La lí­rica popular-tradicional argentina: lí­mites difusos

Abstract

Argentine society can be characterized as “new” emerged from population policies both internal and external migrations. This double character determined that popular culture, especially poetry, was grounded on different and overlapped traditions. A Hispanic tradition, rooted in the Colonial period, settled in the northwest areas, precisely those with the oldest population and where the presence of romances and coplas has been documented. Parallel to this, a creole tradition with obvious Hispanic features mastered native expressions in close relationship to the various Independence movements (romancero criollo and also décimas and coplas). In the turn of the XIXth Century, a new European tradition arrived to Argentina, due to official migratory policies, that permeated the already existing traditions, with not only Spanish themes, but also Italian, French,
and Portuguese ones. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the overlap of these different cultural strata as expressed in the songs that were sung and printed in the first half of the twentieth century