| Commentary: |
Notes from Snow 1977rn"This classification scheme is built upon a system suggested by the cantigas and not by an external system such as thematic grouping. The author suggests an allegorical view of the roles of the Virgin (as protector, as medicine, as refuge, etc.) as a better way to deal with the variety of the Cantigas than was Valmar's system of rather arbitrary divisions. While this study is too brief to do proper justice to such a broad theme, it should send us to the author's Univ. of Murcia thesis (which I have not yet seen), which develops it at length. Model cantigas for some of the author's intriguing plan are CSM 57, 17, 13, 23, and 386. This study has the virtue of injecting truly new blood into the search for a satisfactory way to classify the CSM, and reveals more of the inner workings of the collection than classification heretofore." |
