Transcript luf-talkyng’ in Medieval Literature - db

‘luf-talkyng’ in
Medieval Literature 3
Thomas Honegger
t.m.honegger@swissonline.
ch
Troubadours,
Trouvères and
Courtly Love
http://www.
db-thueringen.de/
content/top/
index.xml
Peter Dinzelbacher 1981
«Über die Entdeckung der
Liebe im Hochmittelalter»
Saeculum 32:185-208
‘ens affectiosum’
Guilhem IX of Aquitaine
= William IX of Aquitaine
VII Count of Poitou
(1071-1126/27)
11 poems
Eble of Ventadorn
(before 1096, died after
1147)
William IX of Aquitaine
5 courtly love poems
5 burlesque/bawdy poems
1 congé
“uns dels majors cortes del
mon e dels majors
trichadors de dompnas”
‘one of the most courtly
men in the world and one
of the greates deceivers of
ladies’
William IX of Aquitaine
 Oscillation
between bawdy
misogyny and courtly
veneration => ‘trovatore
bifronte’
Trovatore bifronte
 Biographical
explanation
 Audience-specific voice
 Psychological explanation
Howard Bloch, 1991,
Medieval Misogyny & the
Invention of W. Romantic
Love

the the co-presence of misogynistic
and courtly songs is better explained
by the fact that the two medieval
discourses on woman are not
contraries but intermingling zones of a
common conceptualisation of gender
Trovatore bifronte
 Women
as secularised objects
of acute sexual desire or as
idealised icons are reduced to
the status of category.
Explanations for the Origin of
Courtly Love
 Inspiration
of a genial poet-
nobleman
 Biographical reasons
 Social reasons
Biographical explanation
 Robert
d’Arbrissel’s monastery
of Fontevrault
 Ermengarde of Anjou (1112)
 Philippa (also called Mathilde)
of Toulouse (1116/17)
Other explanations
 Hispano-Arabic
influence
 Surviving matriarchal elements
 Cathar and Albigensian heresy
 Neoplatonic ideas
 Spring folk traditions
Extant corpus of troubadour
lyrics
 95
manuscripts
 Ca. 2500 poems
William IX’s lyrics
 Metaphors
 Themes
 Topoi
 Attitudes
Audience in ‘Farai
chansoneta’
 General
courtly audience (lines
1-8, 15-18, 31-34)
 Aside (lines 9-10)
 The lady (lines 13-14, 19-28)
 The joglar Daurostre (lines 2930)
Feudal terminology in ‘Farai
chansoneta’
Ma dona (l. 3), ma bona dompna (l.
10, 16), dompna conja (l. 19),
dompna (l. 28)
 Narrator bound to the lady (l. 6)
 Narrator ‘possession’ of the lady (l.
6-7)
 other poem: mi dons < meus
dominus

Feudal loyalty and love
Afflacius’s Liber de
heros morbo (c. 1100): intense
sexual love is compared to
loyalty to one’s lord
 Johannes
Service
 Occitan
poets: service means
dedicating one’s poetic efforts
to the beloved lady
 Northern
French
poets:
chivalric deeds
Feudal vs. servile terminology
 mi
dons (< meus dominus)
used solely for ladies, not for
lords
Dying of love
 ‘Fara
chansoneta’ lines 15-18
 Chaucer:
loveris maladye of Hereos
Amor hereos
Galen (130-200)
 Byzantine
and Arabic medical
writers
 Re-introduced
to
Italy
by
Constantine the African (died 1087)
in his Viaticum.
 Viaticum
part of the required
reading for medical students at the
end of the 12th century at Paris

Amor hereos

Viaticum => passionate love
medical
reality
=>
poetic
descriptions become social reality
Testing situation
 ‘Farai
 ‘asag’
chansoneta’ lines 3-4
5 lineae amoris
 visus
(looking)
 alloquii (speaking)
 tactus (touching)
 osculi (kissing)
 coitus (that which is beyond)
5 lineae amoris in penitential
literature

“foly of unwardliche lokyne or
sight, foly of unwardliche speche,
foly of touching with hand, [and]
foly of unwardlyche kussynge with
mouth”
(A Myrour to Lewde Men and
Wymmen, c. 1400, edited by
Nelson 1981:163).
5 lineae amoris in modern
times
 attention
getting
 recognition
 talk
 touch
 body synchrony
Richard de Fournival on
kisses
N’est pas saige qui de ce doute,
Que du sorpluc face dongier
Fome qui conjot le baisier.
Li baisiers autre chose atrait,
Et quant il a la fome plait
Qu’ale le vuet et le desirre,
Du sorplus n’i a aul que dire;
(Chastoiement des dames, ll. 124130, Fox 1950:136)

The conceptual kernel of
Courtly Love
sincerity
 loyalty
 steadfastness in love
 patient expectation of the gift of
love
 voluntary
granting of sexual
favours
 love
as
an
esteemed
and
gladdening experience

Topsfield’s 4 stages
experimental phase (1100-1150)
 growing
influence of courtly
doctrine (c. 1150-1180)
 Predominance of the ‘trobar leu’
(light and easy style) (c. 1180-1209)
 Destruction
of Occitan society
(Albigensian crusade 1209), love
for the courtly lady > love for the
Virgin (Topsfield, Leslie. 1975.
Troubadours
and
Love.

Bernart de Ventadorn
(fl. 1150-80)
 Poet
of low extraction
 Archetype of the courtly
troubadour
 Wrote almost exclusively
‘cansos’ (i.e. songs about
love)
Bernart de Ventadorn
(fl. 1150-80)
‘Non es meravelha s’eu chan’
 Opening lines in the tradition of a
‘gap’
 ‘valor’
 ‘amor’ (l. 3, 7, 9) vs. ‘Amors’ (l. 21)

The God of Love
Capellanus’ De amore
/ De arte honeste amandi (c.
1186)
 Le Roman de la Rose (12301270) by Guillaume de Lorris
and Jean de Meun
 Andreas
Guilhem vs. Bernart




‘hunger’ => active
Pain of suffering
a nuisance
Dying of love:
medical reality
‘joi’ is found in
the fulfillment of
the loverelationship




Passive victim
Pain of suffering
positive in itself
Dying of love:
literary topos vs.
spiritual death of
non-lovers
‘joi’ comprises all
aspects of loving
Amor de lonh

Jaufre Rudel: troubadour who fell
in love with the Countess of
Tripolis
4 Stages of a Lover
‘fenhedor’ (admirer)
 ‘precador’ (petitioner)
 ‘entendedor’ (accepted petitioner)
 ‘drut’ (lover)

Key to the lady’s heart
‘merces’ (BdV, ll. 23-24)
 grace, mercy, pity, sympathy
 ‘merces’ is the expression of an
enduring predisposition to feel
sympathy with anyone who is
perceived as worthy through family
or feudal relationships

Guilhem vs. Bernart 2



union of mutual
joy between
equals
extrovert
self-assured



voluntary
submission to the
lady’s will
introvert
self-doubting
Types of Love
Amour chevalresque
 Amor de lonh
 Amor segura (‘caritas’)
 Amour courtois / Fin’ amors
