Troubadours
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Troubadours
A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a ''trobairitz''. The troubadour school or tradition began in the late 11th century in Occitania, but it subsequently spread to the Italian and Iberian Peninsulas. Under the influence of the troubadours, related movements sprang up throughout Europe: the Minnesang in Germany, ''trovadorismo'' in Galicia and Portugal, and that of the trouvères in northern France. Dante Alighieri in his ''De vulgari eloquentia'' defined the troubadour lyric as ''fictio rethorica musicaque poita'': rhetorical, musical, and poetical fiction. After the "classical" period around the turn of the 13th century and a mid-century resurgence, the art of the troubadours declined in the 14th century and around the time of the Black Death (1348) it died out. The texts of troubadou ...
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Courtly Love
Courtly love ( oc, fin'amor ; french: amour courtois ) was a medieval European literary conception of love that emphasized nobility and chivalry. Medieval literature is filled with examples of knights setting out on adventures and performing various deeds or services for ladies because of their "courtly love". This kind of love is originally a literary fiction created for the entertainment of the nobility, but as time passed, these ideas about love changed and attracted a larger audience. In the high Middle Ages, a "game of love" developed around these ideas as a set of social practices. "Loving nobly" was considered to be an enriching and improving practice. Courtly love began in the ducal and princely courts of Aquitaine, Provence, Champagne, ducal Burgundy and the Norman Kingdom of Sicily at the end of the eleventh century. In essence, courtly love was an experience between erotic desire and spiritual attainment, "a love at once illicit and morally elevating, passionate and ...
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Trobairitz
The ''trobairitz'' () were Occitan female troubadours of the 12th and 13th centuries, active from around 1170 to approximately 1260. ''Trobairitz'' is both singular and plural. The word ''trobairitz'' is first attested in the 13th-century romance '' Flamenca''. It comes from the Provençal word ''trobar'', the literal meaning of which is "to find", and the technical meaning of which is "to compose". The word ''trobairitz'' is used very rarely in medieval Occitan, as it does not occur in lyrical poetry, grammatical treatises or in the biographies (''vidas'') of the ''trobairitz'' or troubadours.Paden It does occur in the treatise ''Doctrina d'acort'' by Terramagnino da Pisa, written between 1282 and 1296. He uses it as an example of a word the plural and singular of which are the same.Elizabeth W. Poe, "Cantairitz e Trobairitz: A Forgotten Attestation of Old Provençal »Trobairitz«," ''Romanische Forschungen'', 114, 2 (2002), pp. 206–215, at 207: "which are correctly used on ...
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Tenso
A ''tenso'' (; french: tençon) is a style of troubadour song. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position; common topics relate to love or ethics. Usually, the tenso is written by two different poets, but several examples exist in which one of the parties is imaginary, including God (Peire de Vic), the poet's horse (Gui de Cavalhon) or his cloak (Bertran Carbonel). Closely related, and sometimes overlapping, genres include: * the ''partimen'', in which more than two voices discuss a subject * the ''cobla esparsa'' or ''cobla exchange'', a tenso of two stanzas only * the ''contenson'', where the matter is eventually judged by a third party. Notable examples *Marcabru and Uc Catola''Amics Marchabrun, car digam'' possibly the earliest known example. *Cercamon and Guilhalmi''Car vei finir a tot dia'' another candidate for the earliest known example. *Raimbaut d'Aurenga and Giraut de Bornelh''Ara·m platz, Giraut de Borneill'' where major exponents of the two ...
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Canso (song)
The ''canso'' or ''canson'' or ''canzo'' () was a song style used by the troubadours. It was, by far, the most common genre used, especially by early troubadours, and only in the second half of the 13th century was its dominance challenged by a growing number of poets writing ''coblas esparsas''. The ''canso'' became, in Old French, the ''grand chant'' and, in Italian, the ''canzone''. Structure A ''canso'' usually consists of three parts. The first stanza is the ''exordium'', where the composer explains his purpose. The main body of the song occurs in the following stanzas, and usually draw out a variety of relationships with the ''exordium''; formally, aside from the ''envoi''(''s''), which are not always present, a ''canso'' is made of stanzas all having the same sequence of verses, in the sense that each verse has the same number of metrical syllables. This makes it possible to use the same melody for every stanza. The sequence can be extremely simple, as in ''Can vei la ...
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Trovadorismo
In the Middle Ages, the Galician-Portuguese lyric, also known as ''trovadorismo'' in Portugal and ''trobadorismo'' in Galicia, was a lyric poetic school or movement. All told, there are around 1680 texts in the so-called secular lyric or ''lírica profana'' (see Cantigas de Santa Maria for the religious lyric). At the time Galician-Portuguese was the language used in nearly all of Iberia for lyric (as opposed to epic) poetry. From this language derives both modern Galician and Portuguese. The school, which was influenced to some extent (mainly in certain formal aspects) by the Occitan troubadours, is first documented at the end of the twelfth century and lasted until the middle of the fourteenth, with its zenith coming in the middle of the thirteenth century, centered on the person of Alfonso X, ''The Wise King''. It is the earliest known poetic movement in Galicia or Portugal and represents not only the beginnings of but one of the high points of poetic history in both countr ...
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Occitania
Occitania ( oc, Occitània , , or ) is the historical region in Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe where the Occitan language, Occitan language was historically spoken and where it is sometimes still used as a second language. This cultural area roughly encompasses the southern third of France (with the exception of the French Basque Country and Northern Catalonia, French Catalonia) as well as part of Spain (Aran Valley), Monaco, and smaller parts of Italy (Occitan Valleys, Guardia Piemontese). Occitania has been recognized as a linguistic and cultural concept since the Middle Ages, but has never been a legal nor a political entity under this name. However, the territory was united in Roman times as the ''Septem Provinciae, Seven Provinces'' ( la, Septem Provinciæ) and in the Early Middle Ages (''Aquitanica'' or the Visigothic Kingdom#Kingdom of Toulouse, Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse, or the share of Louis the Pious following Thionville ''divisio regnorum'' in 806) ...
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Cercamon
Cercamon (, fl. 1135-1145) was one of the earliest troubadours. His true name and other biographical data are unknown. He was apparently a Gascony-born jester of sorts who spent most of his career in the courts of William X of Aquitaine and perhaps of Eble III of Ventadorn. He was the inventor of the ''planh'' (the Provençal dirge), of the ''tenso'' (a sort of rhymed debate in which two poets write one stanza each) and perhaps of the ''sirventes''. Most of the information about Cercamon's life is nothing but rumour and conjecture; some of his contemporaries credit him as Marcabru's mentor, and some circumstantial evidence points to his dying on crusade as a follower of Louis VII of France. About seven of his lyrics survive, but not a single melody; the works that most contributed to his fame among his contemporaries, his '' pastorelas'' or pastourelles, are lost. ''Cercamon'' means "world searcher" in medieval Occitan. The fossil primate ''Cercamonius'' was named after him. ...
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Lyric Poetry
Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equivalent to Ancient Greek lyric poetry, which ''was'' principally limited song lyrics, or chanted verse, hence the confusion. The term for both modern lyric poetry and modern song lyrics both derive from a form of Ancient Greek literature, the Greek lyric, which was defined by its musical accompaniment, usually on a stringed instrument known as a kithara. The term owes its importance in literary theory to the division developed by Aristotle among three broad categories of poetry: lyrical, dramatic, and epic. Lyric poetry is also one of the earliest forms of literature. Meters Much lyric poetry depends on regular meter based either on number of syllables or on stress – with two short syllables typically being exchangeable for one long ...
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Sirventes
The ''sirventes'' or ''serventes'' (), sometimes translated as "service song", was a genre of Old Occitan lyric poetry practiced by the troubadours. The name comes from ''sirvent'' ('serviceman'), from whose perspective the song is allegedly written. Sirventes usually (possibly, always) took the form of parodies, borrowing the melody, metrical structure and often even the rhymes of a well-known piece to address a controversial subject, often a current event. The original piece was usually a canso, but there are sirventes written as contrafacta of (at least) sestinas and pastorelas. They were always opinionated, being either highly complimentary or, more often, oozing with vitriol; however, these features are not unique to the sirventes, so a piece can be positively identified as one only if its nature is explicitly stated in the text (which it often is) or the original piece it is based on has been preserved (which is also often the case: for a parody to work, it had to target a ...
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Jean De Nostredame
Jean de Nostredame (1522–1576/7) was a Provençal historian and writer. He was the younger brother of Michel de Nostredame. He was baptised at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence on 19 February 1522. He followed the footsteps of his father, Jaume de Nostredame, as a notary public and served as a procurator of the Cour de Parlement of Provence in Aix. Nostredame's major work is ''Les vies des plus célèbres et anciens Poètes provensaux, qui ont floury du temps des comtes de Provence'' (Lyon: Alexandre Marsilij, 1575). It presents itself as a history of the troubadours. Today it is regarded as largely fantasy, though nuggets of historical truth remain. Nostredame lists three sources for his accounts, but none of these survive. In the eighteenth century Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni (October 9, 1663March 8, 1728) was an Italian critic and poet. Crescimbeni was a founding member and leader of the erudite literary society of Accademia degli Arcadi in Rome. Bio ...
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Old Occitan
Old Occitan ( oc, occitan ancian, label=Occitan language, Modern Occitan, ca, occità antic), also called Old Provençal, was the earliest form of the Occitano-Romance languages, as attested in writings dating from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries. Old Occitan generally includes Early and Old Occitan. Middle Occitan is sometimes included in Old Occitan, sometimes in Modern Occitan. As the term ' appeared around the year 1300, Old Occitan is referred to as "Romance" (Occitan: ') or "Provençal" (Occitan: ') in medieval texts. History Among the earliest records of Occitan are the ''Tomida femina'', the ''Boecis'' and the ''Cançó de Santa Fe''. Old Occitan, the language used by the troubadours, was the first Romance language with a literary corpus and had an enormous influence on the development of lyric poetry in other European languages. The interpunct was a feature of its orthography and survives today in Catalan and Gascon language, Gascon. The official language of ...
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Trobar Leu
The ''trobar leu'' (), or light style of poetry, was the most popular style used by the troubadours. Its accessibility gave it a wide audience. See also *''Trobar ric'' *''Trobar clus ''Trobar clus'' (), or closed form, was a complex and obscure style of poetry used by troubadours for their more discerning audiences, and it was only truly appreciated by an elite few. It was developed extensively by Marcabru and Arnaut Daniel, bu ...'' Occitan literature Western medieval lyric forms {{Poetry-stub ...
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