VOL. 2 (2023)
ISSN 2952-2013 pp. 21-38
https://doi.org/10.33776/linguodidactica.v2.7732
Literary
topoi
in today’s music as a bridge
to the classics Spanish authors
Los tópicos literarios en la música actual como puente hacia
los autores clásicos españoles
Cristóbal Hornilllos, Rubén
Universidad de Zaragoza
Villanueva Roa, Juan de Dios
Universidad de Granada
Resumen:
Este artículo presenta una revisión de tópicos literarios
en la música actual que proceden de autores clásicos
españoles y que, por tanto, pueden explotarse didácti-
camente con el objetivo de acercar a los alumnos a la
literatura. Las canciones que escuchan los jóvenes son
un “potente enganche” con la tradición literaria ya que
permiten identificar estos motivos recurrentes y conec-
tarlos con obras literarias clásicas. Desde un punto de
vista teórico, empezamos adentrándonos en los vínculos
entre la literatura y la música, continuamos abordando el
concepto de tópico literario, y concluimos conectando
algunas canciones actuales con obras literarias clásicas
a través de algunos tópicos literarios. Estos planteamien-
tos se sometieron a una investigación-acción previa en el
aula que se inició en el marco de una tesis doctoral y que
se aplicó en un centro de secundaria de Varsovia (Polo-
nia) principalmente durante el curso 2013/2014. Poste-
riormente fue adaptado para su uso interactivo dentro
de un proyecto de innovación de la Universidad de Za-
ragoza en el curso 2017/18 y finalmente aplicado en un
proyecto de innovación del Gobierno de Aragón con
alumnos de 3º de la ESO del IES Ramón Pignatelli (Espa-
ña) durante el curso 2018/19. Para terminar, analizamos
los resultados de las aplicaciones prácticas, que mostra-
ron un aumento tanto de la motivación del alumnado
como de la comprensión de los contenidos literarios.
Palabras claves:
canciones; educación literaria; investigación-acción edu-
cativa, motivación; tópicos literarios
Fecha de aceptación: 08 de septiembre de 2023
Abstract:
This article presents a review of literary topoi in current
music that come from classical Spanish authors and
that, therefore, can be exploited didactically with the
aim of bringing students closer to literature. The songs
that young people listen to are a “powerful hook” with
the literary tradition since they allow them to identify
these recurring motifs and connect them with classic li-
terary works. From a theoretical point of view, we begin
by delving into the links between literature and music,
we by addressing the concept of literary topoi, and we
conclude by connecting some current songs with classic
literary works through some topics or catchwords. These
approaches were subjected to classroom action research
that was initiated in the framework of a doctoral disser-
tation and implemented in a Warsaw secondary school
in Poland mainly during the 2013/2014 academic year. It
was subsequently adapted for interactive use within an
innovation project of the University of Zaragoza in the
2017/18 academic year and finally applied in an innova-
tion project of the Government of Aragon with 3rd ESO
students of the IES Ramón Pignatelli (Spain) during the
2018/19 academic year. Finally, we analyzed the results
of the practical applications, which showed an increase
in both student motivation and understanding of literary
content.
Keywords:
educational action research; literary topoi; literary educa-
tion; motivation; songs
Fecha de recepción: 05 de julio de 2023
Literary in today’s music as a bridge to the
classics Spanish authors
Los tópicos literarios en la música actual como
puente hacia los autores clásicos españoles
Cristóbal Hornilllos, Rubén
Universidad de Zaragoza
Villanueva Roa, Juan de Dios
Universidad de Granada
Contacto:
rcristob@unizar.es
jvillanueva@ugr.es
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1. Introduction This article makes a historical review of the repetition and adaptation of the most well-known literary
topoi in Western culture such as tempus fugit, ubi sunt, vanitas vanitatis, contemptu mundi, carpe
diem, collige virgo rosas, donna angelicata, descriptio puellae, beatus ille, secretum iter and amor
post morten in the songs and music videos of recent years. This review is developed with a more
pedagogical than philological sense, specifically to make young people aware of the presence of
these topics or catchwords in much of the music they listen to and to connect them with the literary
tradition from which they come.
Therefore, we first identified these recurring motifs in some current songs and then we proposed
their connection with classic literary works. Thus, these catchwords allowed us to connect rap sin-
gers, such as Nach; pop music singers, such as Macaco, Dani Martín or Enrique Iglesias, and reg-
gaeton singers, such as Wisin and Ozuna; with works by classical authors from the Middle Ages to
the Baroque period, such as Jorge Manrique, Garcilaso de la Vega, Fray Luis de León, San Juan de
la Cruz, Góngora and Quevedo. In this way we intend to take advantage of the songs that young
people listen to as a “powerful hook” with the literary tradition.
The research was initially developed within the framework of a doctoral thesis (Cristóbal, 2017) de-
veloped at the José Martín high school in Warsaw (Poland) during the academic year 2013/2014
mainly. It was subsequently adapted for interactive use within an innovation project of the University
of Zaragoza in the 2017/18 academic year (extract in Annex A), which is available openly (ocw.unizar.
es). Finally, it was applied in an innovation project of the Government of Aragon with students of the
IES Ramón Pignatelli (Spain) during the 2018/19 academic year.
In this article we are going to carry out a particularly theoretical approach, in which we will begin with
an approach to the links between literature and music and we will continue connecting some current
songs with classic works through literary topics, to conclude with the presentation and analysis of an
interdisciplinary didactic application.
An interdisciplinary didactic application consists of linking contents from different disciplines based
on the contiguity of the relationships they maintain (Mendoza, 2006). In the case of this proposal,
the objective is to introduce literary texts through the literary topoi and intertextuality that they share
with the songs to verify if this didactic approach favors the motivation, understanding and learning
of the students.
Before focusing on the use of literary topoi present in current music as a cognitive and emotional bri-
dge between students and literary works, we will identify as a theoretical framework the link between
current music and classical literature, as well as the potential it offers in the classroom. Songs are, to
a large extent, made of literature. They are literary compositions and, as such, they are composed of
literary elements: rhyme and meter, or semantic, grammatical and phonic rhetorical resources; and
of course, topics; all of them elements of the so-called literary or poetic language. Likewise, songs
are also intertextual nodes and are part of the chain of cultural transmission between previous and
subsequent texts.
2. Theoretical Framework
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Songs have a fundamental advantage for literary education: they are meaningful works for the stu-
dent both from a cognitive and emotional point of view. This has been shown by authors such as
Zamora (2000), Gómez (2009), Vicente-Yagüe (2013) and Lleida (2019), among others. On the other
hand, modern music, such as pop, rock, rap, hip-hop, reggaeton, etc., has a great influence among
young people, despite which it has hardly any place in official educational curricula, obviating in any
case the analysis of its lyrics despite its literary nature.
In spite of the coincidences between literature and music, it is also evident the separation of both
in the sociocultural context, especially in the academic environment, which makes it difficult for the
student to identify the literary contents of these songs and to take advantage of the knowledge that
each one provides. This situation causes a disconnection between what the student knows and what
we want him to learn, something that according to Ausubel (2002) results in a lack of psychological
meaning of the new information for the student, which is not only a barrier to achieve meaningful
learning, but also a focus of disinterest for him.
Therefore, we make a proposal in which the literary topoi present in the songs work as previous
organizers that rescue and put in value the knowledge that the student already has, that is, that
knowledge that is already present in his cognitive structure, linking them later in the literary texts of
the curriculum through a series of concrete connections.
This didactic proposal also assumes some approaches of critical meaningful learning to encourage
students to build their own learning outside dichotomies and absolute truths of traditional teaching,
thus stimulating their critical thinking. To this end, we have selected topics related to close and
current issues from the chosen songs (social inequality, importance of the image, abuse, etc.) for
students to reflect and discuss in an open way, contributing their opinions and points of view, while
identifying and interpreting the topics, but also other motifs or resources that appeared in these
works.
As Moreira (2005) proposes, students are thus encouraged to be part of their culture in a critical way
without being subjugated by it and to work with uncertainty, relativity, non- causality, probability and
the non-dichotomization of differences, favoring the idea that knowledge is a construction or perso-
nal invention of a world that we do not even grasp directly.
Consumer songs, i.e. musical hits, are also part of the cultural tradition and, as such, also have their
own discursive intertext, sometimes to integrate it and sometimes to reject or overcome it: “The pop-
rock consumer song, in a significant sort of pendulum effect, is innocently attracted to conventional
schemes at the same time that it exceeds them [own translation]”, says Vicente (2010, p.19). And the
same happens with other genres such as rap, hip-hop, heavy, reggaeton, blues, folk or flamenco, to
cite a few examples.
Verdión (2010) asks rhetorically whether are modern popular songs literature, even in their most
countercultural side (paragraph 7). As an example, he cites, along with Dylan himself, other An-
glo-Saxon authors, such as Leonard Cohen, of whom he points out that he abandoned his writing
2.1. The literariness of today’s music
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career to earn money with music; Jim Morrison and his group The Doors, named after a proverb of
the English poet William Blake; and other singers such as John Lennon, Patti Smith and Lou Reed. As
expected, he himself answers the question in the affirmative:
A literary text is one that is written in an artistic way and has some features that make it a deeply
aesthetic material, some peculiar and distinctive intrinsic features that elevate it to the category
of written art, of literature. So we are talking about what gives a text a literary character, the phe-
nomenon of literariness and its various components: commonplaces, clichés, stylistic resources,
intertextuality, self-reference, poetic function, rhyme, versification, multi-meaning capacity, estran-
gement, deviation... In In conclusion, some essential traits of literariness that we can also find in
modern popular song and that we propose to demonstrate by analyzing them very condensed in
this limited, although sufficient, work. (paragraph 10) [own translation]
But Verdión (2010) also claims literary features in a list of Spanish groups and singers such as
Joaquín Sabina, Joan Manuel Serrat, Víctor Jara, Amaral, Extremoduro, Héroes del Silencio, Manu
Chao, Mártires del compás, El último de la fila, Los secretos, Duncan Dhu or Barricada. A list to
which we could add many other singer-songwriters, with a declared literary intention or who have
combined both disciplines in their artistic career, such as Javier Krahe, Luis Eduardo Aute, Santia-
go Auserón, Silvio Rodríguez or Fito Páez, to name but a few.
Verdión (2010) rescues, for example, themes and literary topics of which -he assures- “the mo-
dern popular song is realized giving them a more current sense, greater gifts of contemporaneity
[own translation]” (paragraph 11); and rhetorical figures, which are exhaustively reproduced in the
songs, as he demonstrates with several examples.
This author also devotes another section to the intertext, understood as a common place of uni-
versal literature to which poets and singers turn to create their works; and another to self- refe-
rence, such as the self-allusions to the rhythmic and lyrical sense of their texts, evidently literary
and the consciousness of writers with art that many of the lyricists of our time have, to the point of
considering music as a subsidiary matter of their poetry. At the end of this review of the literariness
of current songs, Verdión (2010) invites us to ask ourselves rhetorically why are they still relegated
to the periphery of philological studies and furthermore are they set aside from culture with capital
letters”.
While a book is silently dying on some forgotten shelf in the library that not everyone understands,
the previously recorded song continues to play from each mp3 player, resurrects live, accompa-
nies us inside the consumer establishment, channels one’s own feelings or, even more, supports
pieces of universal literature so that they do not perish with the dusty, cornered books, and flow
lively in the ear of those who ignore or are afraid to read. Because songs, let’s admit it, should be
treated at least like our present literature, always melodic literature, one of the few literary formats,
perhaps, that will resist in the future. (paragraph 24) [own translation]
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The didactic exploitation of songs, especially musical adaptations of literary texts, is increasingly
recurrent in literature classes and textbooks, and some even focus directly on them, especially in the
field of foreign language teaching, as is the case with the work of Millares (2010) called Al son de los
poetas. Lengua y literatura a través de la música, which collects twelve poems set to music by 20th
century poets such as José Hierro, León Felipe, Federico García Lorca, Miguel Hernández and Pablo
Neruda.
Other interdisciplinary projects such as that of Chacón and Molina (2004) propose strategies for
musicalizing literary texts. The work is based on texts by Rafael Alberti, Federico García Lorca, Juan
Ramón Jiménez, Gloria Fuertes, José de Espronceda, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, to work on different
musical systems, from tonality to pentatonic, modal and other more contemporary variants.
However, in literature classes we find far fewer examples of didactic exploitation of current songs.
Gómez (2009) attributes this lack of didactic proposals based on current songs to the scant aca-
demic interest that these compositions have aroused in Spain not only from a literary or aesthetic
point of view, but also from a sociological one. In this sense, he points out that the first example of a
sociological study of pop music in Spanish is the article by Puig (2002), which focuses on the suppo-
sed banality of pop music and its consideration as a consumer subculture. This is very different from
what happens in the Anglo-Saxon world, where Hodge (1999) devotes a chapter to the song as a
new literary genre and analyzes its discourse on an equal footing with that of other traditional literary
genres such as narrative, poetry and theater. The awarding of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature to
Bob Dylan “for having created a new poetic expression within the great American tradition of song,”
beyond the controversy over its acceptance or the debate between those who have applauded and
criticized this decision, confirms this.
Gómez vindicates the literary character of pop-rock songs and their connection with medieval and
Golden Age poems for pedagogical purposes. To do so, he starts from a previous work (Gómez Ca-
puz, 2004), focused on rhetorical devices and the relationship with specific periods and styles, and
extends it to other literary aspects such as intertextuality, literary genres, metrics and literary topics.
Gómez (2009) thus proposes the introduction of pop-rock songs in the secondary school classroom
with the aim that students identify literary topics in these songs, but also poetic genres, metrics, rhe-
torical resources or preceding literary models, i.e., their intertext. The work includes lyrics by groups
that triumphed in Spain in the last decades of the 20th century, such as Radio Futura, Barón Rojo,
Siniestro total, Gabinete Caligari, Hombres G, Mecano, Joan Manuel Serrat, Duncan Dhu, Cómplices,
Joaquín Sabina; but also at the beginning of the 21st century, such as Alejandro Sanz, Violadores
del verso, Amaral, La oreja de Van Gogh or Álex Ubago with the purpose -in the author’s words- of
demonstrating that some pop and rock music lyrics “they can have a certain literary quality and can
be used in teaching practice as examples to illustrate the various aspects of the poetic function. [own
translation]” (Gómez, 2009, paragraph 4).
For this purpose, the work identifies, almost as an inventory, the intertextual relationships between
some songs of these groups and the literary contents present in the curriculum of the last years of
ESO, following this order: lyrical subgenres, literary topics, metrics, semantic resources and imitatio,
the latter referring to the more direct and voluntary intertext to which we have alluded before.
2.2. The didactic exploitation of songs
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Other proposals are those of Vicente (2003 and 2010), the first of which reviews the influences of Re-
naissance poets and literary topics on pop songs, and the second vindicates the didactic potential of
this musical genre. “The song, as a genre of fiction and cultural object of mass consumption not yet
canonized, deserves a semiotic analysis that helps to reflect on its didactic possibilities. [own trans-
lation]” (2010, p. 16). In this last work, the author identifies some key elements of poetic language in
songs. On the one hand, metaphor, as a model of semantic resource and poetic language; and on
the other, metrics and rhythm, in this case as a model of the form of that language. Vicente (2010)
gives as an example the Estopa song Tu calorro, composed by David Muñoz, in which he detects
intertexts from the romanceros and poems by Garcilaso, Quevedo or Góngora, but also from prose
works, such as La Celestina by Fernando de Rojas.
Thanks to this linkage, the author proposes to start from “ reading intertext of our high school stu-
dents, common contemplators of the scraps of artistic works that we usually offer them to improve
their literary competence [own translation]” (p. 22). The songs of consumption, he concludes, allow
students to enjoy their intertext and the literary contents they possess, as well as serving as a link
with the works of more literary recognition: “ the central and auratic canon plus the profane and the
suburb [own translation]” (2010, p. 22).
One of the most interesting works in this line is that of Zamora (2000), who takes up the path
opened by authors such as Bakhtin and Kristeva and vindicates the dialogical condition of literary
texts, because of their “literary reminiscences, topics, quotes and a whole series of words and
expressions [own translation] “ (p. 22), but also because of the poetic and musical aesthetics they
contain as a reflection of the period, poetic and musical current of the cultural community to which
they belong.
The importance of the role that the song plays in the field of current culture, not only because it
is a manifestation that acts in our lives, but also because through these songs literary patterns are
transmitted, hummed and memorized by an audience, in times far removed from the world of
literature. (Zamora, p. 303). [own translation]
This work reveals the intertextual flow coming from the literary tradition that flows into today’s music,
such as the themes and topics: courtly love (amor cortés), carpe diem, locus amoenus and neoplato-
nism -many of which come from classical times and are consolidated in the Middle Ages and the Re-
naissance-; or the characterization of the prototypical characters, both male and female. As Zamora
(2000) points out: “The cultural torrent is present in the song texts and the sung word is supported
by distant subtexts, which gain renewed strength in the words of pop, rock and singer-songwriter
songs. [own translation] “, (p. 161).
In addition, the work analyzes the filiation of song with respect to music and poetry and gives as an
example the constant presence of the “sung word” in the history of literature since ancient Greece,
where “musical rhythm was closely related to poetic language [own translation] (p. 231). Something
that, as we have insisted before, also happens in Spanish literature:
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Giving literary treatment to a musical theme is nothing new, because during our Middle Ages,
troubadours, troubadours and minstrels created an art in which music and poetry were twinned,
and some of them fully realized their musical talent, with an equally superior gift for poetry (p.
232). [own translation]
Equally interesting is the inventory of literary traits that Zamora (2000) identifies in pop, rock and
singer-songwriter songs, beginning with verse and rhyme, and continuing with the organization of
verse and rhetorical figures, with special interest in tropes such as metaphor and personification.
Finally, the work exemplifies this dialogue in pairs of modern songs by Joaquín Sabina, Radio Futura
and Siniestro Total, and literary works by classic authors such as Miguel de Cervantes, Luis de Gón-
gora or Quevedo.
A literary topos is, as stated in the Dictionary of the Spanish Language, “ a commonplace that ancient
rhetoric turned into formulas or fixed clichés and admitted into formal or conceptual schemes that
writers frequently used [own translation]”. Therefore, clichés have been in a constant loop throu-
ghout history and nothing else could be expected today, jumping from painting, sculpture and,
above all, literature - specifically from writing, which was the traditional medium of reproduction,
storage and reception in the case of literature - to the various analog and digital media that have
been incorporated.
In order to analyze the recurrence of some classical literary topics in the music of recent years, we
first chose some songs and musical groups among the musical preferences expressed by the stu-
dents and traced the main literary topics present in these works. Thus, the catchwords collected
were tempus fugit, ubi sunt, vanitas vanitatis, contemptu mundi, carpe diem, collige virgo rosas, don-
na angelicata, descriptio puellae, beatus ille, secretum iter and amor post morten. Below we analyze
in a more concrete way the appearance of these literary topics in these songs, relating them to other
classical works commonly used in the subject of Spanish Language and Literature.
Let’s review some of these connections between songs and classical texts throughout the 15 units
that make up the didactic proposal of education through songs:
The song Busco una mujer (I’m looking for a wife), by Carlos Ponce, served to introduce El libro de
buen amor (The book of good love), by Juan Ruiz, Arcipreste de Hita, through the topoi of the canon
of beauty and the objectification of women, which are present both in current music and in tradi-
tional literature. The didactic proposal approaches these motifs from a critical perspective, placing
each work in its temporal and social context, but also observing other catchwords shared by both
texts, such as the descriptio puellae.
The literary topics related to death allowed us to connect Nach to Jorge Manrique. The rapper Nach
brings us in Mi propio cielo (My own heaven) a current perspective on the theory of the three lives
presented in the renowned work Coplas a la muerte de su padre (Songs on the death of his father).
The earthly life, the life of fame and eternal life acquire a new meaning from a pagan conception.
2.3. Literary topoi as a bridge between
songs and literature
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This allowed us to review catchwords such as tempus fugit, ubi sunt, vanitas vanitatis or contemptu
mundi, which characterize the medieval work.
The music video of the song Puerto presente (Present port), by Macaco and Fito, introduces us to the
passage of time, which has so concerned human beings, in an intertextual and multidisciplinary way,
since there are aesthetic references to the painting of Dalí, before entering the well-known Sonnet
XXIII by Garcilaso. We rescue from the song the catchwords carpe diem and collige virgo rosas, as an
invitation not to forget that we live in the present (extract in Annex A).
Nihilism and the search for oneself are the main theme of the song Nada (Nothing), by Canto del
Loco, and Oda a la vida retirada (Ode to retired life), by Fray Luis de León. Both works propose this
inner search as an alternative to the intense noise generated by society that prevents us from rea-
lizing the value of all the things around us. A feeling that persists over the centuries. In this way we
facilitate the understanding of resources and the updating of literary topics that seem so far away as
beatus ille, vanitas vanitatis, secretum iter or vivere secum.
The carnal love is present in the theme of Escápate conmigo (Get away with me), by Wisin and Ozu-
na, allowed us to ask the student to analyze in a critical way the reggaeton genre, one of the most
followed nowadays by young people but also one of the most questioned; linking it with the erotic
sense that already had the mystical poetry. In this way we review love topics, the sexual attraction,
the amorous escape or the secret; which also appear in a symbolic way in Noche oscura del alma
(Spanish poem called Dark night of the soul).
The topic of love post mortem, that is, love as an uncontrollable force that reaches beyond death,
links the song Nunca te olvidaré (I will never forget you), by Enrique Iglesias, with the classic sonnet
Más allá de la muerte (Beyond death), by Francisco de Quevedo. This idea of love as a universal the-
me that shows multiple faces, which is a central idea of both baroque conceptualism and pop music,
allows us to analyze comparatively other literary topics related to love, such as religio amoris, ignis
amoris or furor amors.
The blues Azul sabina, performed by Juanes and Joaquín Sabina, presents a series of original ima-
ges, most of them related to the passage of time and the description of beauty, which allow us to
approach the sonnet Mientras por competir con tu belleza (While competing with your beauty) from
a modern approach. In this way, we saw the adaptation of literary topics such as tempus fugit, carpe
diem or descriptio puellae, connecting them with classic authors such as Luis de Góngora and his
famous sonnet.
The song Dame tu amor (Give me your love) by Alejandro Sanz describes the contradictions of love
and the positive and negative symptoms it provokes in a way that surprisingly coincides with the
description of love by Lope de Vega in his Sonnet CXXVI. From the hand of both authors, we update
other literary topics related to love, such as amor mixtus or signum amoris.
The feminist song Ella (She), by Bebe, helped us to analyze the evolution of gender roles from the
present time to the present day, as well as other related issues such as abuse, discrimination, honor
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and rebellion present in Fuenteovejuna to analyze with historical perspective the role of Laurencia
in the work of Lope de Vega.
During the 2013/14 academic year, it took place a mixed study (Cristóbal, 2017) that combined
quantitative and qualitative techniques for data collection (Creswell, 2009; Hernández et al., 2010).
It followed a model of pretest-posttest nonequivalent-groups design, a quasi-experiment was per-
formed with 27 polish students from the José Martí Lyceum of Warsaw (Poland), aged between 17
and 18 years. Other qualitative tests, such as checklists, anecdotal records, rating questionnaires,
and open questions were developed in parallel. This quasi-experiment allowed us to compare the
impact of the alternative didactic proposal on students’ literary competence and motivation with
that of a conventional didactic proposal.
Triangulation of all the collected results revealed that the song-based didactic proposal improved
the students’ literary competence and motivation towards Spanish literature. Students in the ex-
perimental group improved their mean literary results 15.4% more than did students in the con-
trol group, while their demotivation was reduced by 16.7%, and their intrinsic motivation increased
21.5% more than that of the control group, revealing a relationship between the follow-up of the
didactic proposal and the results in literary competence and motivation.
Furthermore, it was subsequently adapted for interactive use in a Spanish context within an inno-
vation project of the University of Zaragoza (Spain) in the 2017/18 academic year (Cristóbal et al.,
2019). This allowed its application during the following year at IES Ramón Pignatelli following a new
action research cycle (Latorre, 2007), that has been the object of analysis of this article and that we
will develop later. Although most of the connections between songs and literary works were main-
tained, some works were added to respond to the musical tastes of the students, including the reg-
gaeton genre and some more current pop songs.
The methodology, called song-based literary education, consists of teaching literary content (meter,
rhyme, themes, literary topics, vocabulary, and literary devices) through intertextual contents and
the emotional dimension of music as a cognitive and emotional bridge to the literary classics in the
syllabus. This theoretical perspective overcomes the historicist and textual approach of the conven-
tional teaching of literature, which, as various relevant authors have pointed out, provoke boredom,
anxiety, incomprehension, and distancing from literature in many students.
Song-based literary education is supported by a solid pedagogical current, constructivism, which
proposes grounding the learning process on prior knowledge. This proposal came from the theory
of meaningful learning and advanced organizers or cognitive bridges of David Ausubel (2002),
which defines it as a reasonable and sensitive material that relates the student’s prior knowledge
with the new information.
The proposal is also based on the principles of literary education which connects literary works with
other artistic expressions through the reader’s intertext. Moreover, other current theories of emotio-
2.4. Antecedent research
3. Teaching Method
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nal and creative education to bring the academic subjects closer to the students’ inner world. So, we
use the songs as advanced organizers or cognitive bridges of the literary contents.
Below we briefly describe the interdisciplinary intervention model on literature and music to facili-
tate its application for all teachers, even for anyone interested in Spanish music and literature who
wants to develop it independently through the link (ocw.unizar.es). In each of the units we develop
three phases:
1) Listening to the songs and, where appropriate, viewing the video clip and introducing the
contents talking about the songs following the ‘tell me’ approach (Chambers, 2007) with
questions about the first impressions and tastes of the students: What is the What do you
like the most and the least about the song? What has surprised you? Or what connections
do you find with other songs, literary works or your daily life?” Next, questions are posed to
the student so that he can identify the themes and topics that he deals with in the songs.
2) Connection of the contents present in the song with its cultural referents so that the student
can identify them in a more intertextual and significant way, reinterpret them and recreate
their symbology, as well as their linguistic and cultural referents, in addition to relating them
to those same referents in the classic works.
3) Deepening in those aspects that we consider most interesting through techniques of literary
analysis and contextualization in relation to its author, current and literary period, although
without forgetting the opening song either. In this way, we delve into the literary contents
in a meaningful and authentic way for the student, to which we add the exploitation of the
video clip through film and transmedia analysis techniques.
This research was developed during the 2018/19 academic year following a mainly quantitative me-
thodology, although reinforced by participant observation in which the teacher had a teaching and
researcher role at the same time.
This research is a second cycle of the study carried out at the José Martí Lyceum of Warsaw during
the 2013/14 academic year adapted to the Spanish context, following what Latorre (2007) calls edu-
cational action research.
Educational action research has a cyclical nature, since both research and action must complement
each other through different phases: planning, acting, observing and reflecting. This procedure is
essential to improve educational practice. During this process, a flexible action plan is made with
the objective of improving the educational practice that is being used, the plan is implemented, the
actions are observed to collect information, and, finally, the registered action is evaluated.
4. Research method
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The didactic proposal was fully administered to a total of 24 students, aged between 14 and 15
years, of the 3rd ESO course of the subject of Spanish Language and Literature at IES Ramón Pigna-
telli in Zaragoza. In addition, some units were also taught with the groups of 2nd ESO and 4th ESO,
so that the proposal reached a total of 71 students from four groups of different levels of the subject
of Spanish Language and Literature of the IES Ramón Pignatelli in Zaragoza (Spain).
The main materials used to collect data for the research were a questionnaire, a checklist and anec-
dotal records. The questionnaire, which is included below, was built to assess the degree of ade-
quacy of the didactic proposal based on songs to literary education, which was the main theoretical
approach that guided the research. To do this, we started from several proposals exposed throu-
ghout the work: the theory of significant learning (Ausubel, 2002) and significant critical learning
(Moreira, 2005); the reader’s intertext (Mendoza, 2006 and 2011), the emotional dimension of lite-
rature (Sanjuán, 2014), literary education (González and Caro, 2009) and the use of songs to teach
literature (Zamora, 2000; and Gómez, 2009, Vicente-Yagüe, 2013).
To interpret the results, we conceptualize them in this case as shown below:
-comprehension and interpretation of songs
-reflection on the ideas and situations of the songs
-comparison of ideas and contrast of ideas
-detection of other points of view on known topics
-personal opinion about ideas and situations
-creative thinking and doubt solving
-critical sense and confidence.
-identification of known topics and content
-intertext activation to remember contents
-relationship of contents between different works
-connection of the intertext between different disciplines and platforms
-understanding and appreciation of the multimedia material used
Secondarily, data was also obtained through systematic observation carried out in an “intentional,
planned and structured, objective and registered way so that the information obtained is verifiable
and has guarantees of scientificity [own translation]” (Martínez, 2007, p. 63). In our case, this con-
sisted of collecting information from the students during the administration of the corresponding
didactic proposal in order to examine it, interpret it and obtain conclusions about the instructional
process. This focused on collecting evidence of the behavior and external behaviors of the students
to analyze them later along with the questionnaire.
In this way, we recorded and compared some behaviors related to the interaction of the students,
the questions and statements made, their participation in the activities, the time they maintained
4.1.Participants
4.2. Materials and tools
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concentration, the use of information and communication technologies used, the relevant informa-
tion observed or the teaching and learning difficulties detected, among other data.
All these behaviors are external and directly observable by any person or observer who at that mo-
ment had to collect the information, which means that observation can count on the characteristic of
objectivity to a greater extent than other techniques. (Martínez, 2007, p. 65)
These observable external behaviors were recorded through the process that this author calls ope-
rationalization, which in our case was developed using a checklist, in which the frequency of this type
of behavior in each of these groups was measured and compared. The observation units that were
chosen were:
-Individual critical reasoning
-Critical debate between two or more people
-Active participation of the group in a task
-Positive reaction to a task
Likewise, anecdotal records were designed as a complementary instrument to the checklist that
allowed us to record those behaviors observed during the classes that, being relevant to the subject
investigated, we did not include in the checklist. This information was collected through a descrip-
tion that was as brief and precise as possible of the manifestations observed, as indicated by Martí-
nez (2007, p. 68).
The checklist and the anecdotal records were used throughout the application of the didactic pro-
posal during the 2018/19 academic year. The data entry mechanism was simplified to be compatible
with the normal development of the class. All of these were analyzed later. In the case of the anec-
dotal records, an open instrument was developed in which only the anecdotes directly related to the
didactics proposal and the main element of these, that is, the use of songs, were recorded briefly,
without interrupting the normal rhythm of the class.
At the end of the application, the questionnaire was administered to the participating students to
check the degree of agreement of the student with the statements presented using a Likert scale
between 1 and 7, where 1 is “I totally disagree”, 4 “I somewhat agree” and 7 “I totally agree”.
Finally, the results of the questionnaire were contrasted with the data obtained through the checklist
and the anecdotal records to check if they were consistent with each other.
The students who were submitted to the literary education proposal based on songs rated the me-
thodology followed positively, above 5 (71,4%) out of 7 on a Likert scale. The question that received
the most agreement, with 6.4 (91,4%) out of 7, was that they found the proposal more attractive than
the reading of classic texts by presenting multimedia material, followed by 6.2 (88,6%) that the pro-
posal allows them to connect artistic works that use different dissemination platforms. Next, with 6
4.3. Procedure
5. Results
5.1. Likert results
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(85%) out of 7, they valued that the aspects, themes and ideas worked on in the songs allowed them
to relate them in an authentic way to the classical texts they analyzed afterwards. In fourth place, with
5.8 (82.8%) out of 7, they emphasized that the work with the songs helped them to draw conclusions,
personal opinions and hypotheses about the situations seen.
These data were triangulated with the results of the anecdotal records and the checklist that allowed
us to verify that, indeed, the students felt especially attracted by the multimedia material with which
the didactic proposal was presented, and that it favored the students making connections between
different disciplines, content and platforms. The students especially valued positively the use of a
multimedia and interactive proposal, in which, in addition to being able to see music clips, they
could complete the activities in an interactive way (Annex A). Likewise, during the administration
of the proposal we found numerous samples of reflection, debate, critical reasoning and personal
points of view.
From the proposal to introduce classical literary works through the literary topoi present in current
songs we can conclude that these are a significant intertext for students, because they have not
acquired them by studying them in the classroom but from their idle exposure to music in different
ways (cell phone, mp3 player, computer or karaoke) and in different places such as at home, the mall
or a music club, among other public places.
As the quantitative and qualitative results show, students especially value the presentation of content
through different genres, disciplines, and platforms. These results are consistent with other previous
studies that had already focused on interdisciplinarity (Zamora, 2000, Gómez, 2009. Vicente-Yagüe,
2012 and 2014, Cristóbal et al., 2017). However, the multimedia and interactive nature of this pro-
posal, which has been the most valued by the students, is not only novel, but also allows it to be
connected with some technologies to which the student is exposed in their daily life.
Sanjuán (2011) points out that “the formation of a reader covers different areas such as the family,
the social and the school [own translation]” (p. 86) and insists on the need to establish deep emotio-
nal links between the text and the reader (through ethical and social values, human situations, beha-
vioral patterns, conflicts, close situations, etc.) that allow transforming the teaching of literature into
a literary education, so that it contributes to the discovery of the reading experience and stimulates
reading inside and outside the classroom (Sanjuán, 2014).
Mendoza (1993, 2008) considers necessary to seek more motivating approaches based on the in-
tertextuality and interdisciplinarity of the student as a literary receiver. And that is precisely what we
intend to achieve by introducing literary topics through songs that are part of the reader’s intertext:
to link those contents in a more meaningful way -both cognitively and emotionally- with the literary
works of study. Thus, and following Mendoza, the use of the literary topics as a intertext allowed us
to connect knowledge and concepts of different types, to develop favorable attitudes towards the
literary fact in a generalized manner and, finally, to adopt criteria to evaluate diverse literary produc-
5.2. Results of the checklist
and anecdotal records
6. Discussion and conclusions
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tions, according to the contiguity of relationships they maintain and according to the perspective
from which they are perceived. As we have seen, the proposal takes advantage of the student’s
reading intertext to connect his or her previous knowledge with the new knowledge required to
interpret the literary work.
According to Ausubel, this would therefore be learning by reception and propositional learning, sin-
ce the student relates complex ideas as the literary topics more than simple words or concepts. For
meaningful learning to take place, according to Ausubel, new content must be related to previous
content in a substantial way -that is, relevant and not literal- and not arbitrary -in the sense that it is
not capricious- so that the student is able to conceptualize and organize it according to his or her
cognitive structure. And as Sanjuán (2011) points out, it is also necessary to consider, especially in
the case of literature, “not only the cognitive processes, but also all the emotional processes invol-
ved in that exchange or transaction that occurs between a given text and an individual reader [own
translation]” (p. 93).
The differential element of the proposal is that the intertextual subsumers in which we anchored the
new information were not academic content that the student had to learn beforehand, but knowled-
ge from his or her sociocultural context, so it was expected that they would have a higher degree of
stability and emotional rooting in the student’s cognitive structure.
In this way, the literary topics present in the songs served as previous organizers or cognitive brid-
ges to activate the intertextual subsumers present in the student’s cognitive structure and connect
them, in a non-literal and non-arbitrary way, with the contents of the curriculum that appeared in the
literary texts of the curriculum. In this way, the students recognized the catchwords that appeared in
these songs that he followed and listened to because this allowed him to interpret them and disco-
ver the stories they told and moved him to later apply them in the literary works. Music enjoys exce-
llent health in society, especially among young people, which gives it great educational potential,
especially for teaching literature, of which the songs are largely composed.
This second cycle of research that we present in this article was limited by various circumstances. In
the first place, unlike the first cycle, there was no contrast between the control groups and the ex-
perimental group, since the teacher only gave the complete proposal in a single group of 3rd ESO
students. Nor was it possible to carry out a previous pilot, since this was the first year as a teacher in
this educational center. In addition, the sample was limited by the teaching groups of this teacher
and by the contents of the curriculum of each course, being completely coincident only in one of the
levels, the 3rd year of ESO. Although the sample was also expanded to other courses, it was done
partially. However, the results were consistent with those obtained in the first research cycle and with
previous investigations, which opens the door to a very prosperous line of research and teaching, as
can be seen in some studies carried out later that delve into this intertextual methodology between
the music and literature (Lleida, 2021).
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Annex A. Extract of the didactic unit 5
