Description
| Product ID: | 9780292723450 |
| Product Form: | Paperback / softback |
| Country of Manufacture: | US |
| Title: | Ballads of the Lords of New Spain |
| Subtitle: | The Codex Romances de los Senores de la Nueva Espana |
| Authors: | Author: John Bierhorst |
| Page Count: | 253 |
| Subjects: | Art music, orchestral and formal music, Non-Western music: traditional & "classical", Mexico, c 1500 to c 1600 |
| Description: | An authoritative transcription, translation, and commentary on a sixteenth-century Nahuatl codex that is one of only two principal sources of Aztec song and a key document in the study of Aztec life in the century after conquest. Compiled in 1582, Ballads of the Lords of New Spain is one of the two principal sources of Nahuatl song, as well as a poetical window into the mindset of the Aztec people some sixty years after the conquest of Mexico. Presented as a cancionero, or anthology, in the mode of New Spain, the ballads show a reordering—but not an abandonment—of classic Aztec values. In the careful reading of John Bierhorst, the ballads reveal in no uncertain terms the pre-conquest Aztec belief in the warrior''s paradise and in the virtue of sacrifice. This volume contains an exact transcription of the thirty-six Nahuatl song texts, accompanied by authoritative English translations. Bierhorst includes all the numerals (which give interpretive clues) in the Nahuatl texts and also differentiates the text from scribal glosses. His translations are thoroughly annotated to help readers understand the imagery and allusions in the texts. The volume also includes a helpful introduction and a larger essay, "On the Translation of Aztec Poetry," that discusses many relevant historical and literary issues. In Bierhorst''s expert translation and interpretation, Ballads of the Lords of New Spain emerges as a song of resistance by a conquered people and the recollection of a glorious past. |
| Imprint Name: | University of Texas Press |
| Publisher Name: | University of Texas Press |
| Country of Publication: | GB |
| Publishing Date: | 2009-07-01 |
