Plant and Animal Names in the Flamenco Poetry

Abstract

The song is capable of telling a lot about the spiritual life, traditions, feelings, aspirations of the people; it presents to the listener (or to the reader if it is a written text) the facts and events that left their mark on the social conscience of a certain country at a given stage of its historical evolution. Flamenco songs, belonging to the culture of dance and song cultivated in southern Spain with their variable content, often contain description of landscapes, names of plants and animals. Flamenco culture is precious and original, but despite its popularity beyond Spain, the texts of its verses published in numerous collections in Spanish have not yet attracted due attention of Russian researchers. Except for some verses translated into Russian at the beginning of the 20th century by Konstantín Balmont, our compatriots don´t know these poems. So it is essential and timely to focus on poetic texts in order to understand the role and functions of zoonyms and phytonyms in the creation of the linguistic picture of the world that is reflected in the verses. To achieve this objective, we applied the methods of cultural analysis, descriptive, comparative and solid sampling methods and also synchronic and diachronic approaches to the study. As an analytical basis for our investigation, we use Manuel Balmaseda’s verses from the book Primer cancionero de coplas flamencas populares según el estilo de Andalucía and popular songs compiled by Antonio Machado y Álvarez Cantes flamencos recogidos y anotados por Antonio Machado y Álvarez (Demófilo). The research allows us to draw the following conclusions: the metaphorical value of phytonyms endows the verses with an allegorical meaning, which allows us to discover several narrative layers in the same text. Certain species of plants are loaded with centuries-old symbolism, especially in the field of love. Zoonyms are not numerous and are often part of proverbs and set phrases. In some cases, the relationship with events described in the hagiographic compositions has been detected.