After hundreds of years of melee and integration, the European medieval society gradually stabilized and developed gradually after entering the 11th century, and finally ushered in the glory of its own cultural development in the following century: classical works were translated in large numbers, universities flourished, Rome. Law was revived, and literature and art and church building art underwent great changes... The history is called "the 12th century Renaissance". During this period, the Provence region in southern France was even more economically developed, socially prosperous and culturally prosperous. Engels once said that southern France "not only brilliantly developed a stage of medieval life, but even brought ancient Greek civilization back to light at the end of the Middle Ages". In this highly developed society, a new type of poetry was born, which had a huge impact both then and later. This is Provence lyric poetry.
Themes and styles of Provence lyric poetry
In the eyes of the average reader, Provencal lyric seems to be synonymous with Provencal love poetry. Of course, love is the most famous and biggest theme of Provence lyric poetry, but in fact there are many themes and types of Provence lyric poetry:
"Love song", that is, Provencal love poetry, is the most important and famous style of Provence lyric poetry. But the "love song" here is not synonymous with today's love songs. In the Middle Provencal language (Ocquer language), "love song" is "canso", which mainly describes the so-called "elegant love" (amour courtois) - the court love of a lover to a lady. Of the more than 2,500 Provencal lyric poems in existence, there are about 1,000 love songs, accounting for 40% of the total. "Love songs" generally consist of 40 to 60 lines of poetry, each stanza adopts the same rhyme style, and many "love songs" have a "tornada" at the end to close the whole article. The important representatives of "love song" poets include Bernard de Vandador, Arnott Daniel and so on. The former's "When I Saw the Skylark" is one of the most famous "love songs". It is not only sincere and poetic, but also has a harmonious rhythm and beautiful melody: "When I saw the skylark cheerfully/beating the sun with her wings,/because The joy that poured into my heart/until weary, fainted and fell./Ah! A great envy/grabbed me--any joy in sight,/I wondered why my heart didn't at that moment/why not Melted with longing...//Alas, I thought I knew a lot about love/But I know very little about it!/Because I couldn't help loving her/And she never reciprocated./My whole heart, I myself, / She and the whole world, were taken away by her, / - when she took herself away from me, / All that was left for me was longing and a longing..." (In the text Introduce
Vence lyric poems are all translated by the author). The whole poem is written in eight-syllable verse, each stanza (except Tornada) has eight lines, and the rhyme is ababcdcd. Its rhythmic harmony and poetic richness have inspired people to write words for it in 4 languages. It became one of the most beautiful and widely sung secular love songs in the Middle Ages.
"Sirventes" ("sirventes"), the second largest type of Provence lyric poetry, mainly deal with political, satirical and didactic themes. There is not much difference in form from "love songs". The difference between them is mainly in content and subject matter. superior. There are more than 500 "Poems of Feelings", accounting for about 21% of the total number of Provence lyric poems. Although the number is inferior to that of "love songs", the number of poets who write "feeling poems" is far more than that of "love song" poets, because almost every Tubadu will leave one or several "feeling poems". Important interested poets are Bertrand de Bonn, Macabru, Pere Cardinal and so on. Bonn's How Happy I Am! When Happy Spring is very famous, the great American poet Pound once translated it into English. The poem says: "How happy I am! When the joyful spring/brings back flowers and green leaves;/I am so happy! When the birds chirp/Through the woods, I hear/their joyful ease;/I am happy! When I see the wilderness On / Anza's tents and barracks; / I am so glad! / When seeing the plains lined up / Soldiers and war-horses, fully armed..." In the poem the poet expresses his joy at the coming of spring, but it is not because of the spring but because for him spring was associated with war, and war was his favorite. In the poem, the poet directly appealed to the lords: "Barons! Pawn your castles, towns and cities, / Once the fire of war breaks out among you!" as at present.
The third largest form of Provence lyric poetry is the "short poem" ("cobla"), of which nearly 500 exist, accounting for about 19% of the total number of Provencal lyric poetry. "Short poetry" arose in the 1290s and reached prosperity in the middle of the 13th century; it generally consists of one or two stanzas. Because of its simple form and thin content, it has not been valued by great poets, nor has it been recognized by modern scholars. But at that time, it was welcomed by all social strata, and played a great role in the communication, criticism, education, propaganda, entertainment and even attack of poetry. Famous "short poems" poets include Bertrand Carbonell and so on. Cabonel, active in the mid-13th century (c. 1252-1265), wrote more than a dozen love songs, but he is best known for his 72 short poems on pedagogical themes. When scholars argue that Toubadou's poetry is not merely poetry, but must be accompanied by a melody, the most frequently cited "example" is a short poem by Caponelle: "Poems without melody, / like A mill without water / Therefore, if he does not give it a tune at the same time / Then his poetry is badly written; / For the pleasure of men is not from the mill itself, / but from the flour that comes from it.”
In addition to these three styles, there are many sub-types of Provence lyric poetry, such as debate poems, shepherdess songs, dawn songs... The one that needs to be introduced here is the "dawn song". "Dawn Song" ("alba") can be said to be the style of Provence lyric poetry most familiar to domestic academic circles. When scholars refer to the song of dawn, they generally refer to it as the most famous or representative form of the chivalrous lyric. This is probably because Engels once said in "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State" that "'albas, in German, is the dawn song, which has become the essence of Provence's lyric poetry..." In fact, from the above introduction, we can see It turns out that the most famous or representative style of Provence lyric poetry should be the "love song", not the "dawn song". The Song of Dawn, which accounts for less than 1% of the existing Provence lyric poetry, is a small style; it has a distinctive feature in form, that is, each stanza ends with "alba" (break of dawn, dawn). The most famous surviving dawn song is Giro de Bonaire's "King of Glory", which is also one of the most perfect compositions in the complete collection of Toubadour's poetry: "King of glory, true light and clarity, / Almighty God, Lord, if this pleases you, / be my companion's faithful helper; / For after nightfall I have not seen this friend again, / The day will soon break!// Sweet friend , are you asleep or awake? / Don't sleep any more, please get up quickly and gently; / I see the morning star already in the east / I know it will bring the day, / Soon dawn will break..." The poem's The last stanza sings: "—Dear friend, I am in such a splendid room/Hope never dawn and day,/Because the noblest lady in the world/In my arms, I don't care/That jealous fool and Dawn!" The virtuosity of his technique and the sensitivity of his poetry can be felt upon reading.
The style of Provence lyric poetry
Throughout the development of Provence lyric poetry, three styles have been formed:
The easy and clear style, or trobar leu, is mainly characterized by easy to understand, easy to learn and easy to sing, and it is open to the public. The main representatives of Mingyi style are Vandador, Bonaire, etc. The aforementioned "When I Saw the Skylark" is an example.
The trobar clus style, or trobar clus, advocates the use of difficult words, dangerous rhymes, obscure allusions and innuendo, making the poetic ambiguity, which can only be understood by connoisseurs. The main representatives of the closed style are Lambert de Oranga, Pere de Alvina and so on. The former poem "Oh, how splendid" says: "Ah, how splendid are the flowers that hang upside down on the cliffs/And on the hills!/What flowers? Snow, ice, and frost/It stings and hurts like a knife;/Because of this I see silence among the leaves and branches / Birds chirping and beasts whistling. / But the joy keeps me green and happy, / When I see the vile disappear..." The whole poem consists of six eight-line stanzas and two "Thor" "Nada" composition, the rhyme is abcdeeff, complex and ingenious, and the conception is fantastic; at the same time, some obscure words and innuendo are used, resulting in a style that can only be understood and understood by experts who know the inside story.
Should the Tubadus stick to narrow elitism or should they go the popular route? For this there was a famous "controversy" between Oranga and Bonaire. In the "debating poem" "Now I want to know, Giro", Oranga is the first to attack: "Now I want to know, Giro de Bonaire, / Why do you go to accuse / Locked style, according to what... . . . " Bonaire replied: "My Sir Ranall, I have no complaints/If everyone writes as they please./But, in my opinion/he will be more/respected/loved/if he writes Simple and simple..." In the debate, Bonaire believed that poetry should be clear and easy to understand and entertain the public; Auranga believed that poetry should be the work of spring and snow, without considering ordinary people - this can be said to be the earliest literature and art in European dialect literature Controversy is important.
The closed style seems to be a relatively short transitional form, gradually replaced by the opulent style because of its obscurity.
The gorgeous and complex style, or trobar prim/ric, is mainly characterized by focusing on the use of various rhetorical devices and rhyme forms, with clear meaning and complex form, and high technical difficulty. The most famous representative of the opulent style is Danielle. His famous love song "For this soft and graceful ditty" sings: "For this soft and graceful ditty / I forge words, chisel, plan, / After I file them again, / They will be together Tuned, accurate; / Eros soon came to polish and gild / My song, inspired it... / / I perfect myself daily, becoming purer, / For what I serve and worship is / The world The Most Noble—I can tell you this frankly. / I am hers, from head to toe, / Even if the wind blows, / The love that rains down on my heart / Keeps me warm even in the deepest winter...// I will not turn my back on 'pure love/--because of the pain I have endured, / Even if it leaves me alone, / I will try to rhyme its words...// I am Arnott, gather the wind,/ Riding a bull and hunting a rabbit, / Swimming against the tide." This shows the poet's unconventional style.
Danielle is imaginative, rich in poetic imagery, and pursues the richness and variety of rhythms and other sound effects. Even in the use of the most subtle rhetorical devices such as metaphors, puns, etc., Daniel pays attention to maintaining the distinction between masculine and feminine rhymes, alliterations are often repeated, or consonants are repeated, or vowels are repeated... In Almost each of Daniel's 18 extant poems has its own rhythm. What is especially admirable is that Daniele created the famous "six stanzas", which were imitated by many later poets, such as Dante, Petrarch, Spencer and Pound, Auden, Bishop and so on. Dante, in particular, was full of admiration for Danielle, calling him "a more excellent craftsman" in The Divine Comedy; in "On the Common Words", he repeatedly quoted his poems and called it "a song about love." "The Model Poet.
In fact, not only Daniel, but other Provencal poets also attach great importance to poetry. The Tubadus carve meticulously about their creations, pay attention to the tempering of words, use words accurately, and have tirelessly explored the rhythm, rhythm, rhythm, and sound of poetry. Therefore, in general, their poetry is neat in form, symmetrical in structure, harmonious in rhythm, and gorgeous in rhetoric. In their lyric poems, "the earliest rhythm in European poetry appeared for the first time."
In 1209, the feudal lords of northern France coveted the wealth and prosperity of Provence in the south and launched a war against it. The grand reason for the war was in response to the pope's call to expel the Albi religious heresy that had developed in the area. The so-called "Albi War" (1209-1229) lasted for twenty years, and finally the South Provence was defeated, and its highly developed culture was also broken. Tubadu died and escaped. Toubadou, who escaped, brought the art of Provencal lyric poetry to Italy, Spain and other countries, and further promoted the development of Renaissance lyric poetry. As A. Stein, an expert on medieval French literature, said: "The lyric poetry of the Renaissance is largely in line with the lyric poetry of the Provencal troubadours and the northern French troubadours."
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