The ''canso'' or ''canson'' or ''canzo'' () was a
song
A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetit ...
style used by the
troubadour
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 ''trobairi ...
s. 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
A ''cobla esparsa'' ( literally meaning "scattered stanza") in Old Occitan is the name used for a single-stanza poem in troubadour poetry. They constitute about 15% of the troubadour output, and they are the dominant form among late (after 1220) au ...
''.
The ''canso'' became, in
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...
, the ''
grand chant
The ''grand chant'' (''courtois'') or, in modern French, (''grande'') ''chanson courtoise'' or ''chanson d'amour'', was a genre of Old French lyric poetry devised by the trouvères. It was adopted from the Occitan '' canso'' of the troubadours, b ...
'' 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 lauzeta mover'', whose stanzas consist of eight lines of eight metrical syllables each, or rather complex, as in
Arnaut Daniel
Arnaut Daniel (; fl. 1180–1200) was an Occitan troubadour of the 12th century, praised by Dante as "the best smith" (''miglior fabbro'') and called a "grand master of love" (''gran maestro d'amore'') by Petrarch. In the 20th century he was la ...
's "L'aur'amara",
[Full tex]
here
/ref> whose first stanza is:
(The syllable count here is 3, 4, 2, 6, 2, 1, 5, 4, 1, 3, 4, 4, 2, 4, 6, 4, 6 respectively. The same structure is kept through the six full stanzas of the piece.)
Rhyme scheme
Each stanza in a ''canso'' has the same "internal" rhyme scheme; that is, if, say, the first line rhymes with the third in the first stanza, it will do so in every successive one. What varies is the relationship between rhymes in separate stanzas.
When stanzas follow the same rhyming pattern but the actual sounds differ, they are called ''coblas alternadas'' (lit. "alternated stanzas"). When the last rhyme sound of one ''cobla'' becomes the first of the next they are called ''coblas capcaudadas'' (lit. "head-tailed"). When the last rhyme word of one stanza appears in the first line of the next they are called ''coblas capfinidas'' (lit. "head-finished"). When the rhyming scheme and rhyming sounds are the same each stanza, they are ''coblas unissonans'' (lit. "unison"). When the rhyming scheme never changes but the sounds of each stanza are different they are ''coblas singulars'' (lit. "singular"). When the rhyming scheme never changes but the sounds do every two stanzas it is called ''coblas doblas'' (lit. "double"). When the rhyming scheme never changes but the sounds do every three stanzas it is called ''coblas ternas''. When the rhymes change position in accordance with an algorithm they are called ''coblas retrogradadas'' (lit. "retrograded").[Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay, edd. (1999), ''The Troubadours: An Introduction'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ).]
Envois
The ''canso'' usually ends with one or more ''envoi
Envoi or envoy in poetry is used to describe:
* A short stanza at the end of a poem such as a ballad, used either to address an imagined or actual person or to comment on the preceding body of the poem.
* A dedicatory poem about sending the book ...
s'' (called ''Tornadas'' in Old Occitan
Old Occitan ( oc, occitan ancian, label= 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 ...
). It takes the form of a shortened stanza, containing only a last part of the standard stanza used up to that point; a clear example is the same work by Arnaut Daniel quoted above: the (single) ''envoi'' is:
whose syllable count (4, 4, 2, 4, 6, 4, 6) is the same as the last seven lines of the full stanzas.
Notable examples
* Guilhen de Peiteu
''Pos vezem de novel florir''
possibly the earliest "classic" canso
* Bertran de Born
''Domna, puois de mi noˑus cal''
was popularized by Ezra Pound
* Bernart de Ventadorn
''Can vei la lauzeta mover''
is probably the most famous canso ever written
* Raimbaut of Orange
Raimbaut of Orange (c. 1147 – 1173) or, in his native Old Provençal, Raimbaut d'Aurenga, was the lord of Orange and Aumelas. His properties included the towns of Frontignan and Mireval. He was the only son of William of Aumelas and of Tib ...
''Ar resplan la flors enversa''
possibly the clearest example of trobar ric
The ''trobar ric'' (), or rich form of poetry, was a trobadour style.
It was distinguished by its verbal gymnastics; its best exponent was Arnaut Daniel. Despite the fact that it outlasted trobar clus it always played a secondary role to trobar ...
See also
*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 wr ...
, a parody of the form
References
{{Western medieval lyric forms
Medieval music genres
Occitan literary genres
Western medieval lyric forms