The Songs of Holy Mary by Alfonso X, the Wise: A Translation of the Cantigas de Santa Maria
Few truly masterly works in literature, music, and graphic arts have been as sadly neglected as the thirteenth-century Cantigas de Santa Maria of King Alfonso X, "el Sabio" (1221–1284). This collection of 420 poems and songs was written not in Castilian but in Galician-Portuguese, an important spoken and literary language in the Middle Ages that is little understood today. Kulp-Hill's text is the first English translation of this important work. In the poems, a colorful panorama of medieval life unfolds, reflecting a vast array of historical, cultural, linguistic, folklorist, and aesthetic interests and information. The Cantigas contribute to the well-established medieval verse genre relating miraculous events attributed to Mary. This book should be of interest to a broad audience.
Reprinted August 2012.
Reviews
"The value of this translation is incalculable to various areas of researchers-comparatists, linguists, folklorists, historians of literature, students of narrative techniques, motif indexes, and other areas of investigation."
—The Bulletin of the Cantigueiros
