Voices of Spanish Poets: Vocal Archive and Experimental Study on Poetry Reading

Project Information

VSP

Grant agreement ID: 101109465

DOI

10.3030/101109465

Project closed

EC signature date 7 March 2023

Start date 1 May 2023

End date 30 April 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 165 312,96

Coordinated by

UNIVERSIDAD DE GRANADA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - VSP (Voices of Spanish Poets: Vocal Archive and Experimental Study on Poetry Reading)

Reporting period: 2023-05-01 to 2025-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The poets' voice is a cultural heritage that must be preserved, studied, and promoted. It can reveal valuable linguistic and literary insights and can now be explored through experimental and interdisciplinary approaches.
The first recordings and studies of original poetry audio date back to the 20th century in French phonetics laboratories. Since then, vocal poetry archives have grown around the world, although the experimental study of these materials—still underexplored—has developed mainly in recent years.
In the Spanish-speaking world, while there is a strong tradition of vocal poetry archives, none has been originally conceived or used for experimental research, nor do existing archives offer comparative listening experiences of selected poems to explore variation in poetic reading. Moreover, experimental studies on the reading and listening of Spanish poetry have yet to be conducted, revealing a significant gap in knowledge. Much work remains to be done.
To address this challenge, Voices of Spanish Poets (VSP) aims to create the first dynamic vocal archive and conduct the first experimental phonetic and cognitive study of Spanish poetry reading. Using tools from the Digital Humanities and building on experimental research, VSP will develop a unique archive of 20th- and 21st-century Spanish poets, offering an innovative platform for the study and appreciation of Spanish poetry reading. The project will involve phonetic and cognitive approaches to describe the key prosodic features of Spanish poetry reading and its evolution over time, as well as to better understand how poetry is processed during listening, depending on its reading styles.
VSP seeks to provide a new digital resource for discovering, exploring, and teaching poetry, promoting a deeper listening and appreciation of the poetic voice. The experimental studies integrated in it will reshape the way poetry reading is received. The project will contribute to the dissemination of this underexplored field of research and open new avenues for inquiry, positioning poetry reading as an international and historically significant cultural phenomenon, while fostering innovation in performance and teaching strategies.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Over the past two years of the VSP project, approximately 900 entries have been collected for the VSP vocal archive. Most of the recordings were produced by the VSP research team, while a selection of 20th-century readings was retrieved from existing archives to be studied within the first phonetic history of Spanish poetry reading. To increase the number of entries from contemporary poets, several partnerships were established with Spanish cultural institutions. The VSP recordings include both original poetry readings and interpretative renditions of classic works by contemporary poets—namely a selection of poems by Federico García Lorca—offering comparative perspectives across time periods.
Alongside data collection, careful efforts were devoted to the preservation, editing, and cataloguing of recordings. All materials were organized and classified using detailed metadata. Data from other archives were mentioned in compliance with copyright.
The experimental phonetic analysis focused primarily on 20th-century recordings, made it possible to show the evolution in Spanish poetry reading across time through both qualitative and quantitative methods. These findings have been integrated into the archive, together with descriptive analyses of selected readings. The phonetic study was based on the methodology developed for the Voices of Italian Poets project, later implemented and enhanced through automated data extraction techniques. Comparative analyses were carried out on a selected corpus of Lorca’s interpretations, and qualitative analyses were also conducted on contemporary readings and specific cases.
In parallel, cognitive and psycholinguistic research was conducted to investigate how poetic reading affects listening. An eye-tracking experimental study explored how different reading styles of a corpus of Lorca’s enjambments influence the reception of poetry.
The main results of experimental studies have been incorporated into the online VSP platform, which features six consultation modes and three advanced phonetic filters. An introductory guide supports users in navigating the archive, which constitutes the first dynamic platform dedicated to the reading of Spanish poetry.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

VSP has successfully met its objectives by creating the first dynamic vocal archive and conducting the first phonetic history and comparative studies of Spanish poetry reading, and the first interdisciplinary study involving cognitive sciences and phonetics for the analysis of poetry reception based on reading styles, with particular attention to the rhetorical device of enjambment.

The creation of the archive was made possible thanks to the integration of data collection—whose scope far exceeded expectations—and the experimental study conducted. The phonetic analysis revealed an evolution over time in the way poetry is read, as well as the emergence of patterns and groupable behaviors observed through comparisons between readings. This study was enabled by advancements in the VIP-VSP methodology. The cognitive study, through an eye-tracking experiment, demonstrated how different reading styles can influence the reception of the poetic message, thereby highlighting the importance of the prosodic dimension, which is central to this project and still requires further investigation.

The achievements of VSP significantly contribute to the international recognition and advancement of the experimental study of poetry reading, fostering a renewed awareness of the auditory dimension of poetry. Through its growing visibility, VSP is helping to establish this research field as a relevant and pioneering domain within literature and linguistics studies.

Thanks to its interdisciplinary approach, VSP offers a unique model at the crossroads of cultural heritage, phonetics, cognitive science, and literary studies. Its educational potential is also particularly noteworthy: VSP, through its platform, promotes a renewed way of teaching and learning poetry by foregrounding listening as an essential mode of experiencing verse. The platform serves as a valuable educational tool, providing students with access to poetry as a living vocal dimension of literature—not just a written text to be read silently—and offering an original way to intersect linguistics and literature, a potential already recognized by leading linguists in the 20th century. Furthermore, beyond the classroom, the general public can engage with the archive freely, discovering poetry through guided listening and thus developing a more vivid and participatory relationship with poetry.

While the archive already offers a groundbreaking contribution, it should be considered a starting point for ongoing preservation and experimental research. A vocal archive is, by nature, an open and expanding resource. Continued data collection is essential to prevent the loss of valuable cultural materials. Moreover, much of the existing content still offers significant potential for further experimental phonetic and cognitive analysis, in order to explore the diverse materials of contemporaneity included in VSP and to investigate how they are processed through listening. Extending the phonetic studies would enable comparative analyses to identify additional shared and divergent features, and would allow the phonetic history of poetry reading to evolve into the present, capturing contemporary developments and nuances, and further highlighting the richness and complexity of this unique form of vocal expression.

Voices of Spanish Poets website and vocal archive

Voices of Spanish Poets vocal archive