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''Cantiga de amigo'' (, ) or ''cantiga d'amigo'' ( Galician-Portuguese spelling), literally "friend song", is a
genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...
of medieval
lyric poetry Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. The term for both modern lyric poetry and modern song lyrics derives from a form of Ancient Greek literature, t ...
, more specifically the Galician-Portuguese lyric, apparently rooted in a female-voiced song tradition native to the northwest quadrant of the
Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...
. According to Rip Cohen, “In 98% of the poems, the speaker is a girl, her mother, the girl’s girlfriend, or a boy (who is given a voice only in dialogues with the girl—which she begins). The girl can speak to any of the other three personae, but they can only address her (there is no directly represented communication between the other three personae: mother, girlfriend and boy do not speak with one another onstage). There are a dozen cantigas with an outside narrative voice, but most of them include words from a girl’s song.” Much has been made of nature symbolism in this genre, but “Erotic symbolism, though it has rightly attracted attention ��is not as common as might be imagined. All told, a few dozen poems make use of it (for instance, a rendezvous by the river, spring, or seashore). Far more often sexuality is expressed by code words, like veer (‘see’), falar (‘talk’), and fazer ben (‘do a favour’).” What mainly distinguishes the ''cantiga de amigo'' is its focus on a world of female-voiced communication. The earliest examples that survive are dated from roughly the 1220s, and nearly all 500 were composed before 1300. ''Cantigas d'amigo'' are found mainly in the '' Cancioneiro Colocci-Brancuti'', now in Lisbon's Biblioteca Nacional, and in the '' Cancioneiro da Vaticana'', both copied in
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
at the beginning of the 16th century (possibly around 1525) at the behest of the Italian humanist
Angelo Colocci Angelo Colocci (; 14671549) was a papal secretary of Pope Leo X, a romance Philology, philologist, and a Renaissance humanist. He assembled a large collection of antiquities in his villa beside the Aqua Virgo. Life Colocci was born in 1467 at I ...
. The seven songs of Martin Codax are also contained, along with music (for all but one text), in the '' Pergaminho Vindel'', probably a mid-13th-century manuscript and unique in all Romance philology. Stylistically, they are characterized by simple strophic forms, with repetition, variation, and parallelism, and are marked by the use of a refrain (88% of the texts). They constitute the largest body of female-voiced love lyric that has survived from ancient or medieval Europe. There are eighty-eight authors, all male, some of the better known being King Dinis of Portugal (52 songs in this genre), Johan Airas de Santiago (45), Johan Garcia de Guilhade (22), Juião Bolseiro (15), Johan Baveca (13), Pedr' Amigo de Sevilha (10), João Zorro (10), Pero Meogo (9), Bernal de Bonaval (8), Martim Codax (7). Even Mendinho, author of a single song, has been acclaimed as a master poet. The quantity of situations, although limited, is still higher than in '' cantigas de amor'', and the quantity of speech actions is even higher. * The girl says goodbye to the boy, or greets him when he is back. She gets angry at him when he leaves without her permission, does not go on a date with her or when she sees him talking to other girls. They argue and then she asks him to return. Sometimes she asks her mother for authorization to go see him, just says that she is going to see him or says that she already did it. Often she narrates, anticipates or does things without talking to any other person. * The (girl-)friend tries to persuade the girl to be receptive to the boy or forgive him, or sometimes advises her to give up on him. * The mother permits or denies the girl's requests to see the boy, or even offers to go with her. She can also give advice after a fight or say "I told you so" when things go wrong. * The boy (always in dialogue) says goodbye to the girl or greets her when he is back, asks her favours, or begs her for forgiveness. Although the
rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...
is simpler than of the two other genres, it is more complex than it was often allowed, slowly articulating a present action (or emotion) by repetition with variation, and usually holding important information until the end. There are insults, though lighter compared to the '' cantigas de escárnio e maldizer''.
Obscenity An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin , , "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Generally, the term can be used to indicate strong moral ...
and open sexual references are taboo, just like in the ''cantiga de amor''. The ''cantiga de amigo'' have been said to have characteristics in common with the Mozarabic '' kharajat'', but these may be merely coincidences of female speaker and erotic themes.


Types of ''cantigas''

* Tençon is a lyric and satiric cantiga which use
dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American and British English spelling differences, American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literature, literary and theatrical form that depicts suc ...
.


Samples

Below are two ''cantigas d'amigo'' by Bernal de Bonaval (text from Cohen 2003, tr. Cohen 2010).


See also

* Galician-Portuguese lyric * '' Cantigas de escárnio e maldizer'' * '' Cantiga de amor'' * '' Cancioneiro da Ajuda'' * '' Cancioneiro da Vaticana'' * '' Cancioneiro Colocci-Brancuti'', also known as ''Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional'' * ''
Cantigas de Santa Maria The ''Cantigas de Santa Maria'' (, ; "Canticles of Holy Mary") are 420 poems with musical notation, written in the medieval Galician-Portuguese language during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile, Alfonso X of Castile ''El Sabio'' (1221–1284). T ...
'' * Martim Codax *
Occitan literature Occitan literature (referred to in older texts as Provençal literature) is a body of texts written in Occitan language, Occitan, mostly in the south of France. It was the first literature written in a Romance language and inspired the rise of v ...
* Pergaminho Sharrer * Galician-Portuguese


References


Bibliography

* * Mercedes Brea & Pilar Lorenzo Gradín, ''A Cantiga de Amigo'', Vigo: Edicións de Galicia, 1998. * Rip Cohen, ''500 Cantigas d'amigo: A Critical Edition'', Porto, Campo das Letras, 2003. https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/33843 * Rip Cohen, ''The Cantigas d'amigo: An English Translation''. JScholarship, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 2010. https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/33843) * Giuseppe Tavani, ''Trovadores e Jograis: Introdução à poesia medieval galego-portuguesa'', Lisbon, Caminho, 2002. * Peter Dronke, ''The medieval lyric'', Cambridge, D.S. Brewer, 1968. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cantiga De Amigo Western medieval lyric forms Galician-Portuguese Portuguese language Galician language