Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry

Abstract

The songs of the troubadour poets of the south of France were a pervasive influence in the development of the European lyric (and indeed other genres) from the twelfth century to the Renaissance and beyond. Much troubadour poetry is on the topic of love, and is composed from a first-person position. This book is a full-length study of this first-person subject position in its relation to language and society. Using theoretical approaches where appropriate, Sarah Kay discusses to what extent this first person is a 'self' or 'character', and how far it is self-determining. Dr Kay draws on a wide range of troubadour texts, and provides close readings of many of them, as well as translating all medieval quotations into English in order to make the discussion accessible to the non-specialist. Her book will be of interest both to scholars of medieval literature, and to anybody investigating subjectivity in lyric poetry.

Écrire, trobar : le troubadour entre création et représentation

“…Or cette première strophe renferme un bel exemple du topos « aimer, c'est chanter », sous sa variante négative : « ne pas être aimé, c'est être incapable de chanter ». Ce serait l'amant qui chante sa propre incapacité de chanter 26 . Pourtant, « chanter » pourrait très bien signifier « trouver » ici.…”

Poésie courtoise et rivalité amoureuse

“…Naguère, ils guerroyaient au loin tout comme leurs homologues médiévaux, et n'étaient certainement pas très courtois envers les femmes rencontrées dans leurs courses. D'ailleurs, Duby lui-même attribue à ses jovenes des moeurs fort libres et même si dépravées qu'une chronique du temps invoque à leur sujet les flammes de Sodome (1964 : 838 Paden et al (1975) et Kay (1990: chap. III et 1996.…”

Bones, fire, and falcons: Loving things in medieval Europe

“…Around the First Crusade (c.1095-1100), Troubadour poets in the south of France began writing a unique kind of love song, emphasizing the agony and selfobliteration of love. For poets such as William IX of Aquitaine (d.1127) and Marcabru (d.c.1150), love was an exquisite pain, and their desire for idealized and unobtainable women exposed a lack within the self (Kay, 1990;Wollock, 2011). A little later in Burgundy, the Cistercian Order of monks developed their own intense mysticism of love.…”