{{italic title}} [[File:Portadaromancero.jpg|thumb|Cover of the book ''Libro de los cincuenta romances'' (c. 1525), first known collection of ''romances''.]] The '''''romance''''' (the term is [[Spanish language|Spanish]], and is pronounced accordingly: {{IPA|es|roˈmanθe}}) is a [[meter (poetry)|metrical]] form used in Spanish poetry.<ref name=Laurer>A. Robert Lauer, [http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/A-Robert.R.Lauer-1/METRIFICATION.html Spanish Metrification] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100620031251/http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/A-Robert.R.Lauer-1/METRIFICATION.html |date=2010-06-20 }}, University of Oklahoma. Accessed online 2010-02-10.</ref> It consists of an indefinite series (''tirada'') of verses, in which the even-numbered lines have a near-rhyme ([[assonance]]) and the odd lines are unrhymed.<ref name=Laurer /><ref name="Rodríguez-Fischer">Ana Rodríguez-Fischer, ''Prosa española de vanguardia'', Volume 249 of Clásicos Castalia, Editorial Castalia, 1999. {{ISBN|84-7039-834-2}}. p. 92''n''. [https://books.google.com/books?id=TEzi8RAGUxYC&dq Available] on [[Google Books]].</ref> The lines are [[octosyllabic]] (eight syllables to a line);<ref name=Laurer /><ref name=DRAE>[http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltObtenerHtml?LEMA=romance&SUPIND=0&CAREXT=10000&NEDIC=No Romance], Diccionario de la Lengua Española, Vigésima segunda edición, Real Academia Española. Accessed online 2010-02-10.</ref> a similar but far less common form is [[hexasyllabic]] (six syllables to a line) and is known in [[Spanish language|Spanish]] as '''''romancillo''''' (a diminutive of ''romance'');<ref name=Laurer /> that, or any other form of less than eight syllables may also be referred to as '''''romance corto''''' ("short romance").<ref name=DRAE/><ref>Rodríguez-Fischer p. 92''n'' gives ''romance corto'' and ''romancillo'' as synonyms for one another.</ref> A similar form in [[alexandrine]]s (12 syllables) also exists, but was traditionally used in Spanish only for learned poetry (''mester de clerecía'').<ref name=Laurer />
Poems in the ''romance'' form may be as few as ten verses long, and may extend to over 1,000 verses. They may constitute either [[Epic poetry|epic]]s or erudite ''romances juglarescos'' (from the Spanish word whose modern meaning is "[[juggler]]"; compare the [[French language|French]] ''jongleur'', which can also refer to a [[minstrel]] as well as a juggler). The epic forms trace back to the ''[[cantar de gesta|cantares de gesta]]'' (the Spanish equivalent of the French ''[[chanson de geste|chansons de geste]]'') and the [[lyric poetry|lyric]] forms to the [[Occitan language|Provençal]] ''[[pastorela]]''.
In the [[Spanish Golden Age]], however, which is when the term came into wide use, ''romance'' was not understood to be a metrical form, but a type of narration, that could be written in various metrical forms. The first published collection of ''romances'', [[Martín Nucio]]'s ''Cancionero de romances'' (about 1547), was, according to Nucio's prologue, published not as poetry, but as a collection of historical source materials. Despite a considerable amount of poetic theory and history published during that period, there is no reference to ''romance'' as a term of meter prior to the nineteenth century. It did not mean an 8-syllable meter.<ref>Daniel Eisenberg, “The Romance as Seen by Cervantes”, ''El Crotalón. Anuario de Filología Española'', tomo 1 (1984), pp. 177-192, https://web.archive.org/web/20150702023853/http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/deisenbe/cervantes/romance.pdf, retrieved August 4, 2015.</ref>
==Notes== {{reflist}}
[[Category:Spanish poetry]]