THE MEXICAN CORRIDO AND IDENTITY IN REGIONAL, NATIONAL, AND INTERNATIONAL CONTEXTS

Abstract

Considerations of literary histories and their contributions to the development of identity often overlook the important role played by oral forms of literary phenomena in this important process. The rich, oral heritage of predominantly illiterate cultural regions as well as the interaction of this heritage with written forms of literary expression is overlooked in the unfolding of identity at local, regional, national and international levels. In his essay, The Storyteller, Walter Benjamin points out that for many in contemporary Western culture “the storyteller in his living immediacy is by no means a present force. He has already become something remote from us that is getting even more distant” (83). However, in Mexico and many parts of southwestern United States today, the ballad, or corrido, not only survives but also continues to flourish as an important mode of fictional and historical narration. Since its arrival as the corrido de relacion in 16 th century New Spain, this ballad’s continued vitality in America for almost five-hundred years can be attributed, in part, to the role it has played in configuring a sense of identity by telling the stories that communities have come to hold as true expressions of their character in both a metaphorical and an historical sense. This study aims to bring the oral literary tradition into consideration within the parameters of identity configuration. Although the corrido has contributed to the development of identity, its own definition as a narrative genre remains the subject of lively scholarly debate and there have been many attempts to enclose it within a neat, scientific definition. In 1997, Mexican historian and scholar, Antonio Avitia Hernandez, described the corrido as “a multi-thematic, lyrical-narrative genre that may be sung or not and is used to narrate stories both real and fictive expressing the affective or ideological perspective of the group or alliance to which the author is affiliated; its configuration conforms to popular poetic forms prevalent in the area where it is produced” (1: 23). Almost half a century earlier, Vicente T. Mendoza had defined the corrido as, an epical-lyrical-narrative genre presenting four-lined strophes of variable rhyme scheme, with either assonant or consonant even verses; a literary form supporting a musical phrase that is usually composed of four parts and telling of events that have a strong impact on a people’s sensitivity; its epic dimension derives from the Spanish romance and it normally maintains the romance’s general form and conserves its character of narrating war and battle exploits,