Note 1014 — Chapter VII · THE EARLIEST DIFFERENTIATIONS OF POETRY

On the meaning and relations of strambotto, stornello, rispetto, ritornello, and the other terms, see Count Nigra’s Canti Popolari del Piemonte, Torino, 1888, pp. xi ff. He corrects Schuchardt’s use of ritornell for stornello. This latter is really an amœbean form of verse, has but one stanza, and this of three lines; the strambotto is one stanza, too, but has four, six, ten, or even more lines. Still, the four-line stanza, as comparison shows, is clearly the primitive form. Southern Italy is, of course, far richer in these songs than Piedmont, the home of lyrical narrative or ballad.