An Argentinian song or ballad, generally anonymous, in simple meter, sung by popular poets who wandered the pampas. These modern troubadors were called payadores, and their improvisations were generally accompanied by the guitar. Its types included vidalitas, cielitos, tristes, and milongas. They began to appear in print in the 18th c As in the Middle Ages, the p. was most often a poetic debate in the form of questions and answers, known as contrapunto, played before an audience which was both witness and judge. The famous mythical payador Santos Vega, so legend tells us, conquered the Devil in such a contest. The most celebrated p. takes place in the second part of Martín Fierro a long narrative gaucho poem by José Hernández and one of the masterpieces of Argentinian lit. This competition has highly dramatic overtones, as Martín Fierro is challenged by El Moreno, a man wishing to avenge the murder of his brother. This p. in contrapunto is not an improvisation but an integral episode of the poem (itself highly realistic) wherein the two contestants forget their rustic antecedents and sing of abstract ideas and supernatural themes.
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