The copla is a poetic form of four verses that provides found in many Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 popular songs as well as in Spanish language

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 literature. There is a related musical genre of the same name

Copla (music)

The copla or copla andaluza is a form of Spanish popular song, deriving from the poetic form of the same name. The genre arose in the 1940s, and is epitomized by songwriters Antonio Quintero, Rafael de León and Manuel Quiroga.One of the first singers of coplas was Raquel Meller...

. The form is also found widely in Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

. The name derives from the Latin copula, ("link" or "union").

Coplas normally consist of four verses de arte minor (that is, of no more than eight syllable

Syllable

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...

s to a line) of four lines each, either of Spain's most characteristic popular meter, the romance

Romance (meter)

The romance is a metric combination that originated in the verse and poetry of Spain. It consists of an indefinite series of verses, in which the even-numbered lines have a near-rhyme and the odd lines are unrhymed...

 (8- 8a 8- 8a), or of seguidilla

Seguidilla

The seguidilla is a quick, triple-time old Castillian folksong and dance form. The song is generally in the major key and often begins on an off-beat...

 (7- 5a 7- 5a) or redondilla (8a 8b 8b 8a).

Although most commonly considered a popular form, it has not been scorned by cultivated writers. Among those who have written coplas are Íñigo López de Mendoza, Marquis of Santillana, Rafael Alberti

Rafael Alberti

Rafael Alberti Merello was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27....

, Luis de Góngora

Luis de Góngora

Luis de Góngora y Argote was a Spanish Baroque lyric poet. Góngora and his lifelong rival, Francisco de Quevedo, are widely considered to be the most prominent Spanish poets of their age. His style is characterized by what was called culteranismo, also known as Gongorism...

, Antonio Machado

Antonio Machado

Antonio Cipriano José María y Francisco de Santa Ana Machado y Ruiz, known as Antonio Machado was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98....

, and Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...

. Manuel Machado wrote of coplas, using the form himself:

Spanish original	Rough English translation
Hasta que el pueblo las canta,	Until the people [or village] sings them
las coplas, coplas no son,	coplas are not coplas,
y cuando las canta el pueblo	and when the people sing them
ya nadie sabe el autor.	By then, no one knows who wrote them.
Tal es la gloria, Guillén,	Such is the glory, Guillén,
de los que escriben cantares:	Of those who write songs:
oír decir a la gente	To hear the people say
que no los ha escrito nadie.	That no one wrote these.
Procura tú que tus coplas	Try to make it that your songs
vayan al pueblo a parar,	go among the people to stick around,
aunque dejen de ser tuyas	although they cease to be yours
para ser de los demás.	to belong to the others.
Que, al fundir el corazón	Which, to melt the heart
en el alma popular,	in the soul of the people,
lo que se pierde de nombre	that which it loses of a name
se gana de eternidad.	it gains of eternity.

The language of the copla is colloquial and direct, although there may also be double entendre

Double entendre

A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....

s, especially for comic or lascivious effect.