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denunciation and resolUlion. In recounting the difficulties and injustice of the protagonists'
plight, tragic songs, local and traditional, recent and old, pay homage to true lovers,
shipwreck victims, their rescuers and God himself, yet not without a hinl of protest againsl
cruel parents, prOiesl in the name of widows and orphans, or warning against fatality_ Also
in sea songs, antithetical resolutions are found in tenns of lucky rescue or loss of life.
without vinual change either in structure or meaning. Love triumphs, here below or
beyond Ihe grave, and whatever the trials endured, He, who rules the waves, hns all in
hand. Local tragic song shares cerrain "ideas" with imponed ballad:
IMPORTED
innocent lovers
young
ploning pmentslfalse lover
courageous opposition
prefer death for love to life
violent death (murder, suicide)
reunion in life/death
mourning of parents
warning
TRAGIC BALLAD
LOCAL
unsuspecting men
in their prime
treacherous elements/fate
courageous fight
accept death on the job
sudden death (accident)
rescue/rest
mourning of families
warning
This sketchy comparison between imported and local, "fictive" and "non·fictive" songs,
reveals their equally "traditional" or conventional character. Like the protagonists of tragic
ballads, the victims of local wreck songs are wrenched from life in their prime in an
unyielding effon against stronger and treacherous opponents. Both die for a calise greater
than life, survival, one set as prospective husbands and wives, the other as breadwinners to
their families. Their deaths take emblematic or sacrificial value, yet the mesS