Sex and Symbol in Andalusian Comic Poetry

Abstract

This paper presents a series of comic coplas written for public performance during carnival in agrotown in Seville Province, Andalusia. The songs date from the 1940s to the 1990s. Their production is a male prerogative: composed by male «maestros», they are sung by male troubadours. This is a specifically Andalusian genre of social burlesque that takes woman as its subject: wives, lovers, mothers-in-law. The lyrics use erotic imagery, genital tropes, and obscene allegories to covey the prevailing masculine ideology concerning sexuality, male-female politics, and domestic relations. The paper concludes with a brief interpretation of the style and symbolism of the Andalusian carnivalesque, borrowing from the critic Bakhtin's concept of «grotesque realism».