is rarely the case. One scholar of décimas said he met only one decimero who actually composed his own décimas, and that decimeros living in different areas often claimed to have composed the same poems.


References


Sources

*Clark, Dorothy Clotelle. "espinela." ''The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.'' Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,1993.
Cuddon, J. A. ''A Dictionary of Literary Terms'' New York: Penguin, 1979. *''Coplas y décimas de la tradición lojana, 1990.'' uito: Centro de Difusión Cultural, Asociación Lojana, 991? . *Juan García. ''La poesía negrista en el Ecuador''. Esmeraldas, Ecuador: Banco Central del Ecuador, 1982. . *Juan García. ''Cuentos y decimas afro-esmeraldeñas''. Quito, Ecuador : Ediciones Abya-Yala, 1992. . *Juan García Salazar. ''Los guardianes de la tradición: compositores y decimeros : décimas y argumentos de tradición oral en las comunidades afroecuatorianas de Esmeraldas''. Esmeraldas, Ecuador: PRODEPINE, Proyecto de Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indigenas y Negros, 2002. . *Laura Hidalgo Alzamora. ''Décimas esmeraldeñas''. Quito: Libresa, 1995. . *Ana María Kleymeyer. ''La décima: fusión y desarrollo cultural en el Afropacífico''. Quito, Ecuador: Ediciones Abya-Yala, 2000. . *Jean Rahier. ''La décima : poesía oral negra del Ecuador''. Quito: Ediciones Abya Yala: Centro Cultural Afro-Ecuatoriana, 987? .


Further reading


Canto a la Décima Puertorriqueña
Audio CD by Edwin Colón Zayaz, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 2005


External links


Isleño Décimas - Encyclopedia of Louisiana
{{DEFAULTSORT:Decima Stanzaic form Latin American literature Music of Puerto Rico