Abstract

Jordi de Sant Jordi uses more than thirty comparisons in his lyric poetry. These may be classified on the basis of their typology and semantic functions: true comparisons (where two elements are compared by means of a connector, the first being defined as ‘real’ and corresponding to the situation of the lyric persona, the second, figurative, presenting in metaphorical terms the same characteristics as the first element); comparisons between the ‘real’ situation and that of an unspecified human being, to which reference is made by means of the demonstrative ‘the one’ («axí com cell...»); hyperbolic comparisons, where the ‘real’ element is given hyperbolically as having to the same or to a greater extent a quality for which the second element is the example par excellence (‘stronger than Hercules’). Finally, we have identified a particular figure —which we have called an ‘abbreviated priamel’— whereby two situations are given between which the lyric persona must choose, stating that it prefers one and not the other.