Note (return) — INTRODUCTION

I. (1) The romance is the most characteristic and national of all Spanish meters. The proper romance consists of 8-syllable lines with assonance in alternate lines43 (cf. pp. 1-8, 42, etc.). The structure of the romance line has already been treated (p. lxi). In the old romances there was no division into stanzas, but poets from the end of the sixteenth century on regularly employ a pause after every fourth line, thereby creating a series of quatrains (pp. 42, 60, etc.), except in the drama (p. 19).