“Por palavras cubertas”. The game of aequivocatio in Alfonso X's songs of derision and cursing

Abstract

B’s Fragmentary Poetics attempts to establish a distinction between the songs of derision and those of cursing, the relevance of which the songbooks’ own textual praxis is in charge of refuting. The secular poetic corpus of Alfonso X is inserted in this normative framework. However, the analysis of the Alphonsi satirical poetic texts from the normative perspective of the Art of Trovar allows a more enriching approach. The political record, and in particular in the cycle of the defection of the knights in the war of Granada, seems to be able to be framed in the genre mal dizer in a specific way. As regards the record of escarnho, there is also a specific concretization in some cantigas. But where there is no doubt is in those cantigas that resort to the game of aequivocatio. Here the palavras cubertas and the possible dous entendimentos of the text force a decoding that clarifies the meaning.