Acceso usuarios
The authoress stresses the importance for the history of Basque lexis and language of the "Biscayan Song" (EK) of the Licenciado Alzola in praise of Don Domingo de Eguia, a song unknown until its recent rediscovery; she emphasises particularly its importance for the historical study of pliegos de cordel, a subject to be covered in a forthcoming monographic work.
She starts by giving information concerning the find (by J. Zubikarai) and about previous publications of the EK (J.Z. and A. Arejita), and then goes on to deal with the fragmentary state of the song, the structure of the pliego, and its date. After this, she prints the text of the EK, previously only available in non-philological editions or in non-specialised periodical with small circulations. She goes on to list the extant sources (Castilian pliegos, narrative works and books) dealing with the siege of Fuenterrabia by the French in 1638, and continues by describing in detail those sources to which she has had access or which have had most importance for late commentaries on the EK. She highlights the diversity of sources, criteria, interests and aims appreciable in the analyses of the subject made by different authors (Moret, Palafox y Mendoza, O'Reilly and several others).
The last and longest section of the essay is made up of detailed and extensive notes on Alzola's text, in which the authoress attempts to explain and place in their correct context (with the help of the cited sources) the events related in the EK, along with its allusions and references; she also tries to gauge the levels of historicity and poetic invention present in the verses. In addition, there are lexical notes on forms of special interest or difficulty, and previous readings are discussed while others are proposed. The authoress also attempts to reconstruct some of the partially preserved verses of the text of the EK.
