''Cantiga de amor'' ( Portuguese and Galician) or ''cantiga d'amor'' ( Galician-Portuguese), literally "love song", is a type of literary composition from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, typical of the medieval

Galician-Portuguese lyric In the Middle Ages, the Galician-Portuguese lyric, also known as troubadorism, from ''trovadorismo'' in Portuguese and ''trobadorismo'' in Galician, was a lyric poetic school or movement. All told, there are around 1680 texts in the so-called ...

William IX of Aquitaine - BN MS fr 12473

A male-voiced love lyric, they on average have more complex forms, many never found in ''

cantigas de amigo ''Cantiga de amigo'' (, ) or ''cantiga d'amigo'' ( Galician-Portuguese spelling), literally "friend song", is a genre of medieval lyric poetry, more specifically the Galician-Portuguese lyric, apparently rooted in a female-voiced song tradition n ...

'' and some highly complex ones that were directly inspired by

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...

and

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th despite his love and loyalty, though sometimes he is leaving or coming back, is away from her, and, seldom, the man gets so frustrated, angry or jealous that he gives up on her and even insults the woman. Obscenity and Erotic literature, open sexual references are taboo on this lyric. ''Cantigas de amor'' have a more complex rhetoric, and there is far more variation in the relationship between Metre (poetry), metrical and Syntax, syntactic units, with a much higher frequency of

enjambement In poetry, enjambment (; from the French ''enjamber'') is incomplete syntax at the end of a line; the meaning 'runs over' or 'steps over' from one poetic line to the next, without punctuation. Lines without enjambment are end-stopped. The origin ...

. Scholars generally assume that the ''cantiga de amor'' comes from

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. Scholars such as Henry R. Lang have pointed to clear thematic parallels between the ''cantiga de amor'' and Occitan and Old French lyrics. Cesare De Lollis pointed two erotic genres in Galician-Portuguese before the first written texts, and concluding that the ''cantiga de amor'' was written before the first extant ''cantiga de amigo'', and that some elements of the ''cantiga de amor'' came before the Occitan and Old French influences. It is difficult to fully trace back the origins of the genre since it was highly influenced by foreign lyric compositions.

In popular culture

In 1991, the Brazilian rock band

Legião Urbana Legião Urbana (Portuguese for Urban Legion) was a Brazilian rock band formed in 1982 in Brasília, Federal District (Brazil), Distrito Federal. The band primarily consisted of Renato Russo (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards), Dado Villa-Lobos ...

released their fifth album, ''V'', which opened with the song titled ''Love Song''. The song is the first stanza of ''Pois naci nunca vi Amor'', a ''cantiga de amor'' written by

Nuno Fernandes Torneol Nuno Fernandes Torneol was a Galician-Portuguese trovador. He probably worked in the middle of the thirteenth century at the courts of Ferdinand III and Alfonso X of Castile. In "De longas vias, mui longas mentiras", the only '' cantiga de escár ...

in the

13th century The 13th century was the century which lasted from January 1, 1201 (represented by the Roman numerals MCCI) through December 31, 1300 (MCCC) in accordance with the Julian calendar. The Mongol Empire was founded by Genghis Khan, which stretched ...

which tells the story of the character who since was born never saw love, but have heard about "him" and knows "he" wants to kill him. The character then begs his ''senhor'' ("lady", or his love interest) to show the killer or protect him.

References

Notes

Galician-Portuguese Poetic forms Western medieval lyric forms {{Medieval-music-stub

In popular culture

See also

References

Notes