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 Décima and Rumba: Iberian formalism in the heart of Afro-Cuban song
by Philip “Felipe” Pasmanick ©
Latin American Music Review 07-10-97 v. 4.9.7
IntroductionThe term
décima
refers to a Spanish poetic form consisting of one or more stanzas each with 10octosyllabic lines. Most décimas are composed in the style known as
espinela
, after the Spanishpoet, novelist and musician Vicente Espinel, who in 1591 published 10-line verses of octosyllabiclines with a rhyme scheme of abbaaccddc. If virtually unknown to English speakers (Manuel 1991:87), a substantial body of research and anthologies in Spanish celebrates the décima from a rangeof cultural, historical, and musical perspectives. But investigators have paid very little attention tothe phenomenon of décima within the rumba folkloric style, and there are variations of décimawithin the rumba which appear to be undocumented. This study addresses this gap in currentscholarship.The following original décima illustrates the rhyme scheme and serves to introduce our topic. AnEnglish-language companion piece appears at right. The rhyming syllables are emphasized by typestyle. Rules of Spanish syllabification account for lines that are apparently of seven (line two) ornine (lines nine and 10) syllables. Rhyme occurs according to Afro-Cuban pronunciation, which,for example, ignores the word-final “s” and the word-final and intervocalic “d” and interchangesword-final “r” and “l”.1. Hace tiempo que quisieraa
For a long time I’ve been wanting
2.una décima cant
ar
b
a fine
décima
to sing
3.en la rumba y goz
ar
b
in the rumba and to bring
4.su cadencia placenteraa
its cadence so pure and haunting
5.que proviene de la eraa
its structure, complex and daunting
6.de Calderón de la Barcac
 from Iberia's golden age
7.y que luego se embarcac
on the farm and on the stage
8.al gran mundo pan-hisp
ano
d
wherever Spanish is spoken
9.donde se hable el castell
ano
d
décima still reigns unbroken
10.la espinela es monarcac
on the tongue and on the page.
 coro:Que la vida es sueño, y los sueños sueños son.
Chorus: Life is but a dream
P. Pasmanick Décima & Rumba page 1
 
Décima’s Iberian genesisThe espinela form is a logical development of a thousand years of Spanish literary trends.Octosyllabic lines are common in proverbs and the refrains of songs and are documented in poemsrecorded as early as the sixth century (Navarro 1986: 71).
 Mozarabe
(Hispano-Muslim) poetsused them in the 11th and 12th centuries, and Iberian Jews and Muslims prized the art of intricateimprovised verse (Gerber 1992: 62-67). By the 1400s, songs of eight-syllable lines werewidespread among the troubadours of Castille. These medieval poems were often arranged in four-line
romance
style (with a rhyme pattern of abcb) or
redondillas
(abba). The décima can beunderstood as two redondillas joined by a two-line “bridge” that repeats the last rhyme of the firstredondilla and the first rhyme of the second (abba-a/a-abba).
bridge
A B B A A B B A
By the end of the 16th century the décima and the
quintilla
were popular forms in song, lyricpoetry, and the theater. The quintilla is a five-line, two-rhyme verse which can be understood as ahalf-décima; or to look at it another way, the décima can be understood as a pair of quintillas in twovariations; abbaa and aabba. When a décima is portrayed this way, it becomes a palindrome; that is,the pattern is identical read left to right or right to left. This phenomenon is known as “the décimamirror” (Paredes 1993: 247). Furthermore, a vertical line of symmetry can be draw between the twopatterns. 
A B B A A A A B B A
line of symmetrypalindromepalindrome
Part of the special appeal of the décima is precisely this curious and ambiguous set of patterns,mathematically stimulating and easily enjoyed. Its inherently rhythmic pattern of stressed syllablesand pairs of rhymes repeated unequally yet regularly is a linguistic emulation of the continuo partsof the rumba. In this way an arcane poetic or literary device becomes another rhythmic element inthe rumba gestalt.
 
P. Pasmanick Décima & Rumba page 2
 
Lope de Vega (1562-1635), Tirso de Molina (1571-1648), and Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681)(notably in his famous play
 La vida es sueño
, to which of course our introductory décima refers)used espinelas extensively. Décimas also quickly became popular among Spain’s unletteredworking classes, particularly in rural areas. The décima form, easy to put to music and blessedwith a particularly appealing and satisfying rhyme structure and
cadencia
(cadence), was quicklyappropriated by popular poets in Andalusia and the Canary Islands. As the décima’s literaryfortunes rose and fell, these campesinos maintained a vibrant tradition of décimas improvised tomusic, still celebrated today in Spain (particularly in Murcia, the Alpajarra region, and Almería), theCanaries, Latin America, and the Caribbean.Décima’s popularity in Spain enabled it to bridge languages; working people in the north-easternprovince of Catalonia wrote décimas in Catalán and in the 19th and 20th centuries recited them tosolicit gratuities at Christmas time (see Batlle 1933). The Catalán coastal town of Sitges preservesdécima to this day.Décima’s status as a literary form declined after its heyday in the
Siglo de Oro
, Spain’s “GoldenAge” of literature, the 17th century. The romantic poets (1830s-40s) such as Núñez de Arce(1834-1903) and José de Zorilla (1817-1893), and later the “generation of 1927” (Jorge Guillén[1893-1984], García Lorca [1898-1936]), revived the literary décima in Spain. Today, however, theliterary décima languishes, again ignored by Spain’s academic poets (Mendoza 1957: 9).Décima spread rapidly throughout the Americas; Latin American poets as disparate as the Mexicanpolymath Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz (1651-1695), who won a national décima improvisation contestin 1683, the Nicaraguan modernista innovator Rubén Darío (1867-1916), and the Chilean VioletaParra (1917-1967) were preeminent decimistas of their times. Anthologies reflect an unendingstream of literary poetic inspiration expressed in this classic genre (Orta 1990, Franco-Lao 1970,Bravo-Villasante 1982, Cela 1982, Feijóo 1982). Décima also entered the musical folk culture of the continent; see for example Mendoza (1957) on the Mexican
balona
tradition, Hernández (1993)on the Puerto Rican
seis
style of décima improvisation, and Aretz (1980: 213-231) for a continentalethnomusicological overview. Décima is sung today in Louisiana among Canary Islanders who
P. Pasmanick Décima & Rumba page 3
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