This essay offers a synthetic presentation of the foundations for a critical edition of the Romanceiro by the Portuguese Romantic writer Almeida Garrett. This work will be based on textual criticism, a view which will be followed to carry out this edition, which will be related with the nature of Garrett’s materials which we now possess, after the updating of their recensio. We shall put into question the nature of the materials under scrutiny, connecting them with the characteristics of Garrett’s “romances” of traditional origin, related to a substantial part of the “romances” which the poet owned and re-elaborated in accordance with the then current Romantic taste. Therefore, the application of a methodology of textual criticism to the edition of these texts will acquire very specific outlines which will be here discussed. If on the one hand one should offer a reliable edition of the texts, following what can be assumed as the latest wish of the poet and the purposes of his Romanceiro as an opus, one can just as well - through ecdotical procedures which will be here outlined – propose for each theme, an archetype of the traditional version which the poet would have come across and from whose lines he would have constructed each text which he would edit and transfigure, some more, others less (according to his personal taste). To illustrate this method, we shall give the example of the Garrettian “romance” Gaifeiros.

Nuevas perspectivas para un viejo problema: la edición crítica del romancero de fuente tradicional