Personae and Poiesis: The Poet and the Poem in Medieval Love Lyric [Reprint 2010 ed.] 9783110805352, 9789027934949

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DE PROPRIETATIBUS LITTERARUM edenda curat C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD Indiana University

Series Minor, 17

PERSONAL· AND POIESIS THE POET AND THE POEM IN MEDIEVAL LOVE LYRIC

by PROSPERO SAiZ University of Wisconsin

1976 MOUTON THE HAGUE . PARIS

© Copyright 1976 Mouton & Co B. V., Publishers, The Hague No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers

ISBN 90 279 34940

Printed in Belgium

PREFACE

Despite the recognition of its importance, medieval lyric poetry has not generally shared in the intensive and systematic comparative study enjoyed by poetry of other periods in our time. One of the aims of this book, therefore, is to promote interest in medieval lyric poetry, primarily but not exclusively, among medievalists of a comparative bent. It is, of course, also hoped that it may interest the non-specialist. Basically, this book proposes an approach to the medieval love lyric (primarily drawn from the Old Proven?al, the Old French, and the Middle High German traditions) that is based on the formal and contextual distinction between two basic types: (1) the lyric of the imagined event and (2) the lyric of the imagined state of being. The lyrics classified under the former contain a more objective, narrative or dramatic framework, while the lyrics covered by the latter contain a more personal or subjective viewpoint, in which the speaker's emotional experience is lyrically projected. Love situations in the lyric of the imagined state of being receive more of an internal emphasis, whereas in the lyric of the imagined event, love situations are presented from a perspective outside the action as regards the speaker. The outstanding examples of the lyric of the imagined event are the alba and the pastorela. In Chapter 2 the dramatic and narrative aspects of the poetics of the alba are explored; those of the pastorela are taken up in Chapter 3. In the last chapter attention is focused on a varied but representative corpus of lyrics that can be subsumed under the lyric of the imagined state of being. The concept of the

6

PREFACE

subjective speaker is studied in some detail here. The concept of metaphor and the fundamental structural bases of these lyrics are also touched upon. Hence, the personae of the title. These two ranges of lyric expression provide an effective context for comparative analyses of poetic forms within a kindred artistic tradition. At all times the guiding principle of the study has been to exemplify rather than to exhaust; and, for the most part, the point of departure has been the poetry itself rather than preconceptions about such topics as amour courtois or excessive concern about the origins of medieval love lyric. The treatment, therefore, has largely emerged from my preoccupation with a poem as a tissue of measured sounds, images, symbols, structure and all the various and complex elements that are part of the poetic texture of a lyric. Hence, the poiesis of the title. As the book in intended particularly for readers with knowledge of Old French, Old Provencal, Middle High German, as well as some Middle English and Medieval Latin, all the poems have been quoted in their original languages. Translations, unless otherwise stated, are mine. The List of References provides within itself, by reference to major bibliographies, the means of answering the medievalist's needs; the footnotes, it is hoped, should be of value to both the specialist and nonspecialist. Like other medievalists, I owe great and various debts to countless predecessors. I owe a very special gratitude to two of my former teachers, Professor John C. McGalliard and Professor Stavros Deligiorgis of the University of Iowa: both gave me their personal guidance and much encouragement. For the benefit of their writings, I am deeply indebted to Peter Dronke and James J. Wilhelm. Finally, appreciation must be expressed to my students who not only patiently listened to my lectures on medieval poetry, but also offered many valuable insights and critical comments concerning individual poems and poetics in general.

CONTENTS

Preface

5

1. Introduction

9

2. The Alba, Aube and Tageliet

23

3. The Pastourelle (Pastoreld)

55

4. The Lyric of the Imagined State of Being: Representative Tropes

87

Appendix A: Comparative Schema: The Alba and the Pastourelle

123

Appendix B: The Alba Tradition in Other Medieval Literatures

124

List of References

129

INTRODUCTION

Countless studies, no doubt, could be written on medieval lyric poetry. A student of the medieval lyric must from the beginning limit himself severely (even arbitrarily perhaps) if he wishes to achieve - within reasonable limits - an effective focus. This becomes particularly evident if one wishes to study the lyric across national and linguistic barriers - that is, if one wishes to achieve an effective focus from a comparative point of view. In undertaking such a study, therefore, one must resist the temptation of taking either the traditional historical approach or of writing an encyclopedic compilation of poets, poems and paraphrased summaries of poems in favor of a systematic, if inexhaustive, study.1 Obviously, the European tradition of medieval lyric poetry is so vast that it is virtually impossible to treat it as a whole. Yet, if one employs a suitable methodology, it is possible to treat it at least as a differentiated unity, in its Latin and vernacular manifestations. Thus, it seems most prudent in studying the medieval lyric to try to exemplify rather than to exhaust; this will be a guiding principle in this study. 1

Two critics who have devised highly successful ways of comparatively treating a large body of medieval lyric poetry are Peter Dronke in Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love-Lyric (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), and in The Medieval Lyric (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1968); and James J. Wilhelm in The Crudest Month: Spring, Nature, and Love in Classical and Medieval Lyrics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965). Both men strike a neat balance between methods which stem directly from the New Criticism and more traditional modes of criticism.

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INTRODUCTION

My purpose is to study two distinct kinds of medieval love lyric, concentrating primarily on examples drawn from Old Provencal, Old French, and Middle High German. The initial impetus for this approach stems from a keen critical perception made by Peter Dronke in The Medieval Lyric. He was able to distinguish two ranges of medieval love lyric: the first concerns itself "mostly with the state of being of men or women in love". The second consists of texts that ... have a more objective, narrative or dramatic, frame [and are] songs that grow out of imagined events rather than an imagined state. The majority of these songs can be grouped in two principal genres -alba and pastorela, as they came to be called in Provence.2

This view is partially supported by B. Woledge who, apropos of the alba, makes a parallel observation. Most albas, he says, ... contain a certain amount of dialogue, or a combination of narrative with direct speech (for this reason they are classified as 'dramatic' or Objective' poems in distinction to most ΡΓονεηςαΙ lyrics, in which the poet expresses his own love).3

The more personal "lyric of the imagined state of being" (to coin Dronke's phrase) deals with the state of mind of the persona rather than the poet's as Woledge would have us believe - and usually employs a metaphysical language of love. One might term this the poetry of direct involvement in which a speaker's emotional experience is lyrically projected. On the other hand, "the lyric of the imagined event" (to coin Dronke's second phrase) presents an imaginary love event in which personages other than the speaker 2

The Medieval Lyric, p. 167. While our discussion will concern itself with the alba and pastorela, it might be worthwhile to mention other medieval genres which contain a similar poetic configuration — the Old French chanson de toile and chanson de mal mariee and the Middle High German Wechsel. Alfred Jeanroy in Les Origines de lapoesie lyrique en France au Moyen Age, Deuxieme edition (Paris: Libraire Honore Champion, 1904), p. 84, has said of the Old French forms: "en effet, elles ne sont pas censees prononcees par le poete, mais par un ou plusieurs personnages etrangers lui, dans des circonstances auxquelles il se mele plus ou moins." 3 B. Woledge, "Old Provencal and Old French", in Arthur T. Hatto, ed., Eos: An Enquiry into the Theme of Lovers^ Meetings and Partings at Dawn in Poetry (The Hague: Mouton, 1965), p. 345.

INTRODUCTION

11

are involved. Love situations in the former are mainly of an internal nature, emphasizing moments of self-revelation or the persona's subjective philosophy. The lyric of the imagined event, in contrast, has a more objective structural framework; for it presents love situations from a perspective outside the action as regards the poem's persona or narrator. Whatever this kind of lyric reveals is presented in terms of an episode, as opposed to a tableau which is one of the controlling characteristics of the lyric of the imagined state of being. At the risk of oversimplifying, one could say that the lyric of the imagined event illustrates the wedding of language to action: it relies on the poetic representation of verbal action, since in it individuals are engaged in acting out expenence. The counterpart lyric stresses the representation of statement. In this kind of lyric the persona is interested in describing his emotional condition, and thus it might be seen as illustrating the wedding of language with subjective experience and feeling. Both ranges of love lyric, of course, imply action, but in the more objective lyric (represented by the alba and pastorela) the poet directs the action towards his audience, whereas in those poems which make up the counterpart, the poet appears to have his persona direct the actions towards himself. In the first part of the study, with the above essential differences in mind, I shall concentrate on the lyric of the imagined event by studying the dramatic and narrative aspects of the poetics of the alba in Chapter 2 and those of the pastorela in Chapter 3. In each chapter, that background information deemed essential will be furnished. Discussion of the individual poems, moreover, will not be strictly limited to dramatic considerations alone: the verbal and dictional systems that constitute the texture of individual poems will also be given attention. In the second part of the study, Chapter 4, I concentrate on a varied but representative group of lyrics that can be subsumed under the concept of the lyric of the imagined state of being. The term "personal" as applied to such lyrics creates a problem, for we cannot understand its full significance until we understand something about the various ways in which the poet is "present" in the poem. Obviously, this

12

INTRODUCTION

kind of lyric depends greatly for its poetic impact on the role or stance which the poet assigns to his persona. Thus, the concept of the persona is taken up at some length in Chapter 4, in order to try to gain an understanding of the ways in which the persona is employed. While the poetic persona seems to be a rather simple poetic element, it soon leads one to consider such important elements as metaphor and the fundamental structural bases of poems. A generalization that one might derive from this - and which will be explored later - is that an approach to the lyric of the imagined state of being must recognize the autonomy of the lyric speaker in order to begin to attain a comprehensive view of this sort of lyrical experience. The observations of Dronke (in particular) and Woledge, then, provide an imaginative stimulus, as well as an effective context, for comparative analysis of poetic forms within kindred artistic traditions. Their views, also, cause some important critical issues to surface. To recognize, for instance, that the alba and thepastorela have a more objective poetic frame is one thing; to explore the critical implications of such awareness and to try to precisely explain how "narrative" or "dramatic" elements are used in the two genres to achieve poetic ends is another. The critical stances of both Dronke and Woledge, obviously, call for complementary study. Such study perhaps ought to begin by considering the implicit problem of terminology which is suggested by their respective critical views.

TERMINOLOGY

The moment one uses the terms "narrative" and "dramatic" in the manner of Dronke and Woledge, two closely related difficulties arise: first, the terms themselves connote so many things that they finally mean nothing unless a distinct context for their significance is provided; second, the terms are commonly applied to literary productions other than the lyric. That is, in usual critical practice one does not speak of the lyric as being narrative or dramatic in

INTRODUCTION

13

the strict sense, since lyric poetry, whether sung or not, is usually thought of as presenting a single speaker who expresses a personal "state of mind" involving thought and feeling. But in the alba and the pastorela this is not true, for each contains various speakers, or, perhaps more aptly stated, dramatis personae: the lady, knight, and watchman of the alba, and the shepherdess and knight of the pastorela. The significance of this with regard to the two ranges of lyric to be considered should become apparent as the discussion of terms unfolds and as the poems themselves are analyzed. Narrative suggests a story or an ordering of events arranged in their time-sequence, and a narrator. It is conventionally thought of in terms of longer literary forms such as folktale, epic, legend, romance, allegory, and more recently the novel and the short story. Drama, of course, suggests a story as well, but not a narrator, and it is conventionally thought of as being the literary form designed for the theater. It portrays life and character through dialogue and action by direct presentation in which the characters act out what Aristotle termed an imitation (or representation) of such action as found in life.4 Plot and character are the primary ingredients of both narrative and drama. Plot implies a system of actions, or narrative events, which emphasizes causality. In both a story and a plot the preservation of the time-sequence is important, but in plot the idea of causality dominates. E. M. Forster offers this distinction between plot and story: 'The king died and then the queen died,' is a story. 'The king died, and then the queen died of grief is a plot. The time-sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.... Consider the death of the queen. If it is in a story we say 'and then?' If it is in a plot we ask 'why?'5 4

Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg, The Nature of Narrative (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 4. 5 E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (London: Edward Arnold and Company, 1927), p. 130.

14

INTRODUCTION

The characters are the persons who carry on the actions or participate in the events. "Action" includes physical actions - or gestures - which are perceived by the audience, as well as the verbal actions - dialogue - of the characters. In a sense, every speech, every gesture narrates. The actions can include even the mental action, the thoughts and emotions, of the characters. It cannot be denied that in most lyric expression there is normally a direct presentation, not unlike drama, in which one "actor", the poet or persona, speaks in such a way that we "overhear" his utterance. Therefore, if one is willing to recognize that in a poem it is a persona - not the poet - who utters the words, he can begin to grasp the basic dramatic character of even the "purest" lyric poetry. But there is a difficulty here: what is meant by a poetic persona? This is not a question easily answered. Wayne C. Booth, for example, has said: It is a curious fact that we have no terms either for this created 'second self or for our relationship with him. None of our terms for various aspects of the narrator is quite accurate. 'Persona,' 'mask,' and 'narrator' are sometimes used, but they more commonly refer to the speaker in the work who is after all only one of the elements created by the implied author and who may be separated from him by large ironies. 'Narrator' is usually taken to mean the T of a work, but the T is seldom if ever identical with the implied image of the artist.6

This is indisputable since the literary work is made up of words, composed by an individual, and spoken by a persona. The "I", the persona, cannot be identified with the artist, his creator, even though he may share several things with him. But as Booth shows, the persona is part of the work, and the author by definition must exist outside it. The persona is in the poem just as a character in a drama is in the play, and the artist, lyric poet or playwright, is always behind it, existing on a different metaphysical level. Although this does not tell us specifically how a persona functions in poems, one point is made evident:7 to note the persona in lyric 6

Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 73. 7 The word persona itself is most interesting. George T. Wright in The Poet in the Poem (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), p. 9, writes:

INTRODUCTION

15

poetry is almost to effect an identity between two very opposite literary forms. In a sense, every character in a play as he speaks becomes a lyric-self; he or she, so long as the speech lasts, presents a point of view. Dramatic form traditonally requires that one character be confronted with another, which is not usually true in the lyric, since it, in contrast to drama, normally presents only one speaker. But a clear-cut distinction cannot easily be made, particularly if one keeps in mind that the troubadours sang their own songs or had jongleurs perform them. This practice reminds one of the drama: the lyric poet composes a lyric for himself or the jongleur to sing, just as the dramatist composes speeches (words) for the character(s) to speak. The jongleur, it could be argued, becomes the lyric persona, and he changes his mask according to the different roles he is called upon to perform lover, observer, narrator, etc. When the poet adds other speakers, the lyric definitely moves toward drama. Robert Scholes suggests as much in Elements of Poetry: Drama usually implies actors on a stage impersonating characters who speak to one another in a sequence of situations or scenes.... We approach the dramatic element in poetry by assuming that every poem shares some qualities with a speech in a play: that it is spoken aloud by a "The history of the word persona, extruding as it does into so many areas of human activity, offers a useful illustration of the ways in which human experience can be stylized, and helps to illuminate the common formality of drama and lyric. The word itself has served as an instrument for the formalization of grammatical, legal, religious, and psychological, as well as dramatic, relationships that define in part the human situation. The origin of the word is obscure. We know it is the Latin for an actor's mask, possibly derived from personando (sounding through). If this etymology is correct, it suggests that the name, persona, was originally given to the mouthpiece of the mask which concentrated and amplified the voice of the speaker. Later, by a series of metonymic developments, it came to signify the mask of the actor, then the actor's role, and eventually any distinctive personage or individuality." Among the best direct theoretical discussions of the problem are Rebecca Price Parkin's The Poetic Workmanship of Alexander Pope (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1955), and Maynard Mack's "The Muse of Satire", Yale Review XLI (Autumn, 1951), 80-92; Richard Ellmann's Yeats: The Man and the Masks (New York: McMillan, 1948) is valuable to the student of personae; Robert Langbaum's The Poetry of Experience (New York: W. W. Norton, 1957) bears on the subject in a multitude of ways.

16

INTRODUCTION

'speaker' who is a character in a situation which implies a certain relationship with other characters; and we assume that this speech is Overheard' by an audience.8 It follows, then, that the lyric increases in dramatic intensity when it presents not the usual single point of view but a struggle between conflicting points of view - for example, the watchman versus the lady in the alba, or the shepherdess versus the knight in the pastorela. Considered in this light both generes are dramatic lyric forms, because in them, as in drama, dialogue becomes the primary vehicle for conveying human actions and attitudes. Dramatic form, moreover, requires that one person be confronted with another. This, as we shall see, is the hallmark of the alba and the pastorela. Conversely, should the speaker tell of an event and dwell on it, the lyric moves toward narrative. Again Scholes writes: The principal speaker in a narrative poem addresses us - the audience directly, telling us about the situation and perhaps offering us introductions to characters who function as dramatic elements in the poem.9 The alba employs this technique in a very limited sense; while it displays an intermingling of both elements, the dramatic element tends to be dominant. Yet, in some instances the line between the two elements is not readily perceptible, and one must closely scrutinize the poetic configuration of a given alba before making a determination as to its narrative or dramatic character. However, Scholes' statement describes the rhetorical situation of ti& pastorela quite precisely. There the knight addresses us directly and then introduces the shepherdess; she, together with the knight (the narrator), functions as a dramatic entity in the poem. Further, in the pastorela, the reader or hearer runs no risk of losing his time sense (this is not true of some albas), for the narrative proceeds, without interruption, on easily distinguishable time planes. Indeed, the pastorela works out an interesting structure in terms of the progression of tenses: the narrator begins by telling of a past event 8 9

Elements of Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 11. Ibid., p. 15.

INTRODUCTION

17

in which he was a participant, and all of his recollections - his descriptions, for instance, and his reporting of who said what at a given point - are told in the past tense. But in the dialogue, which arises from the confrontation between the knight and shepherdess, there is a progression from a straightforward past tense narration to a historical present. That is, the dramatis personae rely on the present tense to reveal what happened in a past event. This structuring is rather effective; for it develops gradually and gives a certain complexity (and air of probability) to the unified action of the love event. In treating both ranges of medieval love lyric, narrative and dramatic considerations must be viewed both in terms of literary tradition and of individual poetic treatment. But, as regards the alba and the pastorela, we can safely say that, at bottom, both genres share a very similar rhetorical structure, which is determined by a basic situation - the interrelation of the narrator or speaker and the various personages, as they address one another explicitly or implicitly. (For a comparative schema of the various elements that constitute the alba and the pastorela, see Appendix A). Obviously, in reading the poems one must be aware not only of this interrelation but he must observe as well how the rhetorical members interact. This means, among other things, that point of view, the relation in which the speaker stands to the event or the relation in which one character stands to another, must be closely considered in analyses of the poems. Finally, two more terms deserve brief treatment here - "subjective" and "objective". In critical usage the former can have at least two applications: it can be applied, descriptively, to compositions which emphasize a character's or, in the case of the lyric, a speaker's personal motives and internal facts of mind - rather than external action. Or the term can be applied to signify poems into which the poet himself projects - or seems to project - his private feelings or experiences. In such a context, therefore, Dronke's concept of the lyric of the imagined state of being is justified, as Chapter 4 will illustrate. The term "objective" is less troublesome; it signifies compositions in which the poet presents the thoughts,

18

INTRODUCTION

feelings and actions of his "invented" characters, while he remains relatively uninvolved or noncommittal. Similarly, in such a context, Dronke's concept of the objective lyric of the imagined event seems quite valid.

METHODOLOGY

An important consideration closely allied to the problem of terminology is that of methodology. The concept of two distinct, major ranges of lyric might be seen as suggesting a typology of medieval love lyric. Insofar as we are interested in accurate description and classification of poems this is so - but only in a very broad way. That is, the method of classification employed in this study does not adhere to the stringent proscriptions almost always specified by theorists who treat the concept of types.10 Of course, there are possible critical shortcomings to any typology, no matter how flexible the boundaries may be. In this study, however, we proceeded with the awareness that in adhering to any classification there is always at least one implicit disadvantage: in grouping lyrics according to one characteristic or another, one may inadvertently draw attention away from other considerations 10

An excellente example of such stringent definitions is provided by one of the leading theorists in the field, E. D. Hirsch in Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 50: "A type is an entity with two decisive characteristics. First, it is an entity that has a boundary by virtue of which something belongs to it or does not.... The second decisive characteristic of a type is that it can always be represented by more than one instance. When we say that two instances are of the same type, we perceive common ... traits in the instances and allot these common traits to the type. Thus a type is an entity that has a boundary by virtue of which something belongs to it or does not, and it is also an entity which can be represented by different instances or different contents of consciousness. It follows that a verbal meaning is always a type since otherwise it would not be sharable: If it lacked a boundary, there would be nothing in particular to share; and if a given instance could not be accepted or rejected as an instance of the meaning (the representational character of a type), the interpreter would have no way of knowing what the boundary was. In order that a meaning be determinate for another it must be a type."

INTRODUCTION

19

that may be of greater poetic importance. This often happens, for instance, in anthologies that classify either by subject or theme. But this pitfall can be avoided. The very fact that one subsumes various lyrical genres under a specific category and studies them comparatively minimizes the danger. For, in the very act of describing and selecting for classification, one must take into account and analyze the interactions of the various systems of poetic organization - imagistic and syntactic for example - which essentially create the dynamically expressive form, content, and meaning of the poems themselves. Finally, as was previously suggested, such an approach, properly implemented, offers the use of agglutinating concepts that systematically allow one to analyze and understand a large corpus of poetry, and simultaneously to study poems which might appear superficially varied but which in essence possess a kindred poetic configuration. This, of course, is of extreme value to the comparatist and in no way minimizes the unique contribution of a given poet or poem. Further, it might be added, the point of departure has been the poetry itself rather than preconceptions about the spirit of the age or preconceptions about amour courtois or concerns about the origins of medieval love lyric.11 In some respects, these are important areas of inquiry and will be touched upon whenever it becomes necessary in the course of the discussion; but, overall, such considerations are of minimal importance for this study. The treatment, therefore, has generally emerged organically from my preoccupation with 11

The problem of origins has attracted scholars in great numbers. Since the nineteenth century they have tried to discover the origins of vernacular lyric - particularly troubadour - poetry in three main sources: first, in popular songs; second, in medieval Latin poetry; third, in Mozarabic poetry (with the ultimate source being Arabic). The latter as a source is of particular fascination to modern scholars. Yet, what is interesting is that the attempts to discover the origins seem to cancel each other out. It is doubtful whether we now know more than when the question first arose in the nineteenth century. Should we try to pinpoint the origins? Only if the study of the lyric is to be a study of sources. It would seem, however, that one can only know the work of the imagination, if one knows first of all of what it is made. The flight from the object may perhaps lead to the discovery of new and fascinating materials, but the problem of how a poem came to be, ultimately, can only be solved in terms of what the poem itself is.

20

INTRODUCTION

a poem as a tissue of measured sounds, images, symbols, structure and all the various and complex elements that are part of the poetic texture of a lyric. Needless to say, certain problems must go begging in any study. For example, I have attempted no rigorous definition of the lyric. This does not mean that I reject the concept (the systematic classification proposed here postulates the existence of genres). There are two main reasons for not undertaking such a definition. First, the range of poetry studied is quite sufficient to give one a good idea of what lyric can be. But there is a more compelling reason which is excellently captured in this instructive observation by Reno Wellek (cited in full because of its extreme critical importance) : One must abandon attempts to define the general nature of the lyric or the lyrical. Nothing beyond generalities of the tritest kind can result from it. It seems much more profitable to turn to a study of the variety of poetry and to the history and thus the description of genres which can be grasped in their concrete conventions and traditions. Several German books have shown the way, though some have suffered from the confusion with general 'Geistesgeschichte.' I think of Karl Victor's 'Geschichte der deutschen Ode' (1923), Günther Müller's 'Geschichte der deutschen Liedes' (1925), F. Beissner's 'Geschichte der deutschen Elegie' (1941), or of Kurt Schlüter's 'Die englische Ode' (1964), all of which show an awareness of the paradoxical task: how can we arrive at a genre description from history without knowing beforehand what the genre is like and how can we know a genre without its history, without a knowledge of its particular instance. This is obviously a case of the logical circle which Schleiermacher, Dilthey and Leo Spitzer have taught us not to consider 'vicious.' It can be solved in the concrete dialectics of past and present, fact and idea, history and aesthetics. Psychological and existential categories such as 'Erlebnis,* subjectivity and 'Stimmung' accomplish nothing for poetics.12 In this study existential and psychological categories are discarded in favor of accurate description of genre in the context of empirically verifiable poetic convention and tradition. 12

Reno Wellek, "Genre Theory, the Lyric, and 'Erlebnis'", in Herbert Singer and Benno von Wise, eds., Festschrift für Richard Alewyn (Köln, 1967), p. 412.

INTRODUCTION

21

The rejection of the concept of genre and the consequent embracing of nominalism is symptomatic of some modern critics. The obvious example is, of course, Croce.13 Recently, Renato Poggioli made this incisive comment on the subject: On the theoretical plane, we may accept or reject Croce's denial of the validity of aesthetic categories, his paradoxical belief that literary and artistic genres do not exist, or that they exist only as fictitious classification devices. The partial aesthetic truth contained in this extreme negation prevails in modern critical practice: ... almost all the critics of our time may well begin by describing or explaining a literary work within a frame of reference of the pertinent genre, only to discard or transcend that frame of reference as soon as they are faced with the task of evaluation.14

This suggests that genre is now rarely more than a ready-made portmanteau term like epic, romance, lyric serving for greater convenience in description.15 Perhaps its value as such is very limited. Nonetheless, the genre may be an object of investigation, an end-product ascertained by empiric examination of related individual works. Each poem can be taken separately and can be carefully and thoroughly examined on the basis of criteria extracted from itself. And, of course, all aspects and levels of meaning must be followed as far as possible. Vital factors must be extracted from their secrets, so that the critic may penetrate through them 13

Croce's position presupposes certain logical as well as certain epistemological premises, and in order to effectively answer a Crocean view, one would have to examine the validity of his assumptions. Croce himself has admitted this. Brother James Leo Kinneavy's "Introduction", in A Study of Three Contemporary Theories of Lyric Poetry (Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1956) clearly states the alternative postulates upon which a refutation could be based. Also, at the level of literary theory, J. Craig La Driere's article, "Classification", in Dictionary of World Literature (New York, 1943), pp. 102 ff., carefully examines the bases of Croce's aesthetics and sets forth an adequate beginning for the rejection of expressionist-nominalist - aesthetics. 14 Renato Poggioli, "Poetics and Metrics", The Spirit of the Letter (Cambridge, 1965), p. 344. 15 For extensive treatment of this aspect of the problem, see Κβηέ Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature, 3rd ed., Chapter 17 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1956), pp. 226 if.

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INTRODUCTION

to any critical revelations - poetical and historical - to which poems of a certain kind can be intimately connected. This is of paramount importance not only for purposes of this study, but, in a real sense, for the very discipline of comparative literature itself, since by definition it concerns itself with "clusters", indeed with the universal, to illustrate the "unique" in the literary experience.

THE ALBA, AUBE AND TAGELIET

The "dawn song", perhaps the most universal of all poetic forms, has enjoyed a world-wide tradition since at least the thirteenth century B.C.1 This chapter will concern itself with this highly specialized kind of poetry, and in particular with its Western European medieval form. The primary examples of "alba expression" will be drawn from each of the three major traditions: the Old Provencal alba,2 written in langue d'oc, the Old French aube* and the Middle High German tageliet^ To minimize confusion the term alba will be used to refer to all three traditions.5 1

For a survey of the "dawn song" in world literature, see Arthur T. Hatto, ed., Eos: An Enquiry into the Theme of Lovers' Meetings and Partings at Dawn in Poetry (The Hague: Mouton, 1965). For a brief sketch of the limited development of the medieval alba in other major Western European literatures, see Appendix B. 2 Alfred Jeanroy in La Poesie lyrique des troubadours, 2 vols. (Paris: Toulouse, 1934), p. 339, lists sixteen poems as albas, but cautions that some are not genuine albas. B. Woledge in an article on "Old Proven9al and Old French" in Hatto's Eos cites nine distinct albas, including one which he says was discovered after Jeanroy's work. 3 Woledge (p. 346) includes five works which deal with the dawn parting in Old French, two of which he says are not classed as aubes but are instead called motets. He has dated the nine albas and five aubes (including the two motets) between the late twelfth and early fourteenth centuries (p. 349). 4 Hatto supplies us with eighteen German tageliet dating from the mid-twelfth century through the fifteenth century, although he refers to seventy-five examples as the basis for his article on "Mediaeval German" (pp. 428-445) in Eos. Peter Dronke in The Medieval Lyric (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1968), p. 177, cites the Codex Buranus (c. 1220) as the oldest MS preserving a German alba, although he also speaks of an older tradition of the "dawn song" in Germany. 5 The Old Provencal alba, written in langue d'oc, in all probability influenced

24

THE ALBA, AUBE, AND TAGELIET

Scholars have often considered the alba as a static literary form, and perhaps this has led to the low esteem generally accorded it. Jeanroy, for example, considered it to be relatively insignificant and composed only by second-rate poets. He gave only two of them the distinction of having lasting merit: "parmi toutes ces pieces, deux seulement miritent de retenir 1'attention."6 His attitude is not atypical. Indeed, a recent writer, B. Woledge, disagreeing with Saintsbury, one scholar who accorded the alba some distinction,7 pays tribute to Jeanroy's appraisal; for he "more harshly and with more truth, places the alba amongst the minor genres".8 More recently, James J. Wilhelm in The Crmlest Month has similarly suggested that "there are only two specimens" which might be called "great", although he does not say why this should be so.9 the Northern French aube and both, in turn, influenced the Middle High German tageliet. The poets of Northern France, while writing in their own vernacular, appear to have imitated the Old Provencal models in both convention and subject matter. But there are old fragments suggesting an indigenous tradition of the aube. It was customary, for example, in Old French literature to quote from poems in the context of other poems and often fragments of the aube appear in this fashion. The following refrain from an aube appears in the context of an Old French pastourelle: "deus, tant mal mi fait la guaite/ ki dist: sus, or sus, or sus!/ li jors n'est pas venus." (Karl Bartsch, Romances et Pastourelles Francoises des XIIe et XIIIe siecles, 1870, reprinted Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1967, p. 301). The widely diffused general influence of the Romance lyric on the Middle High German lyric is well established. Istvän Frank in Trouveres et Minnesänger (Saarbrücken: West-Ost-Verlag, 1952) shows that the incidence of trouvere influence is higher than that of the troubadours. Thus the conventions of the genre - commonplaces and images as well as formal structure - became known in Germany and a rather extensive tradition of the "dawn song" developed. Although considered a minor genre of the Minnesinger, the tageliet enjoyed a wide and varied range of handling, including secular and religious tageliet (the singular and plural forms of the term are identical), as well as parodies and satires on the genre itself. 6 Jeanroy, La Poesie lyrique, p. 296. 7 George Edward Bateman Saintsbury, The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Chivalry (= Periods of European Literature ) (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 366. 8 Woledge, "Old Provencal and Old French", p. 345. 9 The Crudest Month: Spring, Nature and Love in Classical and Medieval Lyrics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), p. 202.

THE ALBA, AUBE AND TAGEL1ET

25

Criticism has not been so ungenerous to the Middle High German productions, but it has been defensive. This is surprising in view of the fact that a very large number of such poems have come down to us, and one can trace the genre's poetic development with a fair amount of ease. Yet recently, A. T. Hatto - emphasizing theme rather than poetics - has written: ...the vast majority of tageliet are variations of the theme described (the meeting and parting of lovers at dawn).... Merit must therefore be sought within narrower limits perhaps than in any other tradition of dawn poems, and modern critics must accommodate themselves to the medieval point of view, charitably bearing in mind that the poet's best work generally went into the elaborate strophic patterns and tunes of which the latter are now largely lost.10

It is time to cease apologizing for these lyrics and to begin to view them as significant poetic compositions within the boundaries of their own aesthetic aims and potentialities. To be sure, that they are rather conventional cannot be denied; but that they exhibit a significant degree of internal and external diversity, allowing for a varied range of poetic expression, can be illustrated. Most descriptions of the alba tend to stress the meeting and parting of the lovers: a thematic, rather than poetic, consideration. This, in part, might account for the low esteem in which some critics have held it. There has been no dearth of attempts to define the alba, but it has tended to elude precise definition. For example, in the course of his inquiry into the justification for speaking of the Provengal alba as a separate genre of poetry, Wilhelm, in a chapter entitled "The Alba and the Fallacy of Generic Classification", came to the conclusion that such a classification has no meaning: It is obvious that the generic name really tells us nothing except that the poem concerns a dawn setting and some kind of love: the love of God or the love of woman.11

10 11

Hatto, "Mediaeval German", p. 430. The Crudest Month, p. 202.

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THE ALBA, AUBE AND TAGELIET

As a result of this assertion, he implicitly suggests that one should avoid the term alba.12 But he himself is unable to do this. For, in fact, he ends up by classifying the albas he studies — the Phebi claro, the anonymous En un vergier sotz folha d'albespi, and Guiraut de Bornelh's Reis glorios, verais lums e clartatz - as religious, secular, and secular-religious albas. Further, he bewails the fact that the "rhetorical elements in the two greatest (the anonymous Oi Deusl and Guiraut's poem) are so finely interwoven that they cannot be separated".13 Unfortunately, his argument relies too much on theme - which tends to obviate his own often interesting analyses of the individual poems. Other critics have had similar difficulties. Georg Schlager in Studien über das Tagelied, somewhat ironically dismissing the problem altogether, relegates poems containing the word alba to this category: Das band, welches alle diese gedichte zusammenhält, ist rein ausserlicher, zufällinger art, ohne jeden genetischen Zusammenhang mit der situation: das strophenweis wiederkehrende wort alba an signifikanter stelle.14

B. Woledge speaks of the difficulty of defining the Provencal alba "because the genre shades off into other genres, and critics do not always agree which poems are albas and which are not".15 In 12

Ibid. The term alba usually refers only to Old Provencal and is nearly a direct opposite of the paraklausithwon in which the lover does not sexually enjoy the lady as in the alba but rather waits pathetically outside the door until the dawning. (See Propertius 1,16; Ovid, Amores, 1, 6.) In the Aeneid(4.585 f.) we read: "ut primam albescere lucem vidit"; this is perhaps the earliest and clearest use of a derivative of alba, white, in direct relation to dawn. Yet there is no evidence of an actual dawn form in the classical world, where the paraklausithuron prevails. Virgil's term appears again in Prudentius' Morning Hymn as follows - lux intrat, albescit polus, Christus venit. The word alba itself appears for the first time in the refrain of the Phebi claro - "L'alba par umet mar atra sol" (written in Latin and Provencal and dated as early as the 800's by some scholars and the 1100's by others). It is interesting to note that the refrain after the Phebi claro becomes a deeply rooted convention of the alba. 13 The Cruelest Month, p. 202. 14 Studien über das Tagelied (Jena, 1895), p. 25. 15 Woledge, p. 345.

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such instances, obviously, a determination can only be made in terms of close comparative analysis, rather than by virtue of predetermined conceptions. The problems of definition should not unduly concern us here, however; for those critics who find exact description elusive almost inevitably - after initial despair and exasperation - conclude with a listing of its characteristic features. Thus, Jeanroy's classic definition still adequately demonstrates the primary characteristics of the alba: II s'agit, dans Taube, de la separation, au point du jour, de deux amants qui ont passo la nuit ensemble, et que le lever du soleil, annonc6 ordinairement par le cri d'un veilleur de nuit, avertit de se quitter. Ces trois personnages sont comme sterootypes; leur prosence est le trait caracteristique du genre. La piece est remplie, soil par les avertissements du second, soit par les plaintes, les regrets, les promesses qu'echangent les premiers.16

The suggestion that the personages are stereotyped requires modification. Perhaps it would be more accurate to describe them as typical lovers in a typical human (love) situation. In literature, after all, universal human experience is ordinarily presented in a formalized manner, with the nuances which distinguish one event from another growing out of particular, individual situations. The events (or actions) do not really occur, since the characters exist only within the confines of the poem. George T. Wright in The Poet in the Poem states it thus: Characters in literature have no extension in space or time beyond the limits of the work in which they appear; they have, on the other hand, a kind of extendability, a symbolic dimension, that the matter-of-fact persons of our acquaintance do not have. Together with the literary context in which they appear, they objectively represent something larger than any group of persons in actual life can ever objectively represent. That is, in 'real life' we ascribe to persons a typicality or a symbolic function that they do not really have; there is no such thing as a typical 16

Alfred Jeanroy, Les Origines de la poesie lyrique en France au Moyen Age, 2nd ed., (Paris: Honore Champion, 1904), pp. 61-62.

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American or a man of the people outside our speculations, there are only various men. In a novel or poem, however, the typicality of a man is objectively there, placed intentionally by the writer for us to see; his symbolic function, like his symbolic context, is an inseparable part of him.17

Thus, a character in the alba, seen in this light, is "a formalization of our experience of actual human beings, as the literary context in which he appears is a formalization of more general human experience".18 Jeanroy's definition makes no mention of the fact that in the alba the language tends to be frank and colorful. The character of the lady is dominant; while she has previously been wooed and won, her role is one of passion and anguish, imposed upon her because of the necessary parting. In this sense, it is a woman's song, telling of her joys and sorrows in love. In some instances the watchman (gaitd) does not appear, and the dawn is announced instead by a bird. When the watchman does appear, he is usually friendly towards the lovers and shows anxiety lest they be discovered by the outside world of angry parents or scandalmongering neighbors (Old Provengal lauzengier, Old French losengeor, and Middle High German lügenaere or merkaere) or, more importantly, from discovery by the gilos. The outside world is a constant threat to the lovers, as Chaucer's passage, which relies on alba convention, from The Compleynt of Mars shows: 'Gladeth ye foules, of the morow gray, Lo! Venus risen among yon rowes rede! And floures fresshe, honoureth ye this day; For when the sonne uprist, then wol ye sprede. But ye lovers, that lye in any drede, Fleeth, lest wikked tonges yow espye; Lo, yond the sonne, the candel of lelosye! (H. 1-7)

The birds are the harbingers of dawn. Nature rejoices at daybreak in contrast to the lovers who, fearing discovery by the "wikked 17

The Poet in the Poem (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), p. 8. 18 Ibid.

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tonges", must now separate. The elements of secrecy and danger stressed by Chaucer's imperative "Fleeth" also lend a poignancy to the love experience treated here. Since the meeting and parting are expected, it is the signalizing of dawn that cuts short their sexual joys - or renews and intensifies them hurriedly before parting. Dawn, therefore, takes on symbolic dimensions: it symbolizes reality - the real waking world - and the unceasing passage of time, which the lovers must ultimately acknowledge and which inspires dread in them - particularly in the lady who fears being discovered but who fears being deserted even more.19 Before looking at the finer poetic aspects of the alba, it might be instructive to illustrate the preceding thematic points and content considerations. An interesting way of doing this might be through parody of the genre. Berthold Steimnar of Clingenouwe (attested between 1251 and 1288) does just this; he views the genre from a perspective of gentle parody, by writing a feeble, ridiculous version of a tageliet. Although it does not imitate the usual stylistic features of the alba, such as the use of dialogue, it does contain most of the basic thematic features of the genre: secrecy, the announcing of daybreak, and renewed fervor before parting. Steinmar's parody strips the alba down to its bare bones, to the content, in contradistinction to the exceedingly style conscious alba tradition: 1. Ein kneht der lac verborgen bi einer dime er slief unz üf den liehten morgen: der hirte lüte rief 'wol üf, läz üz die hert!' des erschrac diu dime und ir geselle wert. 2. Daz strou daz muost er rumen und von der lieben varn. er torste sich niht sümen, er nam si an den am. daz hol daz ob im lac daz ersach diu reine üf fliegen in den tac. 19

(5)

(10)

For a classic and complete treatment of dawn as a threat to mankind, see Ovid's Elegy XIII of the Atnores.

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3. Da von si muoste erlachen, ir sigen diu ougen zuo. so suoze künde er machen in dem morgen fruo mit ir daz bettespil; wer sach an geraete ie fröiden me so vil!20

(15)

In this instance, the lover is a farm-laborer sleeping with a rustic girl (ironically called "the pure one" in line 13); the watchman is a herdsman who, instead of announcing the dawn, roughly rouses them with a call to tend the herd (11. 4-6). The usual idealized nature setting is reduced to a pile of straw that covers them. The lass is not at all perturbed but instead laughs at the situation, and the poet derisively informs us that the "lover" could sweetly play the bed-game and exclaims in the last line: "whoever saw so much pleasure with so few resources!" Steinmar's version does not stress dialogue, hence apparent technique; his parody is accomplished through narration. However, dialogue is of central importance to the alba - there are no complete albas without dialogue or at least monologue. The feelings, thoughts, and actions of the lady, lover, and watchman are expressed through dialogue (or monologue) which, therefore, becomes an important structural factor. But for Steinmar's purposes the use of dialogue was hardly an important consideration; for the weight of the convention, doubtless, was such that one could readily detect the genre from the opening lines. In Steinmar's parody, for instance, the words "unz üf den morgen" (l. 3), together with the herdsman's rough call (11. 4-5), serve this function. Hatto, in this connection, has remarked: The signs of dawn are introduced... merely to unleash the conventional action of a lover's parting, so that the chasm between inward emotions and impressions of the external world is bridged precariously and only for a moment.21

Of course, this is a generalization, particularly as regards the last part of the statement. It is, nonetheless, an important generaliza20 21

Karl Bartsch, Die Schweizer Minnesänger (Frauenfeld, 1886), p. 179. Hatto, "Mediaeval German", pp. 435-436.

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tion, and one which we ought to bear in mind as we now proceed to study various examples of the alba. Its importance lies in the fact that the poetic success of a given composition may greatly though not entirely - depend on how the signs of dawn are introduced and fused with the elements, previously surveyed, which shape the love event.

WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH'S SINE KLÄWEN

In our first example, the introduction of dawn is most imaginatively conceived, as Wolfram, in the first four lines of the first stanza, paints the dawn thus: 1. Sine kläwen durh die wölken sint geslagen, er stiget uf mit grözer kraft, ich sih in gräwen tägelich als er wil tagen, den tac, der im geselleschaft erwenden wil, dem werden man, den ich mit sorgen in bi naht verliez. ich bringe in hinnen, ob ich kan. sin vil manigiu tugent mich daz leisten hiez.22

(5)

Dronke says of the first four lines: Such a personification of dawn is unparalled in the alba. The image 'dawns' only gradually: at first, for two lines, it is nothing but a cruel, monstrous animal of menacing strength - only in the third line does it grow 'day-like', only in the fourth does it explicitly become day itself. Thus Wolfram evokes the moments from numb apprehension to conscious fear in the lady's thoughts.23

Dronke's application of the metaphor of the first four lines to the lady in line ten of stanza two, where the lady appears and speaks for the first time, is perhaps too abrupt. It does not take into account the fact that the entire first stanza is spoken (sung) by the watchman: it is his song, his perception and announcement of dawn, not the lady's. 22

Carl von Kraus, Deutsche Liederdichter des 13. Jahrhunderts (Tubingen, 1952), l, 69, . 23 The Medieval Lyric, p. 179.

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He is functioning at this point as both a narrator and a character. As narrator he provides this information to the audience: it is dawn, the sun is about to break through the clouds; the day will deprive the man, whom he describes as a noble man, of his companion; he does not mention the lady; his concern is for the man only, since the watchman has, at great risk to himself, let him in (this is the first clue provided as to the location). The watchman is not sure he can succeed in safely getting out his friend, whose many admirable qualities induced him to let him in (11. 7-8). This is one level of meaning. But there is a second, that which applies to the speaker as a character involved in the action and in the plot. His song makes a strong appeal to the senses, for in it he portrays the dawning as a bird of prey whose kläwen rip apart the clouds. In this way day is represented as coming to prey on the lovers, and the motif of day as an object of dread dominates the lines. This raises two questions: will the lovers look upon day with the same anxiety? Is the watchman more afraid for his companion - at a discursive level he has so indicated - or for himself? It would seem that he fears more for himself, because it is his metaphorical view of the sunrise that we hear (and see). Yet we cannot be sure until the other characters are introduced. They, in the meantime, have been warned by the watchman's song. Before observing their response, let us consider yet another poetic dimension of the first stanza: it is as though the poet, through the watchman, were drawing the curtain, with his great opening vision of morning, to prepare us to observe a highly dramatic event with four actors: (1) the dawn, (2) the watchman, (3) the woman, and (4) the knight (a silent but virile participant). This indeed is a most clever way of setting the stage and providing "director's comments", as it were. In stanza two the central character, the passionate lady of this drama in miniature, responds to the watchman's announcement: 2. 'Wahtaer, du singest daz mir manige fröide nimt unde mSret mine klage,

(10)

THE ALBA, AUBE AND TAGELIET

maere du bringest, der mich leider niht gezimt, immer morgens gegen dem tage, diu solt du mir verewigen gar. daz gebiut ich den triuwen din: des Ion ich dir als ich getar. so belibet hie der geselle min.'

33

(15)

She is not as alarmed as the watchman at the coming of day and indirectly accuses him of taking hei joys - manigefröide - from her and refers to her lament - klage. This is ironic for the Wahtaer has been up all night enduring discomfort on the lovers' behalf, while they have enveloped themselves in joy: to her the night seems very short but to the watchman it seems too long. The Wahtaer has in a sense been retained by the lovers to warn them of any danger but the lady now does not wish to hear the truth and irrationally orders him to keep the truth from her.24 Her next irrational utterance (11. 15-16) is an offer of a reward if the watchman can somehow manage to stave oif day and keep the knight safe with her.25 Psychologically, love and the fear of separation have put her into this state. She, like a character in a play, communicates directly. Indirectly, of course, the poet provides a statement on the powers of sexual love. But the watchman disregards her klage (at this juncture we begin to have some sympathy for him) and safeguards the lovers' interest by offering good advice: 24

It is interesting to note that in most medieval albas the watchman is very duty conscious. In this regard it is most interesting to contrast the failure of Alectryon in myth: "In ... myth Ares and Aphrodite lie abed when Helios, the Sun, espies them caught in the subtle net which Hephaestus has made for his erring wife. In a variant of this Homeric story, Alectryon, posted by his friend Ares to warn him before Hephaestus should come, fails in his duty and is changed into the cock betokened by his name...." Hatto, "Mythology", in Eos, p. 70. 25 The lady in the alba is always in dread of the dawn and wishes that night would become eternal, thus prolonging her bliss. But since the alba is a genre that stresses realism, the lady's wish is never granted. In ancient myth, in contrast, there are several examples of lengthened night, the classic one being the reunion of Odysseus and Penelope at the conclusion of the Odyssey.

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3.

muoz et hinnen balde und äne seinen sich: nu gip im urloup, süeze wip. läze in minnen her nach so verholne dich, daz er behalte ere und den lip. er gap sich miner triuwe also, daz ich in brachte ouch wider dan. er ist nu tac; naht was ez, dö mit drucken an die brüst din kus mir in an gewan.'

(20)

He has the knight's interest at heart and wants him to save both ere (honor, reputation) and lip (life). He speaks of his faithfulness and says that for a dangerous love such as theirs verholne (secrecy) is best, particularly if they wish to love again in the future. He emphasizes the difference between their love-making during the night which protected them and now when daytime brings danger: "er ist nu tac; naht was ez, dö/ mit drucken an die brust din kus mir in an gewan", he ends. The lady dismisses his song in the fourth stanza with these curt words: "Swaz dis gevalle, wahtaer sine", then she asks him to allow the knight who has given and received love to stay with her. She also points out that in the past they have both always taken alarm at his song, and she admonishes the watchman for having given alarm on past occasions even before sunrise: 4. 'so ninder der morgenstern yf gienc yf in, der her nach minne ist kommen, noch ninder lyhte tages lieht, du hast in dicke mir benomen von blanken armen, und yz herzen nieht.'

This speech is interesting for two reasons: first, it emphasizes the fact that the watchman is more interested in the knight's safety and well-being than in the lady's pleasures. They are mild antagonists, in fact, but the lady subdues him. At this point it becomes clear why the watchman described day as he did: he is damned if he does his job and damned if he does not. In the poem's context he is suspended between pathos and humor - it is as difficult to

THE ALBA, AUBE AND TAGELIET

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sympathize fully with him as it is to discharge a belly laugh at him. Second, ironically, the lady stresses that her bond with her lover transcends physical absence by introducing the theme of the heart as the true dwelling place of love. In this connection, J. E. Cirlot notes that the brain, the heart, and the sexual organs comprise the three focal points in the vertical scheme of the human body. He goes on to say: But the central point is the heart, and in consequence it comes to partake of the meanings of the other two.... for all centres are symbols of eternity, since time is the motion of the periphery of the wheel of phenomena rotating around the Aristotelian 'unmoved mover.'26

While the heart implies happiness as well as illumination, for her, happiness requires physical contact. She cannot bear physical separation and her love thus cannot transcend the physical. The reference to the heart appropriately caps off the dialogue; the lady has revealed both her emotions and her psychological state. Also, we are made to realize that she is the dominant character in the poem: first, she subdues the watchman (in the dialogue she has the last word); second, the silence of her lover underscores this, as well as the fact that she endangers his life by retaining him until she has her will. This is portrayed in the final stanza in which there is no dialogue: 5. Von den blicken, die der tac tet durh diu glas, und dö [der] wahtaere warne sane, si muose erschricken durch den der da bi ir was. ir brüstelm an brüst si dwanc der riter ellens niht vergaz (des wold in wenden wahtaers dön): urloup nähe und näher baz mit küsse und anders gab in minne Ion.

(40)

Rather abruptly, then, we are taken from the world of encounter (drama) and thrown into the strictly narrative dimensions of the composition, as a persona, who has not spoken previously, takes 26

J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols (New York: Philosophical Library, 1962), p. 135.

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control. This persona, like the watchman as narrator of the first stanza, provides information but he is more objective, since he enjoys a distance from the event that the watchman as participant cannot possibly enjoy. The function of this persona is to interpret the preceding event, that is, to present a more objective, omniscient point of view. He narrates in the past tense. And it is at this point that we definitely learn that the lovers are inside - the gleam of day has come through the window. The light of day appears menacing to him, though to a lesser degree than it does to the watchman, since he sees it the way one would ordinarily see it, as "gleams (blicken) the day shot through the panes". The persona also adds causation, telling us the lady was afraid - not so much at the watchman's announcement (she viewed him as an alarmist anyway) but at the actual physical fact that light had penetrated to their love nest. Moreover, she was specifically afraid for the knight (1. 35) and "pressed her tiny breasts against his chest". This is the first and only physical description we get of anyone in the entire poem. When the watchman mentioned her breast (1. 24), he made no mention of proportion. In contrast, the descriptive touch added in this stanza gives one a feeling that she is rather young, yet she controls the situation. Throughout, the knight has said nothing - we know nothing about him - but now the narrator ironically mentions his courage, by saying that, in disregarding the watchman's song (which was meant to deprive him of his courage, according to the narrator) and making love to the lady again, the "knight did not forget his courage". As the lady presses her small breasts against her lover's chest, her fear turns to fresh desire: "urloup näh unde näher baz/ mit küsse und anders gab in minne Ion." Dronke says these lines reflect "a sensuality born out of danger itself".27 In this example, as in many albas, an important motif is that of urloup: the sweet sorrows of parting tend to prompt renewed enjoyment of love. Here the poet wisely saves the motif for the last two lines of the composition, where the narrator gives us a very discreet but ironic hint of 27

The Medieval Lyric, p. 179.

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37

the leave-taking, with kissing and much else given as minne Ion (love's reward). The poem in a sense has a circular structure. It begins with strong subjective description and ends with a finely subdued objective description of love-making. For three stanzas it is a brief concentrated drama played by four actors. The conflict is intensified first by the lady's reckless refusal to let her lover be taken away by the approaching dawn, then by the newly aroused knight's determination to ignore the watchman's warning call and resume love's embraces. The impending presence of dawn accentuates the lovers' passionate and extended farewell. Though the watchman has his own and the lovers' welfare in mind, his warning goes unheeded in the passion of the moment before dawn. The narrative mode employed in this final stanza leaves much to the reader's imagination, for the narrator provides only the slightest hints about the tender act of love between the lady and the knight.28

GUIRAUT DE BORNELH'S REIS GLORIOS

From the dialogue between the lady and the watchman in the Sine kläwen we now move to the watchman's monologue in Guiraut de Bornelh's Reis glorios. In its simple eloquence it is 28

The genre with its concentration on a single event, its dramatic and narrative possibilities, was a natural for Wolfram, who has left us four excellent examples of the tageliet. He was, in fact, the first Minnesinger to adopt the fully developed type of the Provencal alba with the figure of the watchman as herald of dawn. Although space does not allow discussion of all his tageliet, there is nevertheless great dramatic power and narrative skill displayed in each of them, as the watchman's role develops from a minor one in Es ist nu tac and in Den morgenblic bi wahtaers sane erkös (which mentions his song in the first line) to a very significant personal part in the Sine kläwen and in Von der zinnen in which the watchman ironically salutes the dawn. In Der helden minne ir klage he rejects the conventions by praising love within marriage which is contrasted to the illicit love relationship of the alba. In this poem he underscores the moral concept of triuwe (which was used ironically in Sine kläwen) which is possible only within the context of the family, and of lesser importance he implies the Platonizing aspects of Minnesang, whereas the alba lays stress on the sensual aspects of love. For a scholarly critique and chronology of these tageliet, see Kurt Plenio, Beobachtungen zu Wolframs Liedstrophik (Betrage zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 1916), pp. 47-127.

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one of the most interesting and original of Provencal albas. The metrical structure is simple and precise: six stanzas of four tensyllable lines rhyming aabb, with each set of rhymes repeated for two successive stanzas. A six-syllable refrain following each stanza conveys the dawn motif of the poem:29 "Etadesseral'alba!" The dread of dawn, which signalizes the impending parting of the lovers, extends to the watchman who is the "voice" of the poem. There are at least two different versions of the poem; here we are referring to the version which has only one speaker, the watchman (another version with a final stanza in which the lover speaks will be discussed later). Indeed, the watchman is the only speaker in the poem. As speaker, he assumes two masks, one as persona and the other as an "actor" in a tense situation. In this version we are forced to assume that an "internal audience" exists, consisting of the two lovers, the knight and the lady. While they are neither seen nor heard, they are a part of the ethical problem to which the speaker addresses himself. In this way, the "internal audience" and subject matter are one. The watchman's utterance can be called a dramatic monologue. Traditionally, this term is used to mean that a single character speaks as in a soliloquy. However, in a stage soliloquy the speaker does not address other characters or even the audience, but rather the audience "overhears" him talking to himself. The watchman's monologue is thus distinguished from a stage soliloquy, since he does directly address other entities. A monologue can be called dramatic when it contains the following characteristics: (1) a single person (not the poet) speaks at a critical moment; (2) he addresses one or more characters who are not present before us but are revealed to us through the monologue; and (3) it is so contrived that the monologue reveals the character, or personality, of the speaker. 29

The same dawn motif occurs in the framework of a Wechsel by Heinrich von Morungen (Owe, sol aber mir iemer me). The alternating strophes spoken by the man and the lady respectively are completed by the echoing refrain - "do taget ez" - which is quite similar to the "Etades sera 1'alba" of the Reis glorios. Here also the first stanza emphasizes the image of light - in this case, the radiance emanating from the lady is mistaken for moonlight.

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39

The watchman's words adhere to this description in the following ways: (1) He alone speaks at a critical moment in time - dawn is approaching and will interrupt the lovers' meeting and his lonely vigil. (2) He addresses his friend; the listener (or readei) learns from his address clues to the character of the friend. (3) The monologue is, finally, contrived to reveal in progressive stages the watchman's character and temperament. To see how these points function in the lyric, we will look at it stanza by stanza, bearing in mind the highly formal objective distance created by the rhetoric of the monologue. The opening stanza with the watchman's magnificent invocation has been variously described as an ode to the sun30 and as a hymn to Christ:31 1. '"Reis glorios, verais lums e clartatz, Deus poderos, Senher, si a vos platz, AI meu companh siatz fizels aiuda; Qu'eu non lo vi, pos la nochs fo venguda, Et ades sera 1'alba!32

(5)

Although religious, allegorical and moralistic interpretations have been made of the lyric, it seems perhaps more appropriate to interpret it as a secular love poem, since the tone of the opening hymn is not carried through the rest of the lyric. Although throughout the language is eloquent, the poem moves from religious invocation to a denouncement of the lovers by the watchman. As it unfolds, an implicit struggle between conflicting points of view is disclosed: the watchman who begins as the "friendly protector" of the lovers progressively moves toward the opposite pole as his comrade proves to be unresponsive to his song. Just as in the preceding poem where the loveis' pleasure imposed discomfort on the watchman, here also the watchman's ordeal and increasing anxiety are contrasted by implication with the lovers' satisfying 30

William T. H. Jackson, The Literature of the Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), p. 251. 31 Wilhelm, p. 198. 32 A. Kolsen, Sämtliche Lieder des Trobadors Guiraut de Bornelh, I (Berlin, 1910), p. 342.

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sexual encounter. Their pleasant evening rendezvous has meant his nightlong distress; their implied renewal of that enjoyment after his announcement extends his ordeal. Thus, in the opening stanza the watchman's words can be looked upon as his elaborate and heartfelt welcome to the light of day, which he hopes will return his comrade to him and end his long vigil, thus restoring his peace of mind. He is indeed worshipful of the sun, and the image of light is emphasized by the words lums and clartatz, which not only lighten the physical world but also promise to disperse the darkness from the watchman's mind. While the real, waking world of day will separate the lovers, it will also bring him relief. Interpreted in this light, the refrain at this point could be looked upon as a promise, an anticipation on the watchman's part that soon it will be dawn. In stanza two he addresses his friend directly as "fair comrade", softly urging him to "waken gently": 2. '"Bel companho, si dormetz o velhatz, No dormatz plus, suau vos ressidatz; Qu'en orien vei 1'estela creguda C'amena-1 jorn, qu'eu 1'ai be conoguda, Et ades sera 1'alba!

(10)

The lovers are not described, although we know that the watchman holds his companion dear because of his complimentary address. He is solicitous and admiring toward his friend for whom he has sacrificed his night. Calling to him, he tells him that he has seen the morning star, the earliest sign of day. He seems to take a certain piide in being so alert, saying "for I have recognized it". He has fulfilled his duty to his beloved friend, but there is no response to his call. In the third stanza he warns of the dangers that exist and urges his friend not to tarry too long: 3. "'Bel companho, en chantan vos apel; No dormatz plus, qu'eu auch chantar Pauzel Que vai queren lo jorn per lo boschatge Et ai paor que-1 gilos vos assatge Et ades sera 1'alba!

(15)

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41

The signs of the waking world advance upon them. The bird singing in the woodland is the harbinger of dawn, he is the night bird looking for the day. This metaphor compares the bird to the watchman who also announces the dawn. They are both singers of the "dawn song", heralding light and dispersing darkness. The bird, for example, comes out of the woodland seeking light. The watchman's repeated call to his comrade, like the bird's song, symbolizes the wakeful conscience which begins to impose itself upon the adulterous love situation by warning of the gilos who might surprise the sleeping lovers. The refrain here heightens the insistency and urgency of the watchman's words. The desperate concern for the passage of time, as consistently expressed in the refrain, underscores the need for secrecy and the compelling need for the lovers to part at dawn so as not to be discovered. But at the same time it also stresses the watchman's increasing anxiety, or angst - an anxiety both for the comrade whom he is attempting to protect from the gilos, and anxiety for himself. The lovers' disregard of his call and of dawn itself intensifies the dramatic tension which causes us to ask, "what will happen to the lovers?" and "what will the watchman finally do?" Becoming more anxious in the fourth stanza, he again insistently cajoles his comrade to rise and "come to the window" to see for himself that his announcement is not false: 4. "'Bel companho, issetz al fenestrel E regardatz las estelas del eel! Conoisseretz si-us sui fizels messatge; Si non o faitz, vostres n'er lo damnatge Et ades sera l'alba!

(20)

This is our first knowledge of the location of the lovers, who are inside a castle. The fact that we know this tells us also that the watchman might be concerned for his own involvement in the scheme. In urging his friend to look out the window, he emphasizes his own trustworthiness: "you will see whether I am a trusty messenger" (1. 19). Also, it implies: "you will see that it is really dawn." This comment, which stresses his own fidelity, contrasts with the implied infidelity of the lady to her husband, coming as it

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does on the heels of his statement about the gilos. His next remark is an urgent warning in which he rather bitterly tells his comrade that if he ignores the warning it will be "the worse" for him. In the fifth stanza he pleads with his comrade, asking for some sympathy and understanding: 5. '"Bel companho, pos me parti de vos, Eu no-m dormi n-rn moc de genolhos, Ans preiei Deu, lo filh Santa Maria, Que-us me rendes per leial companhia, Et ades sera 1'alba!

(25)

He tells his friend that he has not slept nor risen from his knees since he was left alone to "watch". If not literally at least figuratively he is now in a suppliant position to his comrade, in effect "on his knees" begging him to heed his warning. He not only desires his friend's safety, but he also wants his friend returned to him. Perhaps he is suggesting, also, that their true comradeship should not be taken so lightly. In effect, he seems to be offering his friend a choice between true comradeship and an adulterous love affair. The final stanza reinforces this idea: 6. "'Bel companho, la foras als peiros Me preiavatz qu'eu no fos dormilhos, Enans velhes tota noch tro al dia. Era no-us platz mos chans ni ma paria Et ades sera 1'alba!'"

(30)

Wilhelm has said of this conclusion: "The watchman's last outcry about the coming of the dawn sounds like a last judgment being pronounced on the lovers' souls."33 It is perhaps too definitive to say that the final outcry is like a last judgment. This would seem to push the watchman's insistent concern for himself and his friend into something alien. Conventionally, in the alba the watchman is on the lovers' side and his role is to "protect" them. Here he has fulfilled that role, but since the lovers do not heed his warning, it can be said that he harshly reproaches them. This, of course, is not the same as a religious condemnation. The watchman's 33

Wilhelm, p. 199.

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43

final remarks here are in sharp contiast to the watchman's submission to the lady in Wolfram's poem. Perhaps Guiraut's lovers do not heed the day because they are still sleeping, exhausted from their love-making. We can assume that they are wrapped in quiet sensual bliss at this early dawn hour. The watchman's song, with its crescendo of urgency, falls on "deaf ears". Unlike the final stanza of the Wolfram poem, the love scene is not described nor hinted at by the narrator; the implied possibilities are left entirely to our imagination. Some scholars, however, have added a last stanza, one which appears in two of the seven extant manuscripts.34 The words are attributed to the watchman's comrade: 7. Bel dous companh, tan sui en ric sojorn Qu'eu no volgra mais fos alba ni jorn, Car la gensor que anc nasques de maire Tenc e abras, per qu'eu non prezi gaire Lo fol gilos ni 1'alba.

If these lines belong to this lyric, the watchman's monologue is, in a sense, interrupted by the friend's commentary. Another voice appears, another dimension is added to the poem. At one level the lover's remarks would simply reinforce what we have already been told about the characters. They underscore the watchman's own defeat, by showing the comrade's slight concern for the "foolish gilos" and for the dawn, as well as his apparent lack of concern for his faithful friend. This addition, it could be argued, would destroy the organic structure of the poem as monologue by interrupting six stanzas of carefully developed dramatic speech. Yet, it could also be argued that the crescendo of the preceding stanzas is so powerful that we expect a response, which is adequately provided in this final stanza. In either case, the poem employs subtle techniques of characterization and is a good example of dramatic narration. 34

Woledge (p. 380) lists these as Paris, Bibl. nat. francais 15211 (fifteenth century) #2 and Paris, Bibl. nat. francais 22543 (early fourteenth century) #2, 3, 8.

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THE ANONYMOUS EN UN VERGIER

The anonymous Old Provencal En un vergier sotz fuella d'albespi likewise has received both secular and religious interpretations since it too contains an invocation. But it is not an ode to the dawn or to the god who represents dawn; it is a prayer to God Himself who controls the natural world. The lady ironically prays for God to show favor on her adulterous love. As in the preceding two lyrics, the theme of the dread of day is emphasized by the refrain which becomes a part of her prayer: "Oy Dieus, oy Dieus, de l'alba! tan tost ve.** This underscores the irony of her prayer for illicit love, since time inevitably does not stop and she is tragically fated to lose her love to the daytime world. The poem has the simplest construction of all extant Provencal albas. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find a simpler scheme in the entire corpus of Old Provencal lyric poetry: each of the six stanzas contains three ten-syllable lines that rhyme together, and the refrain also consists often syllables. The poem's simplicity extends to the narrative frame which envelopes the lady's monologue : the first and final narrative stanzas by the persona frame the four central stanzas in which she expresses her passionate desires. Like the pastourelle, the poem begins with a descriptive passage but here the absence of the "I" narrator gives the poem more aesthetic distance. Further, the fact that it opens in the present tense generalizes the setting and the situation: 1. En un vergier sotz fuella d'albespi Tenc la dompna son amic costa si, Tro la gayta crida que l'alba vi. Oy Dieus, oy Dieus, de l'alba! tan tost ve. 2. "Plagues a Dieu ja la nueitz non falhis NM mieus amicx lone de mi no's partis Ni la gayta jorn ni alba no vis! Oy Dieus, oy Dieus, de l'alba! tan tost ve. 3. "Bels dous amicx, baizem nos yeu e vos Aval els pratz, on chanto'lz auzellos, Tot o fassam en despieg del gilos. Oy Dieus, oy Dieus, de l'alba! tan tost ve."

(5)

(10)

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4. "Bels dous amicx, fassam un joe novel Yns el jardi, on chanton li auzel, Tro la gaita toque son caramelh. Oy Dieus, oy Dieus, de l'alba! tan tost ve." 5. "Per la doss'aura qu'es venguda de lay, Del mieu amic balh e cortes e gay, Del sieu alen ai begut un dous ray. Oy Dieus, oy Dieus, de l'alba! tan tost ve." 6. La dompna es agradans e plazens, Per sa beutat la gardon mantas gens, Et a son cor en amar leyalmens. Oy Dieus, oy Dieus, de l'alba! tan tost ve.35

45

(15)

The opening narration sets the scene: the lovers are outside in an orchard. This is the only instance of a Provencal alba in which the lovers meet in the open air, a point of some significance since it is also the most sensual and dreamlike of all the albas. The outdoor setting connotes a freer, more uninhibited ambiance which is in keeping with the lady's mood. It is also worth noting that the lovers are covered by hawthorn leaves (the hawthorn is a spring-flowering shrub of the apple family). The lady is mentioned first - she "holds her lover neai her" (1. 2). These opening lines make clear her dominance in the poem. Hers is the active role. It is her monologue, her sorrowful song of love. It is she who is first awakened by the announcement of dawn by the gaita. This watchman, in contrast to the figure in the preceding two lyrics, is merely a part of the stylized scene but plays no direct role, nor does the lover. Both exist in the poem in relation to the lady's thoughts and feelings. The watchman, because he signalizes the dawn, causes her grief and the lover gives her joy and pleasure. The poignancy of the simple refrain flows naturally into the second stanza, which begins the woman's prayer. She asks God to hold back time and allow her to remain in her lover's arms. Like most lovers in albas, she is convinced that God is on her side. In defiance of natural order, she wants time to stand still while she sports with her lover in the meadows where little birds 35

Woledge, p. 358. His source for the lyric is Paris, Bibl. nat. fonds francais 856, M 383.

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sing and where the jealous one has no influence (11. 10-11). Uninhibited, she wants to go from the more orderly garden into the wilder and freer meadow. There the natural world - where birds sing - complements their "natural" act of love, their "song" of love. She is so driven with desire that she would even risk discovery and, like the lady of the chanson de mal mariee, she would defy her jealous husband.36 As in Wolfram's Sine kläwen, the urloup motifrenewed enjoyment of love before parting - has been introduced, first with her invitation to kiss down in the meadow, but now she goes even farther. The "urgency of the flesh" prompts her to suggest, boldly and seductively, that they engage in a joe novel "in the garden where the birds sing" (1. 14). Where in the previous stanza her invitation was to thepratz (meadow), she now returns her interest to the jardi (garden). In her lust she has suggested two different places, but both are linked to the singing birds and both are natural open settings. She is now the seductress tempting her lover into an earthly garden of paradise where lust obscures the reality of the watchman's announcement - at least for a moment. Wilhelm has said of her invitation to her lover to play a joe novel that it ... may be translated a 'new game/ a 'spring game,' or a 'game for the young'; the ambiguity of the word novel forces us to think of spring, youth, and love.37

He next speaks of the lady as glorifying adultery, but he neglects perhaps by choice - to explain the true meaning of joe novel in the context of the poem - that of sexual intercourse. The word joe can also be translated as joy, or merriment. Interpreted thus, 36

Wilhelm (p. 197) says of the gilos: "And it seems to me that the 'jealous one' in the poem is not only the lady's husband but perhaps the 'jealous God' (Deus zealotes) of the Old Testament." He goes on to substantiate this point with a footnote on the derivation of the word from Classical Greek zelotes (rival, emulator), based on zelos (strong passion, often jealousy). He says "the word was applied righteously to deceived husbands in Num. 5:13 f. It acquired a thoroughly pejorative meaning in Romance descendants: jaloux, geloso, gilos, etc." 37 Wilhelm, p. 196.

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she would then be suggesting that they find new joy in the renewal of their love-making. In an unusual occurrence in the alba, the fifth stanza introduces another, deeper level of awareness. It moves away from the external event toward an internal meditation. Suddenly the lover is gone and the passionate lady, left alone, is basking in the memory of the recent event. The wind brings to her the memory of her "fair and gay and gracious lover" (1. 18). Dronke says that the image of the wind as messenger of the beloved is derived from the Song of Songs, to which he also attributes the poem's transition from external event to internal daydream. The poem, he says, passes "imperceptibly from the meeting of the lovers to the memories and longings of the woman alone".38 Rather abruptly in the final stanza the lady is described by the persona as having all the virtues of the ladies of amour courtois It is almost as though the poet had added this stanza as an afterthought to explain that, despite this particular woman's intense passion, she is nevertheless a lady. This, of course, could also be read ironically, but the fact remains that no other Old Provencal alba concludes with such a commendation of the heroine. Earlier we mentioned that En un vergier is the only Provencal alba with an open setting. In this connection, B. Woledge notes: Its simplicity suggests a relatively early date, but does not prove it, nor does the fact that it is the only Provencal dawn song ... in which the lovers meet in the open air.39

Because it is not possible from external evidence to place these poems in chronological order, we cannot say with any cerlainty that the open air setting was common to the earlier albas. However, a generalization that can be made is that the out-of-doors setting is used more frequently in the less complex lyrics, while the indoor castle setting is often the location for the lovers of the more sophisticated albas - for example, the Sine kläwen and Reis glorios. Let us now look at two of the less elaborate examples - the first 38 39

Dronke, p. 175. Woledge, p. 381.

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from Germany and the second an Old French aube, both of which are set in the out-of-doors.

THE ANONYMOUS SLÄFEST DU

An example of poetic simplicity, the anonymous Släfest du, friedel ziere 1 compares strikingly to other highly developed tagelief, for example Wolfram's Sine kläwen. The text consists of three precise strophes: 1. "Släfest du, friedel ziere? man wecket uns leider schiere: ein vogellln so wol getan daz ist der linden an daz zwi gegän." 2. "Ich was vil sanfte entsläfen: nu rüefestu, kint, wäfen. Hep ane leit mac niht sin. swaz du gebiutest, daz leiste ich, friudin min." 3. Diu frouwe begunde weinen, "du ritest und last mich einen, wenne wilt du wider her zuo mir? owe du füerest mine fröide sant dir."40

(4]

(8)

(12)

Apart from one strophe in the Carmina Burana, this is perhaps the earliest extant example of the genre in Germany, and it has attracted attention mainly for this reason. The poem, however, has recently been appraised by Peter Dronke, who criticizes its structure, language, thought, and meter but finds some compensation in the way the word kint is used: The key to the poem's quality lies, I think, in the word kint in the sixth line. The girl who speaks in the first stanza is still almost a child, chattering with excited curiosity. She does not yet know for herself what a leave-taking means. The knight answers almost irritably at first, then with weary resignation: he knows this is how secret love has always been. But this reliance on her at this moment - 'whatever you command I'll 40

Carl von Kraus, Minnesangs Frühling (39, 18) (Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel, 1950), p. 39.

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do' - makes her suddenly feel a grown-up woman. In the last stanza she is not kint butfrouwe. Suddenly she realizes what loneliness will be hers, and her words, which from an experienced lover would sound banal, are moving because it is she who says them, discovering through them the universal feelings of women in love. The sparse words convey nothing but the essential;each sentence is a gesture made with grave simplicity.41

Dronke's interpretation might be usefully complemented by considering it more closely in the context of the conventions of the alba. One cannot simply emphasize one word, no matter how significant, in rendering a critical evaluation. Dialogue is of key importance to the genre, and the woman's and knight's utterances tell us all we need to know about this sad dawn parting, with its attendant emphasis on secrecy and the danger of discovery: the tension of the sorrows of parting and the farewell to joy. As Dronke himself has said, "the sparse words convey nothing but the essential". Dronke interprets the word hint as "child" instead of choosing "maiden" or "young woman" (he is aware of this meaning but for no clear reason chooses to eliminate it). The poem does not seem to adequately support his selected meaning. It seems more appropriate to read hint in this context as a term of endearment, since it is the knight who uses the term. When the narrator refers to her in the third strophe, he uses the word frouwe. Further, the woman does not exhibit childish chattering curiosity, but rather seems to show an awareness of the surroundings where she has lain with her lover, and an awareness that they must part since she knows that "they will soon be waking us" (1. 2). Rather than being too inexperienced to understand the full meaning of leavetaking, she, like all women in albas, knows that the coming of dawn means impending separation from her lover. Ironically, the lover tells her that in love one cannot know joy without sorrow (a common thematic element), the meaning of which she understands only too well as he rides off, leaving her alone and sorrowful in spite of having said to her: "whatever you command, I shall do, dear mistress" (1.8). This comments nicely on the knight 41

Dronke, p. 178.

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who is freer and more mobile than the lady. It is suggested that the leave-taking causes him less sorrow and loss than it does the lady who must remain behind, which lends a certain poignancy to her dilemma.42 The poem is well wrought. It has a clear progressive construction: the three strophes correspond exactly to the three basic elements of the dawn song: (1) the introductory setting; (2) the announcement of dawn; and (3) the sorrowful parting of lovers. The parts are neatly subordinated to the whole to render most emphatically the powerful emotional effect of the last line: "alas, you are taking my joy away with you!" The language is more than adequate. There is no mention of the word dawn or of the watchman, but the vogellln which perches on the linden neatly conveys the image of the natural landscape and the coming of the dawn. The linden, or lime tree, is commonly linked with love, spring and nature. The full effect of the first light of day is evoked by the solitary image of the little bird who has perched on a twig of the linden. Image and sound blend in a harmonious unity. In this first strophe there is a preponderance of the "i" sound, a high front vowel. This vowel melody creates an impression of early dawn coming upon the sleeping lovers. One can almost feel the faint rustle of the "vogellin so wol getän'On the tree.43 This strophe tells us all we need to know about the setting: the lovers are in a charming nature setting as opposed to the more typical secret chamber of a castle. The scene perfectly captures the calm before the storm - the presentation of the woman's turmoil. In contrast with the use of the "i" sound in strophe one, the 42

This poem has close similarities to the Frauenklage in which women complain of separation, desertion, or envious rivals and ill-wishers. The woman's complaint at parting is a persistent feature of both genres, which perhaps explains the introduction of the urloup motif - renewed sexual contact before saying goodbye - into the more developed alba. The lack of urloup in this poem makes its affinities with the Frauenklage even stronger. 43 For a discussion of the synesthetic effect of these lines, see M. F. Richey's Essays on Mediaeval German Poetry (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1969), p. 26.

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"a" - a long broad sound - is stressed in the second strophe. This tells us of the woman's emotional state and helps to offset the lack of the refrain which, as we have seen in the preceding examples, lends emphasis to the passion of the alba. The dialogue is brief and direct but full of tenderness. The lady's calm awakening in the first strophe is contrasted to her emotional outcry in the last. The two moods convey the theme of the poem expressed in the knight's comment on the nature of love: "liep ane leit mac niht sin" (1.7).

THE ANONYMOUS ENTRE MOI ET MON AMIN

While Sl fest du lacks t wo elements common to the alba convention, the refrain and the urloup motif, an early two-stanza Old French aube, Entre moi et mon α/m«, contains both and yet remains a rather simple poem. Woledge has said of it: This charming song has something of the same freshness and deep feeling of the first Alba [En un vergier sotzfuella d'albespi}. It is simpler than most albas ... but metrically it is similar. The two stanzas, fairly complex and very musical in form, are constructed on the same rhymes.44 The woman speaks all of the words; she is the "dramatized narrator", the "I" of the poem and its central character. Her story is recalled in the past tense. There is no watchman in this poem and a bird, in this case a lark, awakens the lovers: 1. "Entre moi et mon amin, En un boix k'est leis Betune, Alainmes juwant mairdi Toute lai nuit a la lune, Tant k'il ajornait (5) E ke 1'alowe chantait Ke dit: "'Amins, alons an;'" Et il respont doucement: Ί1 n'est mie jours. Saverouze au cors gent, (10) Si m'ait amors, L'alowette nos mant.' 44 Woledge, p. 387.

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2. "Adont ce trait pres de mi, Et je ne fu pas anfruine; Bien trois fois me baixait il, Ainsi fix je lui plus d'une, K'ainz ne m'anoiait. Adonc vocexiens nous lai Ke celle nut durest sant, Mais ke plus n'alest dixant: '11 n'est mie jours. Saverouze au cors gent, Si m'ait amors, L'alowette nos mant.'"45

(15)

(20)

The refrain contains the familiar attempt to postpone the dawn in this instance, the speaker asserts that the lark is lying. As in Släfest du, the poem opens with a natural setting but the detail is not as poetically honed. The description is general but it is specified somewhat by the place name of Betune and it is timebound by the naming of mairdi. But the important thing is that the woman - an actor in the poem - is also the (participating) narrator - a device common to the pastourelle where the knight serves the same function. Time's onslaught on love is less important to this aube, but in keeping with the convention the lovers, reluctant to part, renew their affectionate embraces by kissing (stanza two). Though they have spent the night in love-making (juwant), there is not now time to do more than kiss. The woman closes on a note of regret at the passing of night: their renewed embraces represent a futile attempt to stave off time and bring back the night. Yet in tone this poem is quite spirited and gay in contrast to most albas. Indeed, it suggests more the joys of love than its sorrows, for the lovers have sported "all alone" throughout the night in a wood. While this implies secrecy, no direct reference to the dangers of their meeting is made, which tones down both the pathos and the drama of the genre. The poem in essence represents a narrated event that took place on a given Tuesday and does not exploit the poetic possibilities of the event or of the form. 45

Ibid., p. 370.

THE ALBA, AUBE AND TAGELIEf

53

The Old French poem that best exemplifies the dramatic nature of the genre is also the longest, the best known, and the most puzzling. The Gälte de la Tor has received detailed treatment elsewhere.46 Because of this and the impossibly corrupt state of the text, it will not be cited here or commented upon at length. However, a few remarks of interest to the study are in order. It includes the figure of the watchman. In fact, Jeanroy, as well as other scholars, believes that two watchmen appear and that the first five stanzas represent a dialogue between these two characters, with the final two stanzas being spoken by the male lover. The problem of interpretation here is complicated by the fact that there is no indication in the manuscript of who is speaking. It has been suggested that the words are part of a miniature ballet with two actors and a chorus, the chorus being represented by one of the "watchmen". De Bartholomaeis sees this lyric as played by two actors miming a love scene and encircled by dancers.47 In any event, this lyric, entirely presented through dialogue, shows the genre's unlimited propensity for drama. In our study, we have selected poems for analysis which, in one respect or another, fairly well represent the genre of the alba as it has survived in its Western European form. Yet, one could safely suggest that the few surviving Old Fiench aubes do not attain the artistic merit evinced by several Old Provencal and Middle High German examples. Some scholars, moreover, have seen Guiraut de Bornelh's Reis glorios as marking the summit of the alba tradition. Wilhelm, for instance, has argued that poets who composed in the tradition after Guiraut were more interested in technical virtuosity than in exploiting poetically the rich expressive dimensions of the alba. "Unfortunately", he states, "the fate of the alba after Guiraut is as sad as the fate of the love song after 48

See Alfred Jeanroy, "Restori, La Gälte de la tor", Romania XXXIH (1904), pp. 615-16; Theodore Gerold, La musique au Moyen Age (Paris: H. Champion, 1932), p. 206; Joseph Bodier, "Les Plus anciennes danses fran9aises", Revue des Deux Mondes (January 1906), p. 420; and V. De Bartholomaeis, Studie medievali, N. S., IV (1931), p. 334. 47 De Bartholomaeis, pp. 321 ff.

54

THE ALBA, AUBE AND TAGELIET

Bernart."48 It would seem that Wilhelm's view requires further elaboration, more study - which he does not provide. But for our study this is not a major concern; thus, in conclusion, our findings would indicate that perhaps a more fruitful way of talking about the narrative and dramatic frame of the alba might be as follows: the word drama itself, as derived from Greek, means first an action and then the representation of an action. In the alba, of course, there is no performance of an action such as we would observe in the theater.49 But it is dramatic in that it makes the love event seem like the representation of an action, by using vigorous diction and dialogue; this aiises from the tense situation in which the lovers and the watchman are made to work out their emotional conflicts. Yet, in some instances quite perceptibly, in others not, we also sense the presence of a speaker (usually an omniscient narrator), who does not directly address any figure or other entity within the poem. Hence, we get the impression of impersonality; and, hence, the seeming superiority of this sort of narration over the modes which permit the "author" to appear directly, in propria persona, as in the pastourelle. The poetic effect of the alba, it might be said, depends to a great extent on the concept of dramatic storytelling.

48

Wilhelm, p. 200. Of course, it could be argued, but there is no substantial evidence for this, that albas were performed. More research into the area might eventually clarify this point and could serve to justify our view of the genre. 49

THE PASTOURELLE (PASTORELA)

The predominantly Old Provencal and Old French pastourellejwhich flourished in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, has been comprehensively and precisely defined by Martin de Riquer: Su tema se reduce al encuentro, en pleno campo, entre un caballero que frecuentemente relata el hecho en primera persona - y una pastora, que es requerida de amores por aquel. Tras un vivo diälogo, los resultados de esta escena pueden ser variados: la pastora puede acceder a las pretensiones haciondose rogar o a cambio de la promesa de una dadiva; puede, contrariamente, despachar de mal humor a su galanteador, incluso reclamando el auxilio du sus familiäres, entregados por alii cerca a faenas agricolas. La solucion tambien puede quedar indecisa tras un diälogo agudo y variado. La gracia de la pasiorela estriba principalmente en el diälogo, a veces elegante, otras grosero, pero que tiende a contraponer dos estamentos sociales ...2 We have seen that the alba always concerns a prearranged night meeting and dawn parting of lovers. In contrast, the classic pastourelle* relates an unplanned daylight encounter between a knight 1

The Old French examples quoted in this chapter are taken from Karl Bartsch, Romances et Pastourelles Francoises des XIIe et XIIIe siecles (1870; reprinted Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1967). For the Provencal texts I have used Jean Audiau, La pastourelle dans lapoesie occitane du Moyen-Age (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1923). There are over two hundred Old French examples and twenty Old Provencal examples extant. The terms pastourelle and pastorela are interchangeable; the former is the Old French spelling and the latter is the Old Provencal. 2 Martin de Riquer, La Lirica de los Trovadores, tomo I (Barcelona :Escuela de Filologia, 1948), pp. lii-liii. 3 Not all so-called pastourelles are of the classic kind as best represented in the Old French examples. That is, not all concern the subject of the amorous

56

THE PASTOURELLE (PASTORELA)

and a shepherdess. Both the alba and the pastourelle focus on one climactic episode. Both tell of love - specifically sexual love - but in the alba the lady is already won and the lovers are driven by the same motivation: the desire for sexual love has brought them to theii secret meeting and the fear of discovery causes them to part.4 In the pastourelle the knight and the shepherdess are protagonists: he is motivated by lust to seduce her and she either resists or succumbs, but only after showing at least some sign of resistance.5 In discussing the pastoral landscape, Ernst Robert Curtius has said: "The pastoral world is as extensive as the knightly world. In the medieval pastourelle the two worlds meet."6 It would perhaps be more accurate to say that in this particular genre the two worlds clash, since the essence of tbs pastourelle is the debate or conflict. On one level, it represents a battle of the sexes; on another, it represents a contrast of rustic and aristocratic worlds. This debate between a gallant and a shepherdess. There are, for example, eighteen which contain little or no element of debate. Further, William Powell Jones in The Pastourelle: A Study of the Origin and Tradition of a Lyric Type (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931) discusses in some detail the variety of "offshoots" of the Old French pastourelle (pp. 21 ff.). For example, there is the kind which describes folk games and manners in which the gallant, riding forth, stops to observe a group of rustics at play (Bartsch, II, 30, 36, 41,44, 58, 73, 77; III, 15, 21, 22, 27). There is another type in which the gallant either observes a pastoral love scene or participates as interloper in a lovers' quarrel (Bartsch, II, 8, 21, 24, 26, 27, 32, 35, 47, 51, 53, 54, 55, 65, 70; III, 2, 16, 24, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 44, 46). And, finally, there is a burlesque of the pastourelle (Bartsch, II, 75). For an example of the poet as interloper in a Provencal pastorela, see Audiau, XVI, pp. 29-33. 4 This need for secrecy is accentuated by the appearance of the watchman in the alba. Although this figure does not appear in the classic pastourelle, he does occur in an "offshoot" where the poet is the interloper in a pastoral scene. His role is of less significance here and he is usually a participant in the rustic merry-making. For examples of the watchman in the pastourelle, see Bartsch, III, 22, 11. 1-11 and II, 30, 11. 1-12. 5 Jones in The Pastourelle (op. cit.) says that all pastourelles agree in having the shepherdess attempt to resist or baffle the knight. The element of baffling is not rejection per se, but rather the spirit of resistance as displayed by the shepherdess in her debate with the knight. See Jones' book for a detailed discussion of the "Motif of the Baffled Knight" (pp. 72 ff.) and the "Complicated Baffling Ruses" (pp. 125 ff.). β Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 187.

THE PASTOURELLE (PASTORELA)

57

debate, conventionally presented through the characters' dialogue, is an element which sets the pastourette apart from the alba,1 This element of conflict has led many to speak of the pastourette as "dramatic". The conflictus of the medieval debat has been applied to it: The dramatic element, the quick exchange of repartee, the contrast in characters, the humiliation of one disputant or the other gave opportunity for a lively and vivid presentation which must have been effective.8

This is certainly true, since the characters are emotionally engaged with each other, motive clashing with motive, and the resolution of the motives determining the outcome. A certain amount of suspense and surprise emerges with the resolution, and the interplay of the two is a primary source of the dramatic power of the "plot". Yet, narrative elements are also important in the pastourelle, for the narrator directly addresses an imaginary audience in the opening stanza (stanzas), establishing the setting and introducing himself and the shepherdess. One could call him a "dramatized narrator", since he refers to himself in the first stanza as "I". Thus he becomes a character as "real" as the shepherdess he describes and tries to seduce. Unlike the self-conscious narrator of more strictly narrative literary productions, he is unaware - or feigns unawareness - that he is speaking the poem, describing a past event. The first stanza of this poem attributed to Cadenet illustrates this perfectly: L'autrier, lone un bosc fullos Trobiey en ma via Un pastre mout angoyssos Chantan; e disia Sa chansos: "Amors, Ye-m clam dels lauzenjadors, Car la dolors 7

Often in the alba the lady debates with Dawn itself or with the watchman, but never with the lover. 8 J. H. Hanford, "Classical Ecologue and Medieval Debate", Romanic Review Jl (1911), p. 137.

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THE PASTOURELLE (PASTORELA)

Qu'a per elhs m'amia Mi fai piegz que-1 raia."9 The opening word Vautrier (Vautrejour in Old French) consistently begins the pastourelle (hence it becomes a formulaic narrative tool of the convention). It serves as a temporal coordinate essential to the story and plot: the "when", the "where", and the "how" of the encounter. The "I" during daylight happens upon a shepherdess (un pastre) singing in the woods. This is narrated in the present but recalled in the past (trobiey). Next the dramatic dialogue of the two protagonists unfolds. The pastourelL is not unlike the ballad, which is largely narrative in structure and tone though it often contains long passages in direct speech - particularly dialogue - and exemplifies intensely dramatic moments. In all likelihood, they both stem from an oral tradition. In the case of the pastourelle, the formulaic introduction tends to suggest such a possibility. Some scholars have thought that the Old French pastourelle ultimately derives from chansons populates, or "folk pastourelles".10 which were transmitted from singer to singer and were (possibly) performed in music, dance, and mime.11 This prompted William Powell Jones to write: ... one seldom finds in the French folksong more than one episode actually described. Incidents leading up to this one important bit of action may be hinted at and sometimes briefly described, but the interest from the outset centres in one scene, which is usually of dramatic intensity. All superfluous matter, everything which takes place before and after the action described, is off-stage.12 This is generally true of the classic pastourelle', however, it is not always true of the "baffled knight" sub-class, where there can 8

Audiau, V, p. 26. For a study of the chanson populaires, see M. Wilmotte, "La Chanson Populaire au Moyen Age", Bulletin de Folk-lore I (1891), pp. 13-32. 11 It has been suggested that the chanson populaires were closely connected with the traditional May fete, or spring festival, when the rustic people gathered for merry-making. See, for example, Rosemond Tuve, Seasons and Months: Studies in a Tradition of Middle English Poetry (Paris: Librairie Universitaire, 1933), p. 105. 12 Jones, pp. 34-35. 10

THE PASTOURELLE (PASTORELA)

59

be two scenes: (1) the encounter and promise by the girl and (2) later rejection. Typically, the first occurs "in the field", and the second at the door of her home. In the ballad, through direct dialgoue and action and sparse use of detail, a single intense episode is usually efficiently presented : a tale of murder, treachery, death, perhaps a humorous account of marital strife, or, as in the pastourelle, the encounter between a knight and a woman. Such an encounter occurs, for example, in the ballad of "The Baffled Knight",13 but here, as in the "baffled knight" sub-class previously mentioned, there is a shift of scenes: 1. There was a knight, and he was young, Α-riding along the way, sir, And there he met a lady fair Among the cocks of hay, sir. 2. Quoth he, 'Shall you and I, lady, Among the grass lie down a? And I will have a special care Oi rumpling of your gown a.' 3. 'If you will go along with me Unto my iambi father'sο iicui, hall, sir, uuiu 1117 on, You shall enjoy my maidenhead, And my estate and all, sir.'

(5)

(10)

The next three stanzas (not cited here) show the lady's baffling of the knight: she goes along with him to her father's castle and then, safely there, shuts him out with this parting advice: 7. 'And if you meet a lady fair, As you go through the next town, sir, You must not fear the dew of the grass, Nor the rumpling of her gown, sir. 8. 'And if you meet a lady gay, As you go by the hill, sir, If you will not when you may, You shall not when you will, sir.' 13

(25)

(30)

F. J. Child, No. 112.B in Arthur M. Eastman, ed,, The Norton Anthology of Poetry (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970), p. 97. Professor Child has carefully studied this balled in English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1886), II, pp. 479-493.

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THE PASTOURELLE (PASTORELA)

As these lines illustrate, the ballad suggests a "moral", but cannot be said to "moralize", for there is typically little comment by the "author". Unlike the narrator of the classic pastourelle, he seldom intrudes himself upon the scene but acts in a highly objective and impersonal way, highlighting one significant detail. Details are stated and left to work by themselves upon the audience's imagination. Often what is not stated is more important than what is presented. Hence, emotion tends to be implied rather than described, and the ballad, it might be said, is less lyrical. Thematically, the ballad tends to represent a dramatic event frequently of tragic dimensions. The pastourelle also presents an event, rarely tragic. It is instead conventionally relieved by humor for example, the shepherdess' tricking of the knight. This same humorous situation is also seen in the ballad just quoted, but more often than not the ballad deals with death, destruction, revenge, and frequently the supernatural appears, while these elements are not common to the pastourelle. In spite of its possible folk roots, the pastourelle, as it has survived, has traditionally been termed "aristocratic", for it has, as Riquer points out, a ... caracter decisivamente culto y aristocrätico de este gonero, destinado a complacer a una clase social en la que hacen gracia las groserias y las maneras zafias de la gente de baja condition, cosa que aparece de manifesto en cuanto se encaran la cortesia y la rusticidad de que hacen gala, respectivamente, los dos protagonistas de la pastorela.1*

This is clearly brought home in this passage from the Leys a" amors: Pastorela ... deu tractar d'esquern, per donar solas. E deu se horn gardar en aquest dictat maiormen, quar en aquest se peca horn mays que en los autres, que horn no diga vils paraulas ni laias ni procezisca en son dictat a degu vil fag, quar trufar se pot hom am femna e far esquern la un a 1'autre, ses dire e ses far viltat o dezonestat.15

This emphasizes the theme of two social classes in conflict, the 14

Riquer, p. liii. For a discussion of the pastourelle as "aristocratic", see Jones, pp. 4 ff. and Audiau, pp. xvi if. 15 Carl Appel, Provenzalische Chrestomathie (Leipzig: Reisland, 1907), p. 199.

THE PASTOURELLE (PASTORELA)

61

aristocratic represented by the knight and the rustic represented by the shepherdess. The rustic has always been the butt of humor for the upper classes but in folk tradition the reverse is true. In this connection it might be well to keep in mind that the tendency to use caricature was more frequent in Old French than in Old Provencal. As we shall see, Marcabru superbly inverts the tradition of poking fun at the rustic by turning the tables on the knight. In considering the ballad as an analogue of the pastourelle, the following generalization seems valid: the Old French pastourelle has more affinities to the so-called folk ballad while the Old Provancal is closer to the literary ballad.16 In outline form this distinction between the two ballad forms stands as follows: The folk ballad: 1. presents a bare statement of the narrative and implies but does not state the plot; 2. less elaborated and less self-conscious use of dialogue, symbolism, and description (instead leans heavily on such techniques as incremental repetition); 3. appeals to more basic emotions. The literary ballad: 1. narrative is more developed and contains a plot since causation is important; 2. more polished and more stylized use of dialogue, symbolism, and atmospheric elaboration; 3. also appeals to basic emotions, but places more emphasis on psychological motivation. As the literary ballad is clearly an imitation of the folk ballad, so might the more artistic Old Provencal pastourelle be considered an imitation of the Old French example. 16

By the literary ballad we mean those compositions that imitate the anonymous folk ballads. The literary ballad is characterized more by description and by elaboration of the ballad "atmosphere" than it is by the bare statement of plot. Poets like Burns, Coleridge, and Keats are recognized as among the leading exponents of the genre in English. A comparison of almost any anonymous ballad with, say, Keats* "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" would reveal some very basic differences. The anonymous ballads are "objective" and provoke inference, while Keats' poem is "subjective" and full of nuance and implication.

62

THE PASTOURELLE (PASTORELA)

In summary, the ballad and the pastourelle use similar poetic techniques: refrains, incremental repetition, and stock descriptions. However, ballad rhetoric, as has traditionally been recognized, is largely "unencumbered by metaphor, personification, symbol, etc., which more sophisticated poets use".17 This generalization by C. Colin Smith would not hold true of the pastourelle. It employs, for example, an elaborately stylized spring setting, which might often be seen to function symbolically. Depiction of nature and the seasons as a common introductory topos, the Natureingang of German scholars and the paysage ideal of the French, is well established, particularly as evinced in the Romance lyric. The first surviving example of the vernal motif in a vernacular literature occurs in the well known Ab la dolchor del temps novel by Guillaume IX, Due d'Aquitaine (10711127), and the figure thereafter became a permanent feature of the various kinds of love lyric. The vernal motif has been traced to the pastoral interludes of Homer and the classical epic and was frequently used in an abbreviated form by the ancient lyric poets. It is not necessary to trace this development here, since this has already been done more than adequately by Ernst Robert Curtius and James J. Wilhelm.18 It is also known that the spring motif in Christian poetry of the early Middle Ages, before the rise of vernacular lyric poetry, was influenced by the Biblical Psalms and Song of Songs. Incidentally, the Easter hymn in early Christian hymnology (for instance, Prudentius and Fortunatus) used the spring setting extensively. The rhetoric of Virgil's pastoral poems and his Aeneid possibly served as a model for some of the hymns. It is not surprising to discover that almost all pastourelles occur in spring, less often in summer, the conventional season for the renewal of love. A few exceptions do occur in colder months. An autumn opening appears in Quant fuelle chief et fior fault and a 17

C. Colin Smith, ed., Spanish Ballads (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1964), p. 4. 18 See James J. Wilhelm, The Cruelest Month: Spring, Nature and Love in Classical and Medieval Lyrics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965) and Curtius, pp. 106 if., 183 ff.

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winter introduction in Par desous Vombre d'un bois.19 The setting is always the out-of-doors, the open fields or woods, or a garden, and more specifically, beneath a tree. The appearance of the tree is of some importance since it is commonly linked to erotic images of growth, proliferation, and the processes of generation and regeneration. The importance of this will become more evident as we discuss Marcabru's A lafontana del vergier. The spring setting - and particularly the garden - is also common to the alba. But, while the shepherdess is always found out-of-doors, the lovers of the alba sometimes move into a castle. The castle is more confining, but it has windows which open on to the world of nature. The lovers inside the castle are faintly aware of nature (the light of day steals in on them), but paradoxically the castle affords them both more secrecy and more danger than the encounter out-of-doors; in a word, less freedom. The idea of the castle as confining is aptly depicted in the shepherdess' refusal of the knight in the following lines from an Old French pastourelle with a winter setting: 'Sire, or pais, je vous em pri, n'ai pas le euer si failli, que j'aim miex povre deserte sous la foille od mon ami que dame en chambre coverte, si n'ait on cure de mi!' ae!20

It is interesting to note the implied association of the castle with winter in this poem. Both are confining and place certain limitations on the actions of lovers. The woman is one figure who always appears in the nature landscapes of the pastourelle and the alba. The season may either contrast or correspond to her mood usually winter symbolizes sadness and spring joy - or simply serve as a setting or backdrop for the specific "love event". The 19

The first lyric is in Bartsch, II, 17. The second, Bartsch, III, 1. He attributes the latter to Jean de Braine, although it has also been linked to Hue de SaintQuentin. Other examples of autumn and winter settings are Bartsch, II, 128 and Bartsch, III, 10, 240. 20 Bartsch, III, 1. 11. 43-48.

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THE PASTOURELLE (PASTORELA)

emphasis on spring and the nature setting attests to the erotic aspects of love and nowhere is this more clearly exemplified than in the pastourelle which celebrates physical love in a spirit ofjoie de vivre. Pastoral poetry, significantly, lends itself rather well to love motifs, as Curtius indicates: The shepherd's life is found everywhere and at all periods. It is a basic form of human existence.... It has - and this is very important - a correlative scenery: pastoral Sicily, later Arcadia. But it also has a personnel of its own, which has its own social structure and thus constitutes a social microcosm ... the shepherd's world is linked to nature and to love. One can say that for two millenniums it draws to itself the majority of erotic motifs.21

Let us briefly illustrate the pastourelle's treatment of the explicitly erotic by citing an Old French and a goliardic example.22 The last three stanzas of the Old French lyric depict the simplest sexual approach to the shepherdess: 4. Lez li m'assis desouz 1'arbroi, puis dis 'pastoure, entent a moi, si ne t'esmaie mie; se tu veus fere riens pour moi, de toi ferai m'amie,' 5. Trenc chevalier, lessiez m'ester, je n'ai cure de vo gaber; 21

(20)

Curtius, p. 187. The pastourelle saw parallel (but less distinguished) literary developments in these goliardic songs and in some Middle English verse; it also cropped up at a later date in generally insignificant specimens from Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Helen Sandison in The Chanson d'Adventure in Middle English (Bryn Mawr College Monographs, Vol. XII, 1913), pp. 61-67, finds only nine English (and Scottish) examples close to the classic pastourelle and indicates that they were probably derived from the thirteenth century French lyrics; all contain the pastoral setting, the love debate, and the denouement with the ultimate success or failure of the knight's seduction. The best known Italian pastourelle is Guido Cavalcanti's In un Boschetto (in Carl Appel, Provenzalische Chrestomathie, Leipzig: Reisland, 1907, p. 91). For works on the pastourelle in these literatures, see A. d'Ancona, Studi Sulla Letteratura Italiana dei Primi (Ancona, 1884); G. Bertoni, Poesie Leggende Costumanze del Medio Evo (Moderna, 1917), pp. 41-62; Carolina M. de Vasconcellos, Cancionerio da Ajuda (Halle, 1904), pp. 77, 233, 239, 360, 599, 937; D. M. Milä y Fontanals, De los Trovadores en Espana (Barcelona, 1861); and Alfred Jeanroy, Les Troubadours en Espagne (Toulouse, 1916). 22

THE PASTOURELLE (PASTORELA)

vez ci la nuit oscure. lessiez moi mes aigniax garder, de vostre gieu n'ai cure.' 6. Quant je Γοί ensi parier, lez li m'asis sanz arester, par les flans 1'ai saisie, tant la besai et acolai qu'ele devint m'amie.'23

65

(25)

(30)

The man's entreaty is blunt and to the point, for he simply offers companionship and physical pleasure. The shepherdess' response is practical and disinterested. She argues that night is coming and she has her lambs to tend. The resolution to the encounter comes swiftly in the last stanza where the chevalier, with some show of physical force, seizes her.24 The debate is brief, the encounter condensed, and the man in this instance wins the day. Unlike the situation in the alba, there is no note of an anguished love affair; rather it is a brief erotic encounter, a day's seduction and nothing more. A lusty tone dominates the goliardic pastourelle in which carnal love is king and the woman is always clearly the object to be possessed. The robust and rowdy Vere dulci mediante from the Carmina Bur ana is quite representative.25 The conventional approaches through words and the offer of gifts are first set forth by the man. In the course of the shepherdess' refusal she knocks him down with her spindle. This leads to a rollicking physical struggle which in turn leads to love-making. After

23

Bartsch, II, 28,11. 16-30. Some consider brutality a common element in the pastourelle. When it appears, it is usually only after the gallant's other efforts to win the shepherdess have failed, and he then uses force to persuade the girl as in Bartsch, II, 62 and III, 5. 25 J. Schmeller, ed., Carmina Burana (Stuttgart: Literarischer verein, 1847), No. 120. The Latin pastourelle developed about the same time as the Old Provencal and Old French examples. There are only a few representatives and they are of an erotic nature. In the Carmina Burana only three songs can be called true pastourelles. 24

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THE PASTOURELLE (PASTORELA)

the seduction, the narrator tells us that his pleasure has only deepened the girl's resentment and she cries out: 'Quid fecisti,' inquit, 'prave? Ve ve mihi! tarnen ave, ne reveles ulli, cave, ut sim domi tuta. (11. 27-30) Her resentment is intensified by her fear of being discovered by her family, from whom she fears a beating: 'Si senserit meus pater vel Martinus maior frater, erit mihi dies ater; vel si sciret mea mater, cum sit angue peior quater virgis sum tributa.' (11. 33-38) Although the goliardic songs in general show little dialogue, these versions of the pastourelle exhibit an abundance of actual dialogue or of speeches with implied answers, as in this example with its broad humor and swift action. The debate, with its element of resistance by the woman, constitutes the primary dramatic force of the pastourelle. The two preceding examples have shown the knight as the aggressor and the shepherdess faced with a choice between a carpe diem act and the more respectable path dictated by propriety. It is most common for her to attempt to outwit him, sometimes with a great deal of mockery and satire at his expense. In this connection, Karl Bartsch's representative collection of eighty-eight Old French pastourelles*6 shows the gallant's success in forty-six and his failure in fortytwo. In twenty-eight examples where he ultimately wins, the woman still makes some attempt to resist. Thus, only eighteen relate complete success with the shepherdess' consent. Aside from verifying the old saw that there is more pleasure in the hunt than in the kill, these figures tend to underscore the importance of the debate, or conflict, in the pastourelle. Since the woman's role in the debate is of such importance, it would seem useful to provide a brief survey of the range of her responses. 26

Romances et Pastourelles Francoises des XIIe XIIIe siecles.

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67

1. Many of the shepherdesses, because of their position as (usually unmarried) woman and as members of the lower class, are well aware of the dangers of submission. A frequent negative response to the knight grows out of the woman's fear of losing her good name and reputation. This argument is perfectly exemplified in a Middle English poem (Harley No. 8)27 where the shepherdess, at first lefusing the knight's offer of fine robes and riches, prefers to remain poor but sinless: 'Globes y haue on forte caste, such as y may weore wit> wynne; betere is were unne boute laste ben syde robes ant synke into synne. Haue 36 or wyl, 36 waxefr vnwraste; afterward or bonk be bynne; betre is make forewardes faste l>en afterward to mene ant mynne.' (11. 13-20) She also argues that, having satisfied himself with her, he would soon leave her scorned and estranged from her relatives and friends (11. 23-28). But, after presenting these arguments, the lass concludes with this rationalization: Betere is taken a comeliche y elope in armes to cusse ant to cluppe ten a wrecche ywedded so wrol>e bah he me slowe ne myhti him asluppe. be beste red bat y con to vs bobe bat bou me take ant y be toward huppe; bah y swore by treu^e ant obe, bat God hat> shaped mey non atluppe. (11.36-44) The poem is interesting because of the interplay of suspense and surprise. The lass reverses positions, first repelling the knight and then yielding. After having presented several stock answer in keeping with the bounds of propriety, she ends by seizing the day. 27

G. L. Brook, The Harley Lyrics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956), p. 39.

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2. The woman's fear of her mother's displeasure is suggested in these lines of an Old French lyric and is a common deterrent to the woman's complying with the man's wishes: 'sire, je n Os faire ami por ma meire Perenelle, ke sovent me bat le dos. se j'oussexe ameir, j'amaixe Or again, Je li dis 'pastoure, je vos proi merci, con fins et loiaus conme vostre amis.' ele dist 'biau sire, vos ne m'averz mie; ma mere m'escrie, ce poez oir. va de la doudie, laissiez vostre guile, fuiez vos de ci.29 The girl's fear of her parents is also found in two songs from the Carmina Burana,30 one example being the Vere dulci mediante mentioned previously. In all of these instances, the maiden fears discovery by the outside world, an idea also presented in the alba. 3. In other instances the shepherdess will argue that she must remain true to her own shepherd lover: 'Sire, traies vos en la, car tel plait oi je ja. ne sui pas abandonnee a chascun ki dist "vien cha." ja pour vo sele doree Garines riens n'i perdra.' ae!31 When the knight continues to persist in this lyric by offering to present her with fine gifts and to make her a lady in exchange for 28 29 30 31

Bartsch, II, 3.11. 31-35. Bartsch, II, 76,11. 28-36. Schmeller, No. 120, stanza 6; No. 52, stanza 6. Bartsch, HI, 1,11. 19-24.

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her giving up her shepherd lad, the woman concludes the argument with this refusal: she would rather live with her own true love, although poor and out-of-doors, than to be a lady confined without love inside a castle. 4. At times the shepherdess will argue that the knight would do well to look for his lovers among the ladies of the court: 'Chevalier, se dex vos voie, puis que prendre volez proie, en plus haut leu la pernez que ne seroie; petit gaaigneriez et g'i perdroie.'32 Following this utterance, the pastorele is praised for her good sense and virtue: Pastorele, trop es sage de garder ton pucelage. se toutes tes conpaignetes fussent si, plus en alast de puceles a mari. (11.33-36) 5. In some examples the lass is less constant, and being more opportunistic than loyal or virtuous, may easily give in to the offer of gifts or love. In the lyric beginning Uautrier chivachoie, although the maiden already has a lover, she quickly decides he is unworthy when offered the gift of a silver girdle. She accepts, saying: 'Sire, a vous m'otroie: trop vilainne seroie se vos aloie refuzant. alons moi et vos chantant: teirelire un don, Robeson, musairs viennent et musairs vont, teirelire un don tridon.'33 These various examples show the possible variety of the woman's response and action. They give a good idea as well of the potentialities for poetic expression which spring from the core, the debate, of the pastourelle. 32 33

Bartsch, II, 61, U. 29-32. Bartsch, II, 46,11. 17-40.

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In spite of this, the pastourette has been repeatedly criticized for its dullness and monotony.34 Jean Audiau, for example, has written: Tous ces paysans sont bien artificiels, et les tentatives des troubadours pour leur dormer une apparance de verito sont restees vaines ... la scene et les personnages gardent toujours quelque chose de conventionnel. Les Troubadours ont eto incapables de rajeunir la pastourelle; tous leurs efforts n Ont abouti qu'ä exagerer les defauts du genre: la monotonie d'une part; de l'autre, la grossierete.35 He goes on, however, to justify his own collection of Provencal pastorelas because of the richness and originality of some of their rhythms, as well as "le mouvement dramatique de certaines pieces".36 We must remember that people like to be entertained and that stories allow them to achieve this enjoyment. The pastourelle is an interesting and entertaining story enhanced considerably by the element of anticipation so common in the debate. If one considers the pastourelle as a song to be sung to musical accompaniment, even the most repetitious examples can be lively and effective, since they are after all intended to be listened to or danced to rather than silently read. Modern readers tend to lose sight of the fact that poetic and musical thought can perhaps only be fully conveyed through listening. The medieval lyric poet, according to some, is primarily a craftsman of music and verse juxtaposed. The poem becomes a beautiful object of music and verse. Music is not an addition to medieval lyric poetry, but an integral part of it.37 There is a unique relationship between 34

For representative early scholarship on these lyrics, see: Alfred Jeanroy, Les origines de la poesie lyrique en France au May en Age (Paris, 1889, 1925); E. Piguet, V evolution de la pastourelle du XIIe siede a nos jours (Bale: Publications de la Sociote Suisse des Traditions Populaires, XIX, 1927); Gaston Paris, La Poesie du Moyen Age, 2eme Serie (1895), and his review of Jeanroy's Les origines, in an article reprinted in Melanges de Litterature franfaise du Moyen Age, Deuxieme Partie, 1912. 35 Audiau, pp. xix-xx. 36 Ibid., p. xxxii. 37 The first stanza of Jaufro Rudel's No sap chantar makes clear the point that one cannot separate music from the lyrics: "No sap chantar qui so non di,/ Ni vers trobar qui motz no fa,/ Ni conois de rima co-s va/ Si razo non enten en

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the two arts, which has been largely misunderstood by nineteenth century and later critics. As might be expected, the poetry is stressed more than the music by modern critics and poets. But, in all probability, such views would have been incomprehensible to the early French and Provencal poets. One of the reasons for singing the lyrics is that it gives a lasting quality to the words. It has often been said that music adds eternity to any poetic art, particularly to an art that relies on oral presentation to relate stories.38 In view of this, the pastourette should be considered a very lively and vivid genre. Of course, in all cases the individual poems must speak for themselves.

MARCABRU'S L'AUTRIER JOST' UNA SEBISSA

Two of the finest examples of the Old Provencal pastorela will be studied here in detail. The first example, considered the earliest extant Provencal poem of the kind, Uautrier josf una sebissa?9 contains the essential elements previously surveyed, with stress on the conventional debate and the shepherdess' spirited resistance. The elaborate verse structure and the carefully developed debate, as we shall see, suggest a consummate artistic sensibility. The second example, A lafontana del vergier,*0 displays great innovasi./ Mas lo mieus chans comens' aissi/ Com plus 1'auziretz, mais vabra, a a." Scholars such as Guiette and Vinaver (see footnote 38 below) have perhaps made too much of this point. 38 In considering the relationship of troubadour poetry to music, some critics have argued for a formalist view of the medieval lyric (particularly the canso and chanson), claiming that the Provencal lyric is "above all a poetry of rhyme where the sound patterns created in a poem almost take precedence over the total meaning conveyed by the words" (S. G. Nichols, Jr., et. al., The Songs of Bernart de Ventadorn, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962, p. 16). Also pleading the formalist cause are Robert Guiette ("D'une poesie formelle en France au moyen age", Revue des sciences humaines 54 [1949], pp. 64, 66) and Eugene Vinaver ("A la recherche d'une poeiique modiovale", Cahiers de Civilization Medievale 2 [1959], p. 13). A more balanced view is presented by Margaret Switten ("Text and Melody in Peirol's Cansos", PMLA 76, [1961], p. 325). 39 Audiau, I, pp. 3-9. 40 Appel,p.96.

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tion; for example, in it the heroine is a courtly lady (instead of a shepherdess) whose lover has been sent off to the second crusade. Let us look first at Marcabru's more conventional pastorela, which depicts the classic pastoral battle of the sexes as well as the conflicting difference between social stations: 1. L'autrier, jost'una sebissa, Trobei pastora mestissa, De joy e de sen massissa; E fön filha de vilana: Cap'e gonel'e pelissa Vest e camiza treslissa, Sotlars e caussas de lana. 2. Ves leis vine per la planissa: "Toza, fi m'eu, res faitissa, Dol ai gran del ven que-us - "Senher, so dis la vilana, Merce Deu e ma noyrissa, Pauc m'o pretz si-1 vens m'erissa Qu'alegreta sui e sana." 3. - "Toza, fi*m eu, causa pia, Destoutz me suy de la via Per far a vos companhia, Quar aitals toza vilana No pot ses plazen paria Pastorgar tanta bestia En aital leuc, tan soldana!" 4. - "Don, dis ela, qui que-m sia, Ben conosc sen folia; La vostra parelharia, Senher, so dis la vilana, Lai on se tanh si s'estia, Que tals la cuj'en bailia Tener, no n'a mas 1'ufana!" 5. - "Toza de gentil afaire, Cavaliers fon vostre paire Que-us engenret en la maire, Tan fo-n corteza vilana, C'on plus vos gart m'etz belaire, E per vostre joy m'esclaire, Si fossetz un pauc humana!"

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6. - "Senher, mon linh e mon aire Vey revertir e retraire Al vezoig e a 1'araire. Senher, so dis la vilana, Mas tals se fai cavalgaire C'atrestal deuria faire Los seis jorns de la setmana." 7. - "Toza, fi-m eu, gentils fada Vos adastret, quan fos nada, D'una beutat esmerada Sobre tot' autra vilana. E seria-us ben doblada Si-m vezi' una vegada Sobiran e vos sotrana." 8. - "Senher, tan m'avetz lauzada Pois en pretz m'avetz levada, Qu'ar vostr* amor tan m'agrada, Senher, so dis la vilana, Per so n'auretz per soudada Al partir 'bada, fol, bada," E la muz' a meliana!" 9. - "Toza, felh cor e salvtage Adomesg' om per usatge, Ben conosc, al trespassatge, Qu'ab aital toza vilana Pot horn far ric companhatge Ab amistat de coragte, Quan 1'us 1'autre non engana." 10. - "Don, hom cochatz de folatge Jur' e pliu e promet gatge. Si-m fariatz homenatge; Senher, so dis la vilana, Mas ges, per un pauc d'intratge No vuelh mon despiuzelhatge Camjar, per nom de putana!" 11.- "Toza, tota creatura Revertis a sa natura: Parelhar parelhadura Devem, eu e vos, vilana, A I'abric lone la pastura, Que mielhs n'estaretz segura Per far la causa doussana."

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12. - "Don, oc; mas segon dreitura Cerca fols la folatura, Cortes cortez' aventura, E-l vilas ab la vilana; En tal loc fai sen fraitura On horn non garda mezura, So ditz la gens anciana." 13. - "Belha, de vostra figura No-η vi autra plus tafura Ni de son cor plus trefana." 14. - "Don, lo cavecs vos ahura, Que tals bad' en la peintura Qu'autre n'espera la mana!"

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The formal make-up of these lines mirrors the poem's thematic development. Both the metrics and the debate are carefully and elaborately constructed. There are twelve coblas doblas of seven lines each with a rhyme scheme of aaabaab. Two tornados unissonans of three lines each, with an aab rhyme scheme, complete the lyric. The frame of this pastourelle is similar to that of the alba: an introductory narration by the knight is followed by a spirited dialogue which comprises the major portion of the verse. The classic male-female confrontation is intensified by a clashing juxtaposition of "courtly" and "rustic" worlds. In the fourth line of each of the twelve coblas doblas there appears a striking and calculated repetition of the word vilana f which literally means peasant or one who is low-born, vulgar, course, rough) instead of the word pastora or pastoressa. The connotations of vilana are of the lowest sort, but the root of the word, vil, while translated as low and base, can also mean lively and quick,41 both attributes of this toza. Despite the knight's rhetorical attempts to "elevate" her position through flattery, she is constantly referred to as vilana. In the opening narrative stanza he does use the word pastora but modified with the word mestissa, which literally means "of mixed blood", implying a low social condition. The narrative 41

Raymond T. Hill and Thomas G. Bergin, eds., Anthology of the Provenfal Troubadours (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941), p. 340.

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description emphasizes the purely physical aspects of the toza by dwelling on her attire, which is clearly not that of a lady although he later uses "courtly" rhetoric to address her. By describing her thus he has at once revealed his true attitude so that his later verbal flattery becomes transparent. The irony of the poem - and much of its wit - is found in the reversal of roles and the play on appearance and reality. In a cleverly contrived inversion, Marcabru endows the "lowly" shepherdess with wisdom, while the "educated" knight appears the fool. His position of "lordliness" deteriorates as the debate evolves. To each of his verbal sallies the clever shepherdess finds a wise and quick retort, and in the end his own rhetoric is used against him. Marcabru has cleverly developed the dramatic irony here since he and the audience share the knowledge that the knight is a fool. The shepherdess, of course, is aware of the irony, but the narratorknight remains unaware, which amazingly adds yet another level of irony. James J. Wilhelm has compared the poem to one of the prose dialogues between persons of different classes found in Andreas Capellanus' treatise on love. But Wilhelm finds an important difference: ... there the mixing of social stations is sanctioned - at least until the final chapter; but here the breaking of the classical-medieval aphorism similis simili appetit ("like seeks after like") is clearly frowned on.42

The poem does tend to frown on such a breach of social code, but the reasons for this are not the expected ones. The argument for similis simili appetit is offered by the toza: "Cerca fols la folature./Cortes cortez' aventuia,/E-l vilas ab la vilana" (11. 79-81). The knight, on the other hand, out of lust and expediency, is only too eager to break social boundaries - so long as they stay within the bounds of the meadow and not the parlor. The hypocrisy of his position is apparent and is continually pointed out by the shepherdess. Throughout she addresses him as Senher and Don, 42

James J. Wilhelm, Seven Troubadours: The Creators of Modern Verse (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1970), p. 83.

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but not without a note of irony; for a central part of her resistance involves poking fun at him and at his social station. For example, while acknowledging that she is what she is (a farmgirl), at the same time she suggests that, for all his pretense and despite his apparent nobility, he himself should perhaps be toiling in the fields (11. 40-42). The shepherdess is a formidable creature. Jean Audiau has said of her: Cependant Marcabru me parait Stre reste assez pres de la roalito; certes, la vilana qu'il nous pr6sente 'a terriblement d'esprit pour une fille des champs'; mais, si la vivacito de ses ropliques est un peu doconcertante, son langage, il faut bien l'avouer, ressemble beaucoup ä celui d'une gardeuse de troupeau.43 Indeed, she may not resemble a real gardeuse de troupeau as Audiau suggests, but she is certainly a lively and intriguing character infused with life by Marcabru. Despite the knight's entreaties and his attempts to woo her with flattery, the shepherdess is gifted with much common sense. In line three she is described as one rich vfilhjoy and sen and in line twenty-three she points out that she at least knows sen from folia. This virtue found in the poor shepherdess shows that good sense cannot be ascribed according to one's social position. She also describes herself as sana (1. 14), which means physically hale and hearty; the word also connotes soundness of mind. The knight does not realize either her spiritual or her physical strength. In his first attempt to win her in stanza three, he simply offers his companionship, the most elementary of approaches in the pastourelle. He implies that a toza vilana should not be alone tending bestia, overlooking the fact that she is alone by her own volition and that she is quite capable of pasturing her bestia. In short, she is in control of her physical environment while he is out of his element. It is interesting that the knight refers to the animals as bestia, and that Marcabru has left unspecified the name of the animals which the shepherdess tends. This emphasis on the word bestia underscores the "bestiality" of both the animals and the 43

Audiau, p. xvii.

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knight. She controls his bestial impulses in the same way that she controls her animals. Her response in stanza four immediately shows that she is a more acute judge of character than he is, for she has seen through him at once. She defines herself well in contrast to him and, despite her tender age, she is too clever to be taken in by his argument. She is wise where he is foolish. The theme of foolishness is touched upon five times in the lyric: folia (folly in stanza four);fol (fool in stanza eight); foliage (madness in stanza ten); andfols andfolatura (fool and folly in stanza twelve). This is an example of a kind of incremental repetition familiar in the ballad from. Ironically, each instance refers to the knight - that is, to the "narrator". Stanza five stresses the erotic motif. As the knight's ardor increases, so does his flattery of the toza. In pretending that she must be of noble heritage, he suggests that her father was a knight who engendered the toza in a mother who was a "courtly farmgirl". This oxymoron, corteza vilana, illustrates the absurdity of his rhetorical trickery. His flattering picture of her heritage parallels his own intentions toward her, since he is, after all, the cavalier who wants to possess the vilana. This reveals his wishful thinking: "perhaps 'history' will repeat itself - to my gratification." Seeing through this, she acknowledges her rustic heritage and, using his rhetorical inversion of social positions, places him among those who toil in the fields. The irony is in the fact that, although she is not of noble birth, her "spiritual nobility" does not depend on such heredity. Having failed in his first attempts, the knight's argument becomes more fantastic in stanza seven. He allows himself to play the fool as he likens her to some creature in a fairytale, in an exaggerated effort to further "glorify" her position. As the debate has progressed, so has his lust and, becoming careless, he no longer tries to clothe his argument in logic as he reverts to bold lascivious language, stating quite explicitly that he would like to see her "just one time below me, with me on top!" (11. 47-49). His true intensions are completely unveiled as he lets it be known that his interest is merely in a single love adventure. At this point

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in some pastourelles, with sexual desire at a peak, the knight might use brute force to persuade the shepherdess, but in this case he is weakened while the toza is in control of the situation. Stanza eight, the central part of the poem, shows the complete inversion of positions: the toza has ascended to a position of complete command while the knight has descended to the position of fol His attempts to "elevate" her have turned against him and she scornfully gives him his just soudada for placing her on this pedestal of superiority: "'bada,fol, badaV" For his efforts he has achieved nothing; he is merely the emptyhanded fool who must wait in vain. Dropping his "courtly" rhetoric, along with his control, the knight calls her toza vilana in stanza nine. His veiled threat to tame a felh and salvatge heart has affinities to the mal mariee song with its usual threat of a beating.44 It suggests also the manner in which shepherdesses are handled in some pastourelles. But here he does not carry through with his threat and instead pleads that she cooperate with him in a "good and warm-hearted friendship". The language she uses in response in stanza ten points to her knowledge of life. She is not the innocent and gullible little girl he had expected to encounter. Further, she is well aware that she would have far more to lose than might be gained from a brief affair with this knight. The price for her is too high: she does not wish to change her name from virgin to putana. In a last drowning effort to seduce her, the knight says in stanza eleven that they should, like all creatures, revert to their nature, thus violating the natural hierarchical order. His argument has come full circle: from her elevated place in fairyland he has moved her back to the position of toza vilana and speaks of their "kindred spirits". This, of course, tells more about him than her, for she has shown him his true place and now, to cover his injured ego, he seeks to equate their positions. He further offers that they might indulge in the causa doussana down in the meadow, im44

For examples of the chanson de mal mariee, see Bartsch, I, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 35, and 49.

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plying that she might have consented if they could hide their indiscretion. Frankly outspoken in his attempts to woo her, the knight has obviously been frustrated by the shepherdess' cleverness and, in the end, he can only compliment her figura as plus tafura and curse her cor as plus trefana (11. 85-87). The thrust and parry of their debate has shown the progression of his frustration. He has tried almost every (verbal) trick of seduction, but the toza, wise beyond her years, has stood her ground and won the battle. She has based her arguments on dreitura (rightness) and sense, while he, prompted by lust, has relied on expediency. It has been suggested that the outcome may perhaps represent a victory for morality over lust. Marcabru's didactic spirit does break through the poem's surface in the conclusion which contains the shepherdess' gnomic statement comparing a man gaping at a painting with a man praying for his manna, or spiritual reward.45 Here is one of man's oldest maxim's - "so ditz la gens anciana" (1. 84). It suggests that, had the gallant been more like the man praying for manna, he might have succeeded. Had he been less forward, more humble, and practiced some restraint and moderation in his wooing, he might have won the shepherdess' heart. Wilhelm has applied the shepherdess' concluding remarks to the development of Provencal poetry as well as to the immediate sitution of the poem: Her words are very suggestive, not only to the male protagonist, but for the whole development of Provencal poetry. A man must walk between the extremes of immersion in the sensual (where William sometimes falls) and possibly, on the other side, projection into the too esoteric (where Jaufri Rudel threatens to recede). Although Leo Spitzer has stressed ideas of equality in the poem, the real moral (and one exists) is that one cannot mix what was not meant to be mixed: Christian love of one's neighbor meant brotherhood in Christ, not 'equal' companionship down by the hedgerow. Once again, Marcabrun takes the side of the Church in the total form of his composition.46 45

Manna in the troubadour tradition is considered a delicate morsel which designates the felicity of satisfied love. See V. Crescini in Atti del Reale Institute Veneto LXXXV, 2 (1925-26), pp. 823-833. 46

Wilhelm, Seven Troubadours, pp. 83-84.

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Whether or not one allegorizes this poem or draws a moral from it as Wilhelm has done, one cannot avoid the significance of the concluding remarks which reflect on the whole tradition of the pastourelle. The man here, as in the pastourette in general, acts with passion and without restraint (gaping) toward the shepherdess whom he obviously looks upon as a beautiful object to be obtained to satisfy his sexual desires. One cannot help comparing this attitude prevalent in the pastourelle to the attitude toward the ladies of the lyric of amour courtois. There in some cases the lady's stature is elevated and love is considered "ennobling", while the pastourelle evolves an argument (primarily through the words of the knight) for the delights of the flesh. The approach to the shepherdess is on one level only - the physical.

A LA FONTANA DEL VERGIER The second example by Marcabru incorporates elements of the conventional pastourelle but at the same time is reminiscent of the more "courtly" lyric and other types of women's complaints. For example, the woman, whom we have pointed out is a lady rather than a shepherdess, laments the absence of her lover in much the same way that the woman of the chanson de toile complains of separation from her lover.47 In Marcabru's lyric the lady first reproaches God for taking her lover into his service and then Louis VII of France for organizing the expedition to the second crusade. 1. A la fontana del vergier, on l'erb'es vertz josta-1 gravier, a 1'ombra d'un fust domesgier, en aiziment de blancas flors e de novelh chant costumier, trobey sola, ses companhier, selha que no vol mon solatz. 47

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2. So fon donzelh'ab son cors belh, filha d'un senhor de castelh; e quant ieu cugey que 1'auzelh li fesson joy e la verdors, e pel dous termini novelh, e quez entendes mon favelh, tost li fon sos afars camjatz. 3. Dels huelhs ploret josta la fon e del cor sospiret preon. 'Jhesus,' dis elha, 'reys del mon, per vos mi creys ma grans dolors, quar vostra anta mi cofon, quar li mellor de tot est mon vos van servir, mas a vos platz. 4. Ab Vos se'n vai lo meus amicx, lo belhs e-1 gens e·! pros e-1 ricx; sai me'n reman lo grans destricx, lo deziriers soven e-1 plors. Ay mala fos reys Lozoicx, que fai los mans e los prezicx, per que-1 dols m'es el cor intratz!' 5. Quant ieu 1'auzi desconortar, ves lieys vengui fosta-1 riu clar. 'Belha,' fi-m ieu, 'per trop plorar afolha cara e colors; e no vos qual dezesperar, que Selh qui fai lo bosc fulhar vos pot donar de joy assatz.* 6. 'Senher,' dis elha, 'ben o crey que Dieus aya de mi mercey en l'autre segle per jassey, quon assatz d'autres peccadors; mas say mi tolh aquelha rey don joys mi crec: mas pauc mi tey, que trop s'es de mi alonhatz.'

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A lafontana del vergier opens with a spring setting and the "usual spring refrains", but there is an important difference from the conventional pastoral scene. Most pastourelles are set in the woods or forests, wild places where vegetation grows free from control or cultivation, implying perhaps that the human spirit is also freer,

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less controlled. But in this lyric the wild natural setting is replaced by an orderly orchard (vergier), an enclosed area, a planned "natural" setting where nature is subdued and controlled. The tree, for example, is described as a. planted tree - unfust domesgier or a domestic tree, as opposed to a wild-growing one, implying man's hand in ordering the spot. This ordered and subdued setting contrasts with the uncontrolled and emotional state of the lady. She is found lamenting and weeping with sighs "choking from deep within" (1. 16). She is alone and in the shade of the tree. This could be interpreted as signifying both her solitude and the spiritual state of her mind. The tree's shadow obscures the light and thus stresses her primitive and emotional behavior. The tree, as was mentioned previously, is linked to sexual images and in this context one should not overlook (nor overstress) the tree as symbolic of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. It is interesting that it is the man in this garden who is driven by lust and wishes to tempt the lady. Her desire is for a lover who is far away (in the Holy Land) and her most compelling emotion is despair and loneliness. The fontana in the orchard has as its source a spring and is a central part of the garden setting, just as the lady is the focus of the lyric. Stanza three links the two with the line: "Dels huelhs ploret josta la fon." While the fountain's spring suggests the spring of life with its implications of joy and love, the lady's tears well up out of her great isolation and despair, symbolically representing the death of her soul. The fountain is conventionally accepted as an image of the soul as the source of inner life, and is further connected with the land of childhood and the unconscious. Thus, the need for the fountain arises when a person has suffered loss or adversity in life, as in this lyric where the lady faces the immediate loss of her lover to the second crusade. She has been left alone with "lo grans destricx, lo deziriers soven e-1 plors" (11. 24-25). Isolated, without companion, the woman's agony implies unfulfilled sexual longings. But they are for her departed lover and thus the knight's offer of companionship gives her no comfort.

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The pastoral dialectic is present but the lyric concentrates on the woman's complaint rather than on an attempted seduction.48 The knight is unable to penetrate the interior world of the lovely lady and is thus frustrated in the encounter. Finding such a beautiful woman in this idyllic setting, he thinks only of the joy and sweetness of the season and of love. He describes the spot as one which gives strength and comfort: "en aiziment de blancas flors, / e de novelh chant costumier" (11. 4-5). His is the usual association of spring and nature. However, the woman's mood represents an inversion of the usual reverdie: the ideal landscape, which should cause joy, contrasts with her state of mind. Instead of being consoled by nature, the woman is in great turmoil. The original surface impressions provided by the "narrator" in the first two stanzas are wiped away by the lady's tears and anguish in stanzas three and four. Like the situation in the alba, the parting of lovers has caused this great sorrow, and it is the woman who curses the source of her pain. However, instead of cursing Dawn, the lady curses God (the source of light) and King Louis. The exterior world (Dawn) poses a threat to the lovers in the alba; in this lyric the exterior world (King Louis) has snatched away the woman's lover, and thus her happiness. After hearing the lady's complaint, the "narrator" in the fifth stanza still does not comprehend her feelings. This is true in most pastourelles where the knight is more aware of the woman's physical being than of her feelings and thoughts. Continuing to emphasize the beauty of the exterior world, he tells her to stop crying since her tears will destroy her complexion. He also tells her that God who fai lo bosc (1. 34) can also give her great joy. His response to her complaint offers her no comfort since she wants only the joy that her lover can give, which is not explicitly stated as a purely physical joy. Some might be tempted to interpret this song as an allegory in which the man (as Lust) and the woman (as Loneliness) represent 48

Anna Granville Hatcher ("Marcabru's A la fontana del vergier", MLN 79 [May 1964], pp. 284-295) stresses this point, insisting that the woman's song rises over the pastoral dialectic.

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incompatible opposites in a God-given and God-ordered universe in which He rules over even the most dissident. Wilhelm, however, says that such an interpretation is unnecessary and that the tension created by these opposites is left unresolved at the end: Marcabrun leaves the work open, he allows us a choice of attitudes; with his characteristic shrewdness, almost as if he knew which voice would appeal to most of his hearers, he gives the lovely lady the last, most memorable word. Yet her word by no means sums up the poem, for the God, though rejected, is there. And so is Marcabrun, a frustrated persona whose failure to effect his scheme ironically points up the poet's favorite doctrine: that lust is self-defeating. Morality is thus maintained, but in a warm, dramatic form that speaks even across the chasm of the ages.49 Marcabru is not primarily pointing to a moral but is interested in the woman's complaint and the effects of separation implied in her words. The poem, it might be said, is elegiac in tone - in the sense that it tells of unrequited love. There is less emphasis on the man's lust than on the lady's distress. And it is not Lust, but God and King Louis who have defeated love. Unlike the typical pastourelle which stresses the conflict between the lustful knight and the shepherdess, here the sexual demonstrations are toned down. As we have seen, Marcabru concentrates on the lady. The "narrator" sets the scene and introduces her in the opening stanzas and then fades into the action. The eye of the camera moves in for a "closeup" of the woman's interior being. The poem, in effect, becomes a psychological study of the woman and her plaintive song dominates. This viewpoint tends to present both setting and dialogue from a singular perspective. There is a distance created which is not present in the usual pastourelle. In summary, A lafontana del vergier departs from the tradition in these important ways: 1. a garden setting replaces the open fields; 2. the pastorela is replaced by a donzelh, thus eliminating the class conflict; 49

Wilhelm, Seven Troubadours, p. 85.

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3. a debate is not stressed; 4. it is not humorous, but has tragic overtones. The poem moves in the direction of the so-called "courtly" lyric and Marcabru must have sensed that this was the only direction in which the genre could go. Apparently, poets of less genius than Marcabru failed to see this. The genre has a strong propensity for the dramatic and it was inevitable that this came to be exploited, but not to advantage. In some cases such as in the compositions of Cadenet and Cerveri de Girona, the "dramatized narrator" (the all important "I" of the genre) no longer limits his role to that of protagonist in the debate but becomes a spectator of the amorous battle. From time to time it becomes necessary for him to intervene in order to cool heated tempers and to prevent fist fights. While the pastourelle was scarcely removed from the genre of drama itself, it was not drama, and its delicately balanced structure, which was perfectly suited for the dialectic of two and which derived much of its poetic tension therefrom, could not bear this added burden. That development was reserved for the stage. Likewise, its propensity for narrative played an important part in its decline. This is illustrated in Guiraut Riquier's treatment; he composed six pastorelas, all of which depict the same shepherdess.50 In the first poem ('LOutre jorn, m'anava) she has a lover and rejects the knight's advances. In poems two (L'autrier, trobey la bergeira d'antan), three (Gava pastorelha), and four (Uautrier, trobei la bergeira) we see the shepherdess and the knight slowly aging as they meet from time to time. In the crucial fifth composition (D'Astarac venia) she is married and the mother of a beautiful young daughter. This sets up the bitingly ironic denouement of the sixth composition (A Sant Pos de Tomeiras) in which the once beautiful shepherdess is seen as an old widow - courted by a widower. As if to add insult to injury, the narrator has her witness the courting of her daughter by the self-same man who tried to seduce her as a young girl! What Guiraut Riquier has produced 50

Audiau IX-XIV, pp. 44-79.

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is no longer in the realm of the pastourette: rather he presents us with a pastoral novelette, in which the theme of the encounter is replaced by the theme of the cruelty of time's passage and the effects it imposes upon man's shifting fortune.

THE LYRIC OF THE IMAGINED STATE OF BEING

In the lyrics previously discussed, we observed personae addressing each other directly, speaking to themselves, and speaking to an implied audience. We referred to these entities as the rhetorical elements of the poems. In these lyrics the rhetorical structure was seen to be at bottom the same and determined by a basic situation - the interrelation and interaction of the rhetorical elements. A generalization that was made about these lyrics is that they focus on external events; we noted as well that in them the poet "objectively" expresses the emotions of others, of those whom he represents: the watchman, the lady or beloved, and the knight or lover of the alba, for example, and the shepherdess and the knight of the pastorela. In these poems the poet does not seem to confront directly his own existence, for the poem and the dramatis personae of the poem appear to mediate between him and existence. That is, the poet as dialogist has the personae undergo this confrontation, and so far as possible each one represents a reasonably consistent outlook, a position that is rendered clear by them in their roles as watchman, lady, or knight. Thus, their conflict, which is in the foreground, is emphasized as the dialogue unfolds. In such compositions the poet can only comment by implication and so, in a sense, relegates the speakers to the rank of third person. The poet selects various points of view for presentation, and he can arrange and control them at will. His skill in accomplishing this is of the utmost importance, for this gives

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... to each of them in turn a deeper significance, for in any final analysis the meaning of each presented point of view, of each person, is formulable only with reference to the total hypostasis, the structure of meaning which... [the] whole represents.1

This must be so, for this is the true path to the controlling point of view, to the deepest lyrical self. In contrast, the poems to be discussed now deal with the state of mind or being of just one person, the speaker or the "I" of the poem. One might term this the poetry of direct involvement in which a speaker's emotional or intellectual experience - experience that derives its meaning from closeness to life or nature (existence) - is lyrically revealed. This is not to suggest that this kind of poetry is autobiographical. Rather the poet employs emotion and dialectics poetically to make it seem so. Events in such poems - if they can be called events - appear to be of an internal nature, emphasizing moments of self-revelation or subjective philosophy. If the subject is love, for instance, "the poet seeks to portray the experience of love in terms of its intenser emotions. It is definition by direct involvement - at least that is the fiction."2 The last phrase sticks in the mind, for it suggests what we all know but often tend to forget: that art is formal, that the creator (poet) and the creation (poem or artifact) are not synonymous. Kenneth Burke nicely clarifies this for us: The reader of the poem must 'make allowances' for the fact that the poem is an artifact, its moods artificial - and in this respect the poem could be called less 'simple' than the actual attitudes it imitates.... when calling the poem a simplification and life outside the poem unsimplified, we have in mind the sense of unity (order) supplied by the poem.3

This gets right at the heart of the problem - artistic expression 1

George T. Wright, The Poet in the Poem (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), p. 19. 2 Stephen G. Nichols, Jr., "Toward an Aesthetic of the Provencal Canso", in Peter Demetz, ed., The Disciplines of Criticism: Essays in Literary Theory, Interpretation and History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), p.355. 3 Kenneth Burke, "Three Definitions", The Kenyon Review XIII (1951), p. 175.

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tends to transcend "emotional matter" by artistic form. Yet there is always a tendency to regard the "purer" forms of lyric poetry as being the direct utterances of poets: to attribute the words, sentiments, or emotions directly to the poet himself, and even to say that the poem expresses or reveals the poet's personality.4 But when the poet sacrifices the formal shaping distance provided by art, he is in danger of not creating art at all. The lyric poet must be extremely cautious in this respect, since he - perhaps more so than any other type of author - always runs the risk of being "too exactly himself", as Wallace Stevens puts it. Art is formal, and We do not say ourselves like that in poems. We say ourselves in syllables that rise From the floor, rising in speech we do not speak.5

The poet, then, must somehow establish a distance (minimized or emphasized) between himself and his creation. As has been indicated, in poems which contain more than one voice this is not so difficult. Aesthetic distance, in such compositions, is structurally built into the very form, but the poet can violate this by thrusting himself into the poem. Previously the word "subjective" was used to describe the lyric which stresses the state of mind of one person. This requires qualification. The concept of the lyric as "direct" expression of the poet's thoughts or feelings, of the lyric as expressing personal, subjective emotion is relatively modern. Definitions of lyric poetry by reference to content were not usual before the Romantics. Earlier concern was with external form. With the Romantics concern shifted to the content of the lyric ("emotion recollected in tranquility" and so forth). The words of R. M. Alden written early in this century illustrate this change: 4

In this regard, it is amazing how little thought is given to the possibility that the poem may not be the expression of personality but an escape from it. T. S. Eliot somewhere in Selected Essays suggests this and adds that only those with personality and emotions would know why it is desirable to escape from them. 5 Wallace Stevens, Collected Poems (New York: Knopf, 1957), p. 311.

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... the word lyric is used both in a general and a more particular sense, having gradually been extended from its original meaning - a poem to be sung by a single singer - to include all poetry expressing subjectively the emotion of the poet or those whom he represents.6

A host of such remarks would be easy to compile but we need not do that here. More recently, with the advent of the concept of the lyric persona there has been a shift of emphasis. But, as was mentioned earlier, how the persona actually functions is still far from evident. Wright offers a good working hypothesis. He suggests that in all literary works there are two levels of address. The first level is an internal one: the voice or voices of the composition speak to themselves or to other entities in the work. On the second, the author quite clearly addresses us. These levels, however, in lyric poems have a tendency to merge. This is how Wright delineates the two levels: We can sense rather easily the presence of the two levels in a fairly formal lyric, say a love sonnet. On the surface we can read the following personae: 1st person: singer of love song 2d person: singer's mistress 3d person: singer's love for mistress On the deeper level of the poem the poet talks to us: 1st person: composer of song 2d person: we as readers or hearers 3d person: human passion, one aspect of the human world7

What this means is that ultimately the author wishes to communicate to us his view of existence or some part of it. Therefore, his point of view is by definition always bigger than the persona, the "I", which ...like the other surface materials of the poem, is only a conventional element in a symbolic context that serves as the formal expression of the poet's view of reality. If the point of view of the poet is not larger than that of his "I," what we have is not a poem but transcribed and polished β

Raymond Macdonald Alden, An Introduction to Poetry (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1909), p, 55. 7 Wright, p. 19.

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talk, a fragment of a human dialogue instead of a stylization of the human dialogue.8

When viewed from this perspective, the lyric is both subjective and objective. The poet's view of existence - Wright's second and deeper level - can be justly termed subjective, just as ours as individuals can be termed subjective. On the other level, the poem is objective, for emotions and thoughts are artistically represented. If this were not the case (to conclude the argument): ... the poem would not be a poem. As in the drama, as in fiction, the action of the lyric must function as a trope, a figure, a mask, an affirmation in symbolic terms of whatever it is that the poet, most deeply is telling us. The speech of literature is different in kind from that of ordinary talk, and the lyric ... is a stylized abstraction of the human dialogue, not an instance of it.9

If viewed strictly in these terms all true literature is one, and the way in which the stylization is accomplished becomes an extremely important factor. Thus, the ultimate differences between the two ranges of medieval lyric poetry distinguished by Dronke would seem to be minimal. Both ranges contain lyrics which are stylized abstractions of the human dialogue on love. In Wright's statement the word "action" is of crucial importance to what we are attempting to illustrate. For the most part in the alba and the pastorela the action functions as a trope in terms of symbolic (but individualized) masks: the narrator himself and what we have called the dramatis personae of the poems. In other words, the poet, in order to render his stylized abstraction of the human dialogue, to reveal his deepest views on sexual love and its effects, had recourse to "tropes" that spoke and felt and interacted with each other. The lyric of the imagined state of being, on the other hand, since it is lacking in these multiple masks, depends greatly on two things for poetic impact: first, it depends on the persona (in some cases) taking on a rather narrow definition, so that the range of expression and choice of modulation are accordingly narrowed to 8

9

Ibid., pp. 19-20.

Ibid., p. 21.

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produce a distinction so thin between the poet and the persona that it hardly seems to exist at all. The persona, in such cases, while existing, is made to seem to share much with the creator of the poem: an attitude toward love or certain emotional or intellectual qualities. The possibilities are endless, but these two are of central importance to the examples to be used, Raimbaut d'Orange's Assatz sai d'amor ben parier (love as war) and his Er resplan laflors enversa (love transfigures).10 Second, this kind of lyric expression depends more on trope as metaphor (much earlier it was stated that metaphor in the alba and pastorela has a limited poetic function in most instances) for its revelations on love. By trope we mean the central thrust of a poem and a turn on the usual or literal sense of words and ideas - or, more precisely, figures of expression involving changes of sense.11 The persona in these lyrics, in a sense, is the action: what the persona does, has done, would or would not do - all this, as well as the "mental actions", the thoughts and feelings of the speaker, must be conveyed through 10

The phrases "love as war" and "love transfigures", as well as our other examples, may suggest to the reader the concept of topoi; the term "topos", however, is not really appropriate in this context, since it has a very restricted meaning. Topoi, according to Ernst Robert Curtius in European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 70, are "cliches which can be used in any form of literature...." Thus a topos is a help toward composing a literary work and serves a definite, restricted rhetorical function. The term "trope", as our discussion indicates, is more appropriate, since we are talking not only about a figure's rhetorical function but about the "essence" of poems. For a bold and imaginative treatment of the question of tropes in modem poetry, see Frederic Will's "Palamas, Lorca, and the Question of Tropes in Literature", Literature Inside Out (Cleveland: The Press of Western Reserve University, 1966), pp. 54-70. 11 As James J. Wilhelm suggests in The Cruelest Month: Spring, Nature, and Love in Classical and Medieval Lyrics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), p. 208, it is perhaps no accident that "the noun 'troubadour' or trobaire descends from the learned verb trobar or trop-ar, with the Ciceronian meaning 'to invert,' invenire." The word trobar simply means 'to find* (French trouver, Italian trovare). For a discussion of the origins of the word "trope" see Pierre Bee, Petite anthologie de la lyrique occitane du Moyen Age (Avignon: Eduard Aubanel, 1962), p. 16. Martin de Riquer in La Llrica de los Trovadores, I (Barcelona: Escuela de Filologia, 1948), pp. xiii if., provides an excellent discussion of the relationship of troubadour poetics to such Latin treatises as the Rhetorica ad Herennium.

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the words of one speaker. Therefore, in the second instance, the affirmation in symbolic terms of whatever it is the poet most deeply is trying to communicate of necessity must rely on metaphor; for metaphoric perception converted into words represents the "action" of the lyric. Indeed, the trope tends to become the irreducible element of this kind of lyric. For purposes of illustration we have selected two examples from highly divergent traditions: the Old French En avril au tens pascour (love as a bond of service) and the medieval Latin De Ramis Cadunt Folia (love as a flame). As can be readily seen, our selections will treat very conventional medieval love tropes.12

EN AVRIL AU TENS PASCOUR The anonymous poem En avril au tens pascour belongs to that genre of Old French compositions known as reverdies. The poem opens with a conventional spring motif depicting the fresh budding of spring flowers in the grass and the song of the joyful lark at daybreak: En avril au tens pascour, Que sur 1'herbe naist la flour, L'aloete au point du jour Chant par moult grant baudour, Pour la dougor du terns nouvel,...13

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This toned-down description is somewhat abruptly followed by the awakening of the persona, the "I" of the poem who takes over at this point: Si me levai par un matin, S'oi chanter sur 1'arbrissel Un oiselet en son latin. Un petit me soulevai Pour esgardersa failure; 12

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For an extensive listing of basic classical and medieval (religious and secular) love tropes, see James J. Wilhelm's The Crudest Month, pp. 267-278. 13 Albert Pauphilet, ed., Pottes et Romanciers du Moyen Age (Bruges: Editions Gallimard), pp. 839-40.

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The speaker displays some curiosity - he wants to know what kind of bird has awakened him. But before he can learn this, hundreds of birds suddenly swoop down to perch on the tree, and we are presented with a brief catalogue of some of the birds: N'en soi mot, que des oiseaux Vi venir desmesure. Je vis 1'oriou, Et le rossignou, Si vi le pincon Et l'esmerillon, Dieu, et tant des autres oiseaux, De quoi je ne sai pas les noms, Qui sur eel arbre s'assistrent Et commencent leur chanson.

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This serves to illustrate his rapport with nature; it also serves to help introduce the first love motif, which grows out of two themes rebirth in nature and (re)awakening at the human level of existence. The next line tells us that he heard the birds sing the joys of love, a prelude which announces the approach of the god of Love: Je m'en alai sous la flour Pour ΟΪΓ joie d'amour. Tout belement par un prael Li dieus d'Amours vis chevauchier. At this point the significance of the gathering of the birds begins to dawn on us: love is capable of producing harmony as the different species of birds sing together. This is underscored as li dieus d'Amours accepts the persona as his squire: "Je m'en alai son appel,/ De moi a fait son escuier." Thus another element, the speaker, is drawn toward love. Love, then, is capable of drawing disparate elements of life together. The thorough description of the figura Love shows us how this is so: Ses chevaus fu de depors, Sa seile de ses dangiers, Ses escus fut de quartiers De baisier et de sourire.

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THE LYRIC OF THE IMAGINED STATE OF BEING

Ses haubers estroit D'acoler estroit, Ses heaumes de flours De pluseurs colours. Dieu, sa lance est de cortoisie, Espee de flour de glai, Ses chauces de mignotie, Esperons de bec de jai. Tuit chanterent a un son, One n'i ot autre jongleor.

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The poem depicts the rapport of the persona with nature where birds sing of the joy of love, the acceptance of the persona as a squire by the god of Love, and the elaborate description of Love just seen. From the themes of rebirth and (re)awakening - which are almost impossible to separate - in the first part of the poem, we move to the controlling idea of the poem, which is love as a unifying force and bond of service.14 When one realizes how this has been accomplished, the poet's technique is startling: it is brought about by the growing awareness and the widening perceptual focus of the speaker. At first he hears only the sound of a small solitary bird, but his perception begins to expand as he sees orioles, nightingales, chaffinches, and merlins. Also, at first the chirping of the solitary bird en son latin is incomprehensible to him, but it subsequently blends into the songs of the other birds, thereby becoming a more significant, universal expression of joie d'amour, in celebration of the god of Love, whose call prompts him to leave the refuge under the tree and unite himself with Love by entering into Love's service as a squire. From a sluggish awakening, the speaker has slowly moved to the realization that the individual elements in nature can be united by the power of love. All of this, however, has to do with phenomena on the physical plane of existence. The personified abstraction of Love provides the spiritual plane. The speaker's perception and subsequent description of the god of Love reveal a conceived ideal. The speaker himself provides a fusion of nature images - for example, jay's beaks and flowers as 14

See Wilhelm for a good list of analogues to this trope, pp. 274-276.

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part of Love's attire - with the spiritual abstractions - for instance, love's delight - which culminate in cortoisie. The speaker's expanding vision thus focuses on the "meaning" of love: love contains both the concrete (physical) and the abstract (spiritual). The poem depends on a very elaborate metaphor to carry its message about love: just as the knight (who is not seen but whose presence is implied) is the bond which holds together the horse, armaments, hauberk, and helmet, the highly mysterious though animate spirit of love binds the various elements of nature into one harmonious unity where "Tuit chanterent ä un son,/ one n'i ot autre jongleor" ill. 39-40). The narrative structure and the persona's evolving perceptions turn to complement each other in expressing the poet's view of the power of love. But other perhaps subtler techniques are also employed. The actions of the speaker, as we have seen, bind the physical with the spiritual. At the beginning, the speaker's lack of comprehension provides a certain distance (almost a barrier) between him and the images described, but his involvement in and identification with nature (nature's rebirth also becomes his rebirth) increases in immediacy as he participates in life in the terns nouvel. However, by putting himself into Love's service, he transcends the physical plane of existence, and in so doing the speaker becomes a rather subtle bond between the physical world characterized by the joie cTamour of the birds and the spiritual ideal represented by Love. His repetition of certain phrases in the description of nature and in the description of the god of Love helps to strengthen the concept of love as a unifying power. For example, he uses the words Je m'en alai in describing his position beneath the tree; he uses the exact same words to tell of his response to the call of Love. Further, he uses the invocation Dieu when he catalogues the birds and when he lists the attributes of Love. Though conventional motifs often associated with other views on love are employed in the poem, they are subordinated to the notion of love as a bond of service. For instance, in line fourteen the birds express their joy of love, buijoi here is not that 701' which

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commonly implies an exalted state of the lover's mind; it is instead that which draws together the various species of birds. Further, when the speaker becomes Love's squire, the trope of love as an ennobling force is suggested. This raises the question: is he really ennobled ? Not really - for though his attention is focused on an ideal, love is not a theme here but rather it is used as a poetic technique by which the persona's vision is widened to include and synthesize the images of nature with the ideal of love. Similarly, the motif of feudal fidelity bridges the persona's previous unenlightened experience with his enlightened perception of the power of Love, the delight and harmony which it engenders, and his awakening thus takes on symbolic dimensions. The frame of the poem is that of the reverdie; the poet has the speaker awaken and "act out" his metaphoric perception. There is no possibility of tampering with the trope which represents a vision of harmony. To do so would be to introduce disharmony into the perfectly wrought poetic world, to sunder the synthesis of the physical and spiritual planes expressed by the poem. DE RAMIS CADUNT FOLIA The De Ramis Cadunt Folia conveys the central idea of love as a flame,15 which provides a context for interpreting the poem's treatment of the nature of love. Whereas the preceding example traced the persona's rapport with nature, here the persona's state of being contrasts with the natural world: while all about him is turning to cold winter, the lover alone is burning with the flame of love. 1. De ramis cadunt folia, nam viror totus periit, iam calor liquit omnia et abiit; nam signa coeli ultima sol petiit. 15

Ibid., pp. 273-274, for a good list of analogues to this trope.

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2. lam nocet frigus teneris, et avis bruma leditur, et philomena ceteris conqueritur, quod illis ignis etheris adimitur. 3. Nee lympha caret alveus, nee prata virent herbida, sol nostra fugit aureus confinia; est inde dies niveus, nox frigida. 4. Modo frigescit quidquid est, sed solus ego caleo; immo sic mihi cordi est quod ardeo; hie ignis tarnen virgo est, qua langueo. 5. Nutritur ignis osculo et leni tactu virginis; in suo lucet oculo lux luminis, nee est in toto seculo plus numinis. 6. Ignis grecus extinguitur cum vino iam acerrimo; sed iste non extinguitur miserrimo: immo fomento alitur uberrimo.16

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The structure of the poem reflects the progressive development and intensification of the notion of love as a flame. The approach of winter in stanza one becomes the cold reality of winter in stanzas two and three. Stanzas four and five juxtapose the flame burning within the lover to the stark world described in the preceding stanzas. The beloved is both the source of this flame and the very flame

16

Edelstand P. Du Μέπΐ, Ροέζίβχ populaires latines du Moyen Age (Paris, 1847), p. 235.

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itself. The concluding stanza is a statement on the essential nature of the flame of love. Let us examine more closely the poetic landscape of the first three stanzas where the subdued, slowly developing Naturbild (fall-winter landscape) functions as a direct contrast to the lover's burning state. The speaker begins each stanza with very concrete images followed by a "statement". In the first stanza, for example, the image is that of leaves falling from the branches of the trees, so that they become but a wan memory of what they once were. Then comes the statement to reinforce the impression of the image of a dying greenness: summer is over and even the sun is retreating. The second stanza progresses to another level of coldness - with the hard image of frost destroying the more tender foliage and afllicting even the birds. From the general picture of birds, the image moves to the specific by focusing on the nightingale17 who grieves at the diminishing power of the sun. In stanza three we are clearly in a winter world. The river flows through a barren countryside, through the once green meadows. The sun has now completely abandoned this world, in which the snow falls by day and in which the nights have become a numbing frigidity. This is a desolate world in which no living thing moves - the only movement is that of the river and the falling snow. This contrasts to the previous stanzas in which there was some life, albeit a life freezing into winter death. The images of these stanzas engage both the senses and the imagination: from the aura of sadness at the sight of diminishing life we are thrust into a numb world, and it could be said that we ourselves become almost "winterish". This leads to an expectation which the poem, cleverly, does not fulfill: surely, we think, the speaker will share our winter minds. 17

The nightingale here is a most fortunate choice to grieve the passing of summer. A. T. Hatto in Appendix I, "Imagery and Symbolism", Eos: An Enquiry into the Theme of Lovers' Meetings and Partings at Dawn in Poetry (The Hague: Mouton, 1968), p. 795, writes: "In medieval vernacular lovepoetry and in Latin love-poetry influenced by it, like the Carmina Burana, the nightingale expresses joy of love. An elegiac note enters when the leaves of summer fall and the nightingale lapses into silence...." In pages 704-800 Hatto traces the poetic uses of the bird in various literary contexts and national traditions.

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But this is not the case. The antithesis is clear: instead of identifying with the winter world, the speaker, afire with love, emphasizes the gulf between him and nature. This convention most likely grows out of the pastoral tradition of Theocritus and Virgil where love-sickness isolates the lover from nature.18 In the medieval treatment the vernal motif is often employed as a contrast to the unhappy state of the lover, who suffers from an unrequited love.19 Thus, while the return of spring traditionally means rebirth and renewal of love-making, to the tormented lover it means frustration and isolation from the natural world. The Naturbild thus creates a poetic tension between desire and the possibility of fulfilling that desire. This tension is developed through inversion of the seasonal motif. The lover is introduced into a completely frozen landscape and exists on an entirely different level from the world at large. The very fact that he is in love sets him apart from the natural world where all life and emotion are frozen. From the external world of "coldness" the scene shifts to the internal world of ardor, from the physical "reality" of the winter scene to the metaphorical flame burning within the lover's heart. This synthesis intensifies the emotion of love and projects the lover as a self-contained entity. In contrast to the external, frozen landscape, the lover burns within: because of the flame within his heart, he alone retains warmth and life in the face of winter. In this poetic context he is more potent than even the sun which in the first few stanzas weakly strives against the changing season, but it, like everything else, must retreat, pale, becoming a faint glimmer of what it once was. Love is thus placed in a cosmic dimension. The lover's condition is dependent upon the burning love within his heart. Even here, in this interior dimension, paradox looms - the lover's flame is self-consuming. In stanza five the \irgofs kisses fuel the flame and her tender touches force it higher, 18

For a parallel treatment of the theme, see Virgil's Eclogues, II, VIII, X. There are hundreds of such examples, which follow in the footsteps of Guillaume IX's Ab la dolchor del temps novel, which exemplifies this treatment of love and which firmly establishes the convention in vernacular love lyric. 19

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and yet this same flame that seems to be the focal point of his being also diminishes him (langueo in stanza four). His ardor appears to be self-contained, but at the same time its core is the virgo, who is both the source of the flame and the flame itself: "hie ignis tarnen virgo est" (1. 23). Stanza five recalls the poem's opening by identifying the lady with the sun, which is the heavenly flame, the lux luminis. This light within the beloved's eyes connotes the light of life, as well as the celestial lights, the sun and the stars.20 Does this connection suggest that the departure of the sun parallels the lady's leaving her lover - thus creating a coldness which might be universalized and set in opposition to the lover's own desires? There is, so far as I can tell, nothing in the poem which would support such an interpretation. Indeed, whether or not the lady is responsive to his love is not of primary importance to the movement of the poem. The central factor is that the beloved is the sun within the poet's world; in warmth and intensity she is both like and unlike the physical sun. This image reinforces the tension posed by the description of the outer world as contrasted to the lover's state of being. Unlike the physical sun that "has fled our world" (1. 15), the beloved as sun is the source and the nourishment of fire and warmth in the lover's world, in the core of his being. Her power is absolute and unaffected by natural law. As love, she is exalted as a life force: "the light of light/ dwells in her eyes: divinity/ is in her sight" (11. 30-31). She is a presiding spirit, a numen, which brings fire (figuratively life) in the face of winter's (figurative) death. Like Cupid with his fiery arrows, her essence, love's fire, penetrates the lover's heart. The exaltation of the lady creates a dilemma, however. Should it be interpreted in terms of love as a spiritual force as exemplified by Dante's Beatrice, or is the virgo afigura of Mary? A way out of this is suggested by her metaphorical configuration: she is 20

An excellent treatment of such a comparison is Heinrich von Morungen's Sack ieman die frouwen. His beloved is compared to the sun by reason of her beauty and glory. The motif becomes so conventional by the late Renaissance that Shakespeare satirizes it in Sonnet 130.

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described as a force stronger than the forces of the natural world, and so her power may be regarded as praeternatural without being necessarily supernatural. In fact, the poem discourages allegorization. The courtly convention of the lover's worshipping from afar a woman he has never seen does not appear in the poem. The lover has seen his lady, has looked into her eyes, and he has touched and kissed her. It is this contact that has set his heart aflame and that sustains his love. The lover looks into his lady's eyes (traditionally the windows of the soul), but not to see into her soul. What he sees in her eyes and what he responds to is the flame of passion. After the exaltation of the lady, the poem returns to the physical world in the final stanza which again contrasts inner and outer reality. The persona tells us that "Greek fire", ignis graecus, can be easily extinguished with "bitter wine", or vinegar.21 This cheap, pungent liquid which puts out physical fires contrasts to the rich fuel - the lover himself - which feeds, instead of extinguishing, the fire within the lover's heart. This metaphor and the images of cold, heat, and fire stress a physical rather than allegorical interpretation of the nature of love. This contrasts sharply with the reverdie previously studied. The inversion of the vernal motif and the notion of the flame of love effectively express the power of physical love, of touching-kissingand-holding love. Love is passion with physical as well as mental dimensions; its life-giving fire sustains one, even as all else coldly perishes. In the eternal flame which defies winter's symbolic death, the poet, through an interaction of persona and metaphor, 21

These lines are poetically very powerful (in fact the whole stanza is), which could explain why they are so difficult to translate. Helen Waddell in Medieval Latin Lyrics (Baltimore: Penguin, 1964), p. 344, says of her rendition ("Greek fire can be extinguished/ By bitter wine; my fire is fed/ On other meat./ Yea, even the bitterness of love/ is bitter-sweet."): "The translation of the last stanza is perhaps insufferably free: and yet it is not, 1 think, very far from the meaning of the original conceit: 'Greek fire is extinguished by bitter wine (i.e. vinegar), but this of mine (hie ignis of stanza 4) is not extinguished by the poorest: nay rather, it is fed on fuel most rich.'... It is possible that miserrimo refers not to wine, but to mihi understood: yet this is to deface the triumph of the poem."

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reveals at one level love's effects and at a deeper level the paradoxical all-consuming yet life-sustaining power of love and passion. Love, if the metaphor is not too far fetched, is like the miraculous burning phenix bird: in a sense, it consumes the lover in the "ashes" of passion, but love also sustains his existence or his new life.

ASSATZ SAI D'AMOR BEN PARLAR Raimbaut d'Orange's Assatz sai d'amor ben parlar, in sharp contrast to our two previous examples, relies hardly at all on metaphor for its poetic effect. The "cadre" of the poem is a gap,22 a form which lends itself well to humorous treatments of love themes. Naturally, the idea of love as a battle also lends itself well to comic treatment.23 This perhaps helps to explain why little recourse to metaphor is made - the poet wants to project an illusion of direct address, to ally himself to the persona of the poem, to establish a relation between them by virtue of similitude. The persona and the poet, if the poem is to exist and succeed without metaphor, must seem to be as one, must seem to share a basic attitude toward love. In the context of battle sides must be drawn and taken. Hence, the poet's persona assumes a rather narrow role, that of combatant, which in turn narrows the range of expression and the choice of poetic modulation considerably to suit the poem's essential movement. But first, the poem: 1. Assatz sai d'amor ben parlar Ad ops dels autres amadors; Mas al mieu pro, que m'es plus car, Non sai ren dire ni comtar; Qu'a mi non val bes ni lauzors 22

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For a thorough treatment of the genre of gap as employed by several Old Provencal poets, see Walter T. Pattison, The Life and Works of the Troubadour Raimbaut d"Orange (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1952), pp. 136-137. 23 See Wilhelm, op. cit., for a good list of serious and comic analogues to this trope, pp. 276-278.

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Ni mals-digz ni motz avars; Mas ar sui vas Amor aitaus Fis e bos e francs e liaus 2. Per qu'ensenharai ad amar Los autres bos dompneyadors; E si-η crezon mon essenhar Far lor a d'amar conquistar Tot aitan cant volran de cors! E si'oguan pendutz o ars Qui no m'en creira, qar bon laus N'auran selhs qu'en tenran las claus! 3. Si voletz dompnas guazanhar, Quan querretz que us fassan honors, Si-us fan avol respos avar Vos las prenetz a menassar; E si vos fan respos peiors Datz lor del ponh per mieg sas nars; E si son bravas siatz braus! Ab gran mal n'auretz gran repaus. 4. Ancar vos vuelh mais ensenhar Ab que conquerretz las melhors. Ab mals digz et ab lag chantar Que fassatz tut, et ab vanar; E que honretz las sordeyors. Per lor anctas las levetz pars, E que guardetz vostres ostaus Que non semblon gleisas ni naus. 5. Ab aisso n'auretz pro, so-m par. Mas ieu-m tenrai d'autras colors Per so quar no-m agrad'amar; Que ja mais no-m vuelh castiar, Que s'eron totas mas serors! Per so lor serai fis e cars, Humils e simples e leyaus, Dous, amoros, fis e coraus. 6. Mas d'aissou>us sapchatz ben gardar, Que so qu'ie-n farai er folhors. Non fassatz ver que nesci par; Mas so qu'ieu ensenh tenetz car Si non voletz sofrir dolors Ab penas et ab loncs plorars!

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Qu'aissi lor for'envers e maus Si mais m'agrades lor ostaus. 7. Mas per so-m puesc segurs guabar Qu'ieu, et es mi grans deshonors, Non am ren, ni sai qu'es enquar! Mas mon Anel am, que-m ten clar, Quar fon el det... ar son, trop sors! Lengua, non mais! que trop parlars Fai piegz que pechatz criminaus; Per qu'ieu-m tenrai mon cor enclaus.

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8. Mas be-1 sabra mos belhs Jocglars; Qu'ilh val tant, e m'es tan coraus, Que ja de lieys no-m venra maus. 9. E mos vers tenra, qu'era-1 paus, A Rodes, don son naturaus.24

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The first thing that strikes one about the poem is the preponderance of the "I", which tends to cut down on the "distance" between the poet and the persona. This serves to give a feeling of subjectivity: in a sense the creator here exists in terms of the creation. Stanza one begins with the "I" - "/ know how to speak well of love ..."; and two - "That / shall teach to love ..."; and four - "/ wish to teach you more ..."; and five - "With this you'll profit, /think ..."; and seven - "But /can extol greatly with assurance ...". The equivalent of the personal pronoun is used extensively within the stanzas, as well as reflexive and possessive pronouns which emphasize the focus on the "I". Metaphor, obviously, would only interfere with such a focus, for the persona is not interested in showing, in translating experience; he is interested in telling. This narrows down considerably the complexity of the persona and helps to facilitate the comic point of view. But a word of caution. The persona is not as readily defined as he appears - he only seems to be. A readily defined persona, in the context of the theme of sexual conflict, would have a tendency to move in the direction of fabliau expression. This is what occurs in Guillaume IX's 24

Pattison, op. cit., XX (18), pp. 134-135.

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Farai un vers pos mi sonelh and, to a lesser degree, in his Farai un vers de dreyt nien. This does not happen in Raimbaut's poem, even though it humorously treats a theme which is traditionally comic. His composition, instead, may be seen as a stylistic performance in several kinds of lyric convention (this reliance on literary convention serves to provide some aesthetic distance). We will examine two of these kinds. The first involves a rejection of woman through a revolt against the artificial niceties of "courtly love"; the second, which is antithetical to the first, concerns the submission to woman in terms of humility and fealty. These two views suggest abstractions on love, but we need not concern ourselves here with the validity or lack of validity of love conceptualized as fin' amors. We need only be aware of the concept. In his first utterance, the persona assumes the role of master of love, as he informs us that he knows how to speak of love for the profit of other lovers. But this is softly undercut as he states, "but for my own advantage, which is more dear to me, I don't know how to say anything" (11. 3-4). This, in spite of the fact that he characterizes himself as "true" and "frank" and "loyal toward Love". From such a character - with attributes of the courtly lover - we expect advice that will teach other (less experienced or less refined) lovers how to act: to always be true and loyal to the lady and to suffer her cruelty or indifference with humility. This is what one expects if he does not notice the subtle personification of Love in the next to the last line of the stanza: "Mas ar sui vas Amor aitaus/ Fis e bos e francs e liaus." Very subtle. Love is not the lady nor does Love dwell in her heart. The speaker's lasting loyalty is to a higher ideal (that is the fiction); therefore, it does not matter how he treats women - with praise or with insults! Thus, the persona does intend to be a faithful and orthodox servant, but not to women. The conventional pose of the persona produces an effect contrary to what we would expect. Loyalty to love in the persona would seemingly lead to reverence for the lady (love's object) but instead leads to a mocking attack on women in general.

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Ironically, paying lip service to the ideal gives him the means to begin the assault. Let us proceed. In stanza two he offers assurance that will insure success: "I shall teach the other good lovers how to love" (11. 9-10). If they believe his teaching, he goes on, "it will make them win speedily in love all that they desire" (11. 12-13). So far so good (if his students of love have not been as attentive as the reader). But then these startling (for an ideal courtly lover) words: "And may whoever doesn't believe me about it be hung or burned straightaway ..." (11. 14-15). The poet, by this blending of courtly and anti-courtly sentiment, is beginning to reveal a playful persona - or perhaps a witty self-portrait, to make an implicit comment about the relationship of art to life (by parodying an accepted literary theme, he tells us much about reality). His advice to young lovers is exactly contrary to that expected in terms of his own self-portrait in the first stanza. He gives advice in stanzas three and four directly contrary to the usual code of courtly behavior, by employing the love as war trope. The rhetorical device used provides much irony: the changing posture of the speaker suggests that he has been unsuccessful in love himself (his own words in lines three to five of stanza one say as much); and yet he proceeds to give lessons to his younger colleagues. The advice itself is a series of outrageously inverted courtly conventions which a paraphrase of stanza three and stanza four will render clear. Stanza three: if one wants to win and honor ladies, and they respond by base, mean replies, one begins to threaten them. If this elicits a worse response, one simply punches them right in the nose, and if they become fierce, one too becomes fierce. Indeed, if one does them evil, he will enjoy great peace. But this is not all, for the battle is not only physical; it is psychological as well, as stanza four shows: in order to conquer las melhors, the best ones, the speaker instructs his pupils to sing and boast hideously and to use curses, and to honor las sordeyors, the most sordid women, and because of their shameful deeds, one should mate with them. "E que guardetz vostres ostaus/ Que non semblon gleisas ni naus" (Keep your estates from seeming like churches

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or ships) (11. 31-32), he concludes. We will return to this marvel of wit shortly. The persona, rather than urging the prospective lover to win his lady by courtly behavior, insistently urges the lover to be brutal, to employ physical force. In addition, the speaker has already threatened the students of love with the consequences of disbelief in his methods (11. 14-15). This is an important part of the lesson, naturally, since the ladies too should be threatened if they fail to respond graciously to the lover's overtures (1. 20). And, of course, if that is not enough, a blow of the fist per mieg sas nars should follow. We need not recount the physical aspects of the battle here since we have already paraphrased them. But the psychological warfare of the fourth stanza deserves more attention. In order to win the best, court the worst, is his advice; here the poet shows an awareness of a tenet held by Andreas Capellanus (among others) that jealousy is somehow the same as love. Again there is the suggestion that the persona is speaking from experience. Instead of encouraging the cultivation of virtue or the performing of visible charitable acts, the speaker recommends the embracing of shameful deeds. Not only that - he recommends the maintenance of an unclean house(s) - "Que non semblon gleisas ni naus" (1.32). Lines thirty-one and thirty-two are beautifully ironic, for the ... advice to keep one's dwelling place from being like a church or a ship is, in the case of the true lover and gentleman, to be taken just the other way. His home should be a place where many people congregate and a hospitable welcome awaits all. Anglade agrees with me, saying that the nobles should not keep their houses closed. Jeanroy (Anthologie des troubadours, p. 57) considers that the advice aims at cleanliness, and that the barons should keep their homes as clean as churches. But was the medieval church a model of cleanliness?25

The words are those of Pattison, and they get at some of the irony. But there is more (in this the only metaphor - actually a simile - of significance in the entire poem). Pattison ignores the ship. A medieval ship, one can imagine, was neither a clean place a* Ibid., p. 137.

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nor a hospitable one. The people aboard a ship are a select few the captain and crew, and they are all men. The suggestion therefore is do not make your house one for men only: include women in it, the worst women. In a sense, both the church (in terms of the pulpit) and the ship are men's domains. Women, of course, do attend church, but they are supposedly the virtuous ones. This is not the kind of house desired by the persona. This is further reinforced by the aspiring symbols of the church (the steeple) and the ship's mast, both reaching toward heaven. The advice, then, is keep your house grounded in reality; or another way of putting it is, keep it filled with sluts. Though impure and riotous, there is no real evil in this game. The poet's laugh is audible right through his mask. The game is pursued from a noncourtly, very masculine point of view; yet, the technique of exaggeration implies its opposite. To clarify this we must briefly look at the concept of fin" amors. It is often said that the great contribution of medieval poetry was a new conception of love, an ethic which renewed and (re)directed the sensibilities of man in twelfth-century Europe. This is generally explained in terms of a new concept of behavior between man and woman, since the lover becomes the vassal to his beloved and willingly serves her as the lowliest of serfs. The exalting elements of this ethic reach a culmination in Dante's art, where we witness the ennobling power of passion eventually transcending its earthly object to become contemplation of Divine Love. For instance, woman as the source of virtue and goodness, as means of edification and even eternal salvation, is epitomized by the figure of Beatrice in the Vita Nuova. Of her, the Florentines remark: 'Questa non έ femmina, anzi e uno de li bellissimi angeli del cielo.' £ altri diceano: 'Questa έ una maraviglia; ehe benedetto sia lo Signore, ehe si mirabilmente sae adoperare!'26 26

A description of Beatrice attributed by Dante to anyone who saw or knew her in Florence; the extraterrestrial qualities of her person seem enhanced by this universal response, which of course reinforces Dante's own. Dante Alighieri, La Vita Nuova, terza edizione, con il commento di Tommaso Casini (Firenze, 1951), XXVI, p. 94.

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The idealized woman in courtly lyric poetry is placed on a pedestal (whose distance from the lover varies from one poet to another).27 Thus it may be safely said that the best known current of courtly poetry represents love in an ascendant movement, wherein the idealized woman, deemed by her lover superior to him, may be attained only through a long series of trials in which he virtually strains his very being for the reward of her love. In terms of Raimbaut's poem, if women were traitors to the ideal, if they were oblivious of the ideal, and the principal barrier to its realization, then they might deserve the chastisement insisted upon by the poem's persona. Many Provengal poets suspected that they did, but their frequent misgivings would be too lengthy to cite here. And naturally Raimbaut's Art of Love has for its ultimate source the writings of previous and contemporary poets. In this regard, his poem may be seen as an ironic addition to the logic, such as it was, of "courtly love". To be sure, the conventions of "courtly love" had long been derided. What is striking about the poem in question is that the poet wishes to thrust himself right into the middle of the treatment by reducing the distance between him and his persona to a mere nothing (we have previously commented on the insistence of the "I"). This effect is striven for to the very end of the poem. The vituperation, however, takes on a milder tone at stanza five, as the speaker says of his previous advice: "With this you will profit, I think" (1. 33). Yet he will conduct himself in a different way, because he does not like loving and does not wish to instruct himself no more than if all ladies were his sisters. This time, in contrast to stanza one where his fealty is to Amor, he says, "Therefore I shall be true and dear, humble and straightforward and loyal, sweet, loving, true, and trustworthy toward them" (11. 38-40). The "exhaustive elaboration" employed here emphasizes his devotion to women and his attributes as courtly lover - but ironically they have just been referred to as his sisters. There are at least 27

Two highly divergent points of view may be seen in Guillaume IX, who is in favor of keeping the beloved on as earthly a level as possible, while Jaufre Rudel's lady is so londhana that she seems quite unreal.

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two levels of meaning attached to the "sisters". For now the first. The poet is taking advantage of the ideal οι fin' amors (the endowment of love with an abstract ethic) and is poking fun at the possibility of a lover having the misfortune of directing his loveworship to the wrong woman. Be that as it may, this is the beginning of his two-faced explanation for renouncing love - this too a pretense, for he is betrayed by a memorable slip of the tongue in the final stanza (11. 52-55). Yet his reasoning, absurd at the conscious level, is grounded on a number of common ideas directly attached to the trope of love under discussion. Having pointed to the "right" path for young lovers to take, he excuses himself for his different ways. An attempt to escape blame? Perhaps. But he eschews uncourtly behavior for a discourteous reason (in stanza five): "Per so quar no-m agrad'amar" (I don't like loving) (1. 35). Then he places himself with the "sisters", falsely assuming a role of monk. This role grows from the idea that love is not an adequate substitute for religion. The only possibility for peace is a renunciation of the confusing (unreal) ethics of worldly love. But he takes this role no more seriously than he does the content of his advice which he delivered earlier in the guise of an authority. His advice now as "high-monk" is in stanza six: Do not follow my example, "since what I shall do will be folly. Do not do a sane deed which seems madness" (11. 41-42). This refers to the ironic pose of abstinence and brotherly love in stanza five (following, as it does, hot on the heels of the examples of shameful behavior), although he has warned us that what he does will be "folly". In either case, interpreting the opposite of the literal sense produces this meaning - sanity would involve brotherly love, and folly would be what the speaker actually does: suffer grief, pain, and great weeping (11. 45-56). He too would be an evil man, if the pleasures of love moved him, but already we can see that his cynicism was meant to cover the conventional sorrow-ridden persona suggested in lines forty-four and forty-five. We have seen the persona thoroughly discredit the sincerity of his tough pose (stanzas one to four), starting at stanza five for a

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seemingly laudable reason. But the irony is that in stanza seven, through a slip of the tongue - as though by accident - he reveals himself as another of the victims of love: shortly after exclaiming that he does not know what love is. "But I do love My Ring",28 he says, "which keeps me radiant, for it was on the finger ... now sound, you come forth too much!" (11. 52-53). What is to be done? Nothing but condemnation of his betrayer: "Tongue, no more! For speaking too much is worse than a mortal sin" (11. 54-55). This is exactly what he is guilty of; but there is yet another irony in his promise "to keep my heart unopened" (1. 56). The poem, then, has been an elaboration of the game of concealment, and the two tornados are but icing on the cake. One more point remains. At stanza five we have seen the trope turn back on itself, as it were. This, as was shown, is accomplished through irony, for the poet who has forced his identity upon his persona reveals himself to be an "unreliable narrator" - his key phrases are but disguises which protect his "real" self, and so the more he strives to convince us of his view of life, the more the disguises fail him, revealing an attitude that becomes increasingly untenable.

ER RESPLAN LA FLORS ENVERSA Raimbaut's Vers, Er resplan laflors enversa, illustrates a blending of the two poetic techniques relative to the "poet in the poem" that we have been pursuing. As in the preceding example, the poet 28

The problem of the Man Anel, the senhal, has no major bearing on our reading of the poem and so was omitted. Pattison, p. 137, says of the senhal: "Raimbaut is guarding his thought about the Ring-Lady within his heart (v. 56), but she (?) will realize what it is. She (the Ring-Lady?) will receive the poem at Rodez (v. 60). These meanings are evident if we set mos belhs Jocglars off as a parenthetical vocative phrase. If we do not punctuate thus, we can make Joglar the lady at Rodez, which is possible. I agree with the interpretation suggested by Kolsen (ZRPh, XLI, 550). Appel (ZRPh, XLIX, 475, n.) objects that the Ring-Lady has not actually been named, hence ilh (v. 58) can have no antecedent. But from the senhal Mon Anel (v. 52) the presence of the RingLady is felt throughout this passage."

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here creates a close identification with his persona, again through a preponderance of personal pronouns and first person address. But, in contrast to his Assatz sai d'amor ben parlor, in this poem Raimbaut also relies heavily on metaphor, as the persona's metaphoric perception, in terms of both thought and utterance, reveals a total transfiguration - a translation of experience - of inner being and exterior reality. As we shall see, ultimately all components of the poem - persona and imagery and form and content, for instance - are tightly interwoven through the magic of words, or let us say through a powerful act of poetry. Before accosting the Vers, a few comments on its poetical tradition are in order. It is a great example of trobar rict a fine example of technical virtuosity. This was of utmost importance in the ... Ρτονβηςαΐ lyric, and it was not confined to meter and rhyme. The language itself varied. When the style was plain and used only common ornament, it was called trobar plan ('easy singing'). If large numbers of metaphors, unusual words, and especially rhymes were employed, it was called trobar ric ('rich singing'). Finally there was a cult of deliberate obscurity, where words were used in abnormal senses and outlandish metaphors were employed. This trobar clus ('closed singing') was often criticized by contemporaries, and some of it is quite incomprehensible to us.29 But the term trobar ric in practice is not so easily defined, for it, like trobar clus, trobar escur, trobar cobert and trobar sotil must be understood within the troubadour tradition of a "hermetic" poetics, according to Martin de Riquer.30 The terms all denote a level of difficulty, but they are used by the poets themselves in such a way that it is most difficult to make precise distinctions between them and thus to establish exact definitions. Riquer suggests that perhaps this difficulty can be lessened by reducing the many terms to two major ones, trobar clus and trobar ric, and by linking them to the two most distinct exponents of each kind. Marcabru represents the apex of the practice of trobar clus; Arnaut Daniel that of 29

William T. H. Jackson, Medieval Literature (London: Collier-MacMillan, 1966), p. 107. 30 Riquer, p. xix.

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trobar ric. Trobar clus appears in the early stages of the Provencal lyric. Riquer provides us with an excellent insight into its closed nature: Su hermetismo estriba en el empleo de una diccion que nos parece ... fundamentalmente enigmätica, lo que obedece a un recargamiento excesivo de conceptos, a un abuso de la agudeza y de la complication expresiva y a una especie de forcejo entre los ideales del poeta y la rigida versificaion provenzal - que exige, inapelablemente, identidad absoluta de rimas, de medida en el verso y de conservation del mismo estrofismo en cada cobla -, lo que degenera en oscuridad, acrecentada a su vez - y en este aspecto solo para nosotros y no para los contemporäneos - por el empleo de un lenguaje de tono popular y bajo que nos cuesta llegar a entender literalmente.31 Nothing need be added to Riquer's comprehensive definition, but we might add that, curiously, the best practitioners of trobar clus, such as Marcabru, were the "realistic" poets, who didactically moralized in bad humor and bluntly opposed courtly love. As to the "hermetic" tendency of trobar ric, Riquer states : El hermetismo del trobar ric ... obedece a razones muy diversas. Si nos fijamos en Arnaut Daniel, su mas tipico representante, veremos que es un poeta que se preocupa sustancialmente de la belleza de la forma, de la sonoridad de la palabra, de la sugestion del sonido, de la selection de un vocabulario, apartado no tan solo del lenguaje del vulgo, sino tambion del corriente; emplea rimas de dificil hallazgo, retumbancia en la diction, anligranamiento en el modo de expresarse, todo ello aun en detrimento del contenido.32 Again, this is as good a definition as any offered by a modern critic. I would only disagree with his statement that this works to the detriment of content. On the contrary, when the poet has something to say, trobar ric can only assist the content of the poem, making it less enigmatic than would be the case in trobar clus. Our analysis of Raimbaut's poem should serve to illustrate this.

31 32

Ibid. Ibid.

THE LYRIC OF THE IMAGINED STATE OF BEING

1. Er resplan la flors enversa pels trencans rancx e pels tertres. quals flors ? neus, gels e conglapis, que cotz e destrenh e trenca, don vey morz quils, critz, brays, siscles pels fuels, pels rams e pels giscles; mas mi te vert e iauzen ioys, er quan vey secx los dolens croys. 2. Quar enaissi o enverse que bei plan mi semblon tertre, e tenc per flor lo conglapi, e-1 cautz m'es vis que-1 freit trenque, e-1 tro mi son chant e siscle, e paro-m fulhat li giscle; aissi-m suy ferms lassatz en ioy que re no vey que-m sia croy 3. Mas una gen fada enversa, cum s'eron noirit en tertres, que-m fan trop pieigz que conglapis q'us quecx ab sä lengua trenca e-n parla bas et ab siscles; e no y val bastos ni giscles ni menassas, ans lur es ioys, quan fan so don horn los clam croys. 4. Quar en baizan no-us enverse, no m tolon plan ni tertre, dona, ni gel ni conglapi; mas non-poder trop, m'en trenque dona, per cuy chant e siscle, vostre belh huelh mi son giscle que-m castion si-1 cor ab ioy qu'ieu non aus aver talan croy. 5. Anat ai cum cauz' enversa lone temps, sercan vals e tertres, marritz cum horn cui conglapis cocha e mazelh' e trenca, qu'anc no-m conquis chans ni siscles plus que-1 fels clercx conquer: giscles. mas ar, Dieu lau, m'alberga ioys mal grat dels fals lauzengiers croys.

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6. Mos vers an, qu'aissi 1'enverse que no-1 tenhon val ni tertre, lai on horn non sen conglapi ni a freitz poder que y trenque: a midons lo chant e-1 siscle clar, qu'el cor ii-n intro-1 giscle, selh que sap gen chantar ab ioy, que no-s tanh a chantador croy. 7. Doussa dona, amors e ioys nos ten ensems mal grat dels croys. 8. Jocglar, granre ai menhs de ioy, quar no-us vey, e-n fas semblan croy.33

(45)

(50)

All of the components of the poem support and enhance the movement of the primary trope of transfiguration. The form: six stanzas of six lines each of seven plus syllables constitute the Vers; the rhyme scheme is 7A+, 7B+, 7C+, 7D+, 7E+, 7E+, 8F, 8F. If one disregards the feminine endings and takes the words to rhyme with the final accented syllable, the composition may be seen as unissonans. Coblas (stanzas) which throughout the composition contain verses of equal length and the same rhyme scheme as the first cobla of the poem are unissonans; when the rhyme scheme changes in each cobla, the coblas are termed singulars', when the rhyme scheme is identical in each group of two coblas, they are termed coblas doblas. Pattison regards the poem as being composed in coblas doblas, but with a variation.34 Thus the rhyme scheme is seen as alternating in every other stanza rather than changing every two stanzas. This classification is desirable since such a scheme creates a "transfigured" poetic pattern which adds nicely to the trope of love as a transfiguring power. This is not so farfetched as it may sound; for if we look closely, we can also detect an interesting visual pattern in terms of the end words of each verse, which bolsters the idea of transfiguration. Let us observe in the remaining stanzas how the poet alternates the form of the first three rhyme words of the first stanza: 33

Raymond T. Hill and Thomas G. Bergin, eds., Anthology of the Provencal Troubadours (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941), pp. 50-51. 34 Pattison, op. cit., p. 47.

THE LYRIC OF THE IMAGINED STATE OF BEING

Stanza I Π III IV V VI I II III IV V

VI I II

III IV V VI

Line 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3

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Rhyme Word enversa enverse enversa enverse enversa enverse tertres tertre tertres tertre tertres tertre conglapis conglapi conglapis conglapi conglapis conglapi

This helps one look at the poem in terms of the first rhyme word of the poem: enversa. Moreover, although the rhyme words seem nearly identical (their roots of course are), in their individual context within the poem they each have different connotations, related to their grammatical function. For instance, in stanza one, line one, enversa functions as an adjective with the meaning of "reversed". In stanza two, line one, it is a verb - "Quar enaissi m'o enverse" (For I reverse ...); in stanza three, line one, it is again an adjective; in stanza four, line one, it has a very complex meaning which can best be drawn out by translation: "Qu'ar en baizan no-us enverse/ no m'o tolon plan ni tertre,/ dona, ni gel ni conglapi;/ mas nonpoder trop, m'en treque" (Neither plains, hills, ice, nor frost keep me from laying you back, kissing you, lady, but I find a stupor induced by love that keeps me from it ...); stanza five, line one, "Anat ai cum cauz'enversa" (I have gone like a demented thing ...); stanza six, line one, "Mos vers an, qu'aissi 1'enverse" (Let my verse go, for thus I invert it so ...). This holds true for every end rhyme word in the poem. One can never be certain, therefore, that similar words will function in the same way. The poet, it would

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seem, was very much aware that the power of the individual word, placed with painstaking care, could control the texture and energy of a poetic image. And so we come to a consideration of the images. Raimbaut employs antithetical imagery to express the powers of love; that is, he uses images which contrast and clash sharply with each other to pit the world of love against that of evil, malice, and death. For instance, in the first stanza, the persona sees the flors enversa (reversed flower) shining in the midst of sharp cliffs and in the hills. But abruptly he asks: calsflorsl There is in reality (the poem's reality) none, only snow, ice and frost, all things which harm. Yet, leaves, branches, and twigs appear to the persona's eye and his ear paradoxically hears calls, cries, songs, warblings dead amongst them. How does one explain this ? His spirit, in contrast to dead nature, is beginning to awaken through the power of Joy, which "keeps me green and gay now when I see the grievous evil persons withered" (11. 7-8). His joy stems from the fact that those who tried to harm his love are now rendered impotent. Thus, to him (stanza two) the actual winter landscape seems beautiful, for love causes him to take the frost for the flower, heat seems to cut the cold, thunderclaps become songs and warblings, and the twigs seem covered with leaves. Indeed, the persona proclaims: "aissi-m suy ferms lassatz en ioy/ que re no vey que-m sia croy" (I am so firmly bound in joy that I see nothing that is bad) (11. 15-16). So images which are usually positive are used both negatively and positively: in stanza one siscles, the warbling of birds in the persona's vernal vision of love, becomes in stanza three the evil murmurings of the fals lauzengiers, and again, in stanza six, the lover's song. One could go on and on, listing example after example (we have already seen how the word enversa is employed from stanza to stanza), but that is not necessary. It is evident that if the persona's vision, owing to love, is to metamorphose the world, the traditional use of imagery must also change. This holds, as well, for words which are usually considered negative. Let us look at perhaps the most interesting example of this, the word croy in the last line of the Vers, where the negative

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119

word climaxes in irony. Croy, the reader may have noticed, has a pejorative significance throughout the poem. In stanza one it describes the malicious enemies of love; in two, it refers to all things harmful to love; in three and five it applies to the fals lauzengiers; in four to evil desires; in six to bad singers, and finally in the first tornado, to the actions of the wicked ones. But whom does the word pertain to in the second tornadal "Jocglar, granre ai menhs de ioy,/ quar no-us vey, e*n fas semblan croy" (l l. 51-52). Surprisingly, it pertains to the lover. He has a "wicked" - or better, "sad" - countenance because he cannot see his beloved. This is most effective because the poet has carefully built up a strong sense of negativism around the word - hence, suggesting that love must somehow destroy whatever is croy. How are we to take this? Will it seem horrible to the lady that her lover can assume an aspect of croyl On the contrary. The lady, surely, would not be so cruel as to leave him in this condition. The poet, by this fortunate stroke, cleverly "reverses" the entire pattern of poetic "reversal" in favor of his persona; the poem argues convincingly in favor of the lover. So far we have been witnessing a very skillful unconventional poetic treatment of a very conventional trope - the lover who is transfigured by the power of love and who in turn "changes" the form and appearance of reality. Highly conventional motifs are attached to the trope, such as the following: the fals lauzengiers and the spring-like atmosphere engendered by love (contrasted with the winter world of the evil ones, the enemies of love). The poem has not been paraphrased, because to do so would be to reduce the conventional content to prosaic triteness. The poem is so tightly fused in form and content, in fact, that it resists all attempts at discursive reduction. There are several reasons for this, the main one being that the entire poem could be taken as a metaphor: the word enversar means to reverse, to turn over as well as to put into verse (see line 41, for example). This impels the central trope of the poem so that it itself, with all its constituent parts, becomes a translation of lyrical experience. The whole creates an image or impression of the

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defeat of evil through a poetic irradiation. It represents, therefore, a high point of artistic accomplishment in the development of the lyric of the imagined state of being.

CONCLUSION

In the lyrics discussed in Chapter 4, the feelings or thoughts of the speaker appear to be fluid. But whatever progression any one of these poems contains is of such a kind that the word "narration", in contrast to the poems discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, does not adequately describe them. These poems seem to have no precisely fixed order of events but rather a sequence of revelation. In fact, in some instances, it might seem possible to shift stanzas around. What prohibits this, however, is the fact that the good poem exhibits too fine a sequence of revelation - it is too well chosen - and not because entropy denies a reversed order of interpretation. To generalize a bit further, this might help explain why lyrics of this sort tend to reveal a "circular structure", for once events are released from entropy their order naturally becomes oscillatory or circular. Thus, while the structure of the poem is seen as stanzaic, from one stanza to the next there is no narrative progression as such, but successive shifts of viewpoint. A poem ends when a sufficient number of viewpoints has been exploited, or it ends when the viewpoint that encompasses the most has been reached.35 Perhaps I have gone too far here. Perhaps it is impossible to find an absolutely pure lyric such as has been described. But one can speak of a theoretical ideal which establishes its pattern, and our representative examples, more or less, have shown a definite tropism - toward this poetic ideal. 35

Two excellent examples of such poems are Heinrich von Morungen's Si ist z*allen eren ein wlp wol erkant, number 122 in Carl von Kraus, Des Minnesangs Frühling (Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel, 1950), p. l, which exploits several points of view and ends with this superlative last line: "Verre oder när, so ist si ez diu baz erkande"; and Bernart de Ventadorn's Can vei la lauzeta mover, number 43 in The Songs of Bernart de Ventadorn, edited by S. G. Nichols, Jr., et. al. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962).

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121

Indeed, such a view could help to provide a context for close comparative analysis of the more formal and better known lyric forms - the Old Provencal canso, Old French chanson, Italian canzone, and the Middle High German Minnesang.36 While the canso, chanson, canzone, and Minnesang often have a similar or even identical structure, their range of poetic expression is rather wide. Yet they all emphasize music and words in revealing hypothetical or typical acts relative to the persona's feelings of or views on love. The potentialities of this approach for future applications to a wider range of formal medieval lyric poetry are, of course, purely speculative; but it would without question have, for the comparatist, one very important critical virtue: it would make a synchronic approach to the major formal love lyric forms possible. It would also perhaps help to provide a foundation, which is sorely lacking, for a "tropics" or metaphorics of medieval love lyric, and, perhaps of less importance, a basis for in-depth study of the persona. Similarly, the methods suggested in our study of the alba and the pastorela might well be employed in analyses of other (minor) genres which might be classified under the lyric of the imagined event; namely, the chanson de toile and the chanson de mal mariee. Like the pastorela and the alba, these two Old French lyrics are romantic narratives which employ dramatic monologue or dialogue and utilize a natural spring setting. They are frequently referred to as women's complaints, the woman of the chanson de toile complaining of the absence of her lover and the woman of the mal mariee song bemoaning her fate as wife to a base husband. Thus, like the alba and pastorela, both tell of love events, but with several differences. Obvious parallels can be drawn, however, and there are sufficient grounds for future comparative studies in the four genres. 86

The term Minnesang is often extended to cover all Middle High German lyric poetry, political, satirical, moral, etc., of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Here it is used to mean love song since strictly speaking it should be used only for the German equivalent of the canso or chanson.

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One finding that our study underscores is that the most complex rhetorical situation to be found in the two kinds of lyric studied may be viewed and understood in terms of a speaker, other personages (imagined or real) in the poem, and obviously the reader himself. How well the poet handles these rhetorical elements determines the success or failure of a given composition. Also, as we observed in our study of the alba, a poem tends to be more complex the more fully the poet exploits the full rhetorical possibilities of a situation.

APPENDIX A

COMPARATIVE SCHEMA: THE ALBA AND THE PASTOURELLE

element of anguish I agreement of sexes (lovers) (unity) (lady already won) I gallant & lady I secret (night & dawn) I meeting/parting arranged

element of suspense I battle of sexes (protagonists) (debate) (seduction & resistance) I gallant & shepherdess I open (broad daylight) I chance encounter

I

I

ALBA

LOVE EVENT — PASTOURELLE I romantic narrative I dramatic dialogue/monologue I spring setting I fear of discovery by outside world I idea of punishment I 3rd party* (watchman or poet-narrator as interloper)

* appears in "offshoots" of the pastourelle

APPENDIX B THE ALBA TRADITION IN OTHER MEDIEVAL LITERATURES

It is a curious fact of medieval literary history that the genre of the alba did not develop to any significant extent in literatures other than Old Provengal, Old French, and Middle High German in Western Europe; the tradition, also, did not take root in medieval Latin or in medieval Arabic. Only scattered instances of the alba are to be found here and there, as the following brief sketch serves to illustrate. In Italy only one thirteenth century dawn song appears, an anonymous poem discovered in a Bolognese document of 1286: 1. Partite, amore, a deo, Cho tropo ce se' stato: Lo maitino έ sonato, Giorno me par ehe sia. 2. Partite, amor, a deo; Che non fossi trovato In si fina celata Como nui semo stati: Or me bassa, oclo meo, Tosto sia Γ andata, Tenendo la tornata Como d' inamorati; Si ehe per spesso usato Nostra gioia renovi, Nostro stato non trovi, La mala gelosia. 3. Partite, amore, a deo, E va' ne tostamente,

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APPENDIX B

125

Ch' onne toa cossa t' aggio Pareclata in presente.1

Some scholars consider this a fragment; Dronke, however, disagrees, calling the lyric complete in itself.2 The poem has obvious affinities with the alba, but the ending, if not the entire text, suggests a different kind. It is nevertheless cited here in full because it is the one Italian example akin to the alba. This poem, however, lacks the watchman or bird of the alba landscape - Lo maitino e sonato takes over their function as the harbinger of dawn. Strictly speaking, the poem has no refrain, although the first line, "Partite, amore, a deo", seems to function as an "opening refrain", tor it begins each stanza. Secrecy and fear of la mala gelosia, part and parcel of the alba convention, play an important part in the poem. But in direct contrast to the alba there is no sorrow at the parting and hence the emphasis is on a successful exit rather than on the sorrows of parting. Also, dialogue is absent here, which might explain the lack of a dramatic texture, so important to the genre. It seems curious that the tradition did not survive in Italy, since the Provencal influence there was great. R. Glynn Faitbfull attributes this to a growing "anti-popular trend" in early Italian lyrics and the changed attitude toward woman, who had been elevated beyond the love object to the position of a donna angelica? This is in direct contrast to the stress on physical love in the alba. The genre did not flourish in Spain, although Old Provencal influence there in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries was quite strong; also, evidence indicates that it is doubtful that a genuine alba tradition existed in the Galician literature.4 There are, 1

A. Caboni, Antiche rime italiane tratte dai memoriali bolognesi (Modena, 1941), pp. 44-45 (spelling partly modernized). 2 Peter Dronke, The Medieval Lyric (London: Hutchinson University Press, 1968), p. 184. 3 R. Glynn Faithful!, "Italian", in A. T. Hatto, ed., Eos: An Enquiry into the Theme of Lovers' Meetings and Partings at Dawn in Poetry (The Hague: Mouton, 1965), p. 391. 4 For a discussion of the alba convention in Iberian literatures, see Edward M. Wilson, "Iberian", in Eos, pp. 299-343.

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however, certain similarities to the alba to be found in the alborado which is a form of the cantigas de amigo in which the dawn-greeting appears, with the lover calling his beloved to a dawn meeting. The following thirteenth century poem by Nuno Fernandez Torneol is such an alborado: 1. "Levad', amigo, que dormides as manhäas frias; todalas aves do mundo d'amor dizian: leda m' and* eu. 2. "Levad', amigo que dormide'-las frias manhäas; todalas aves do mundo d'amor cantavan: leda m' and' eu. 3. "Toda-las aves do mundo d'amor diziam; do meu amor e do voss' i enmentavan: leda m1 and' eu. 4. "Do meu amor e do voss' en ment' avian; vos Ihi tolhestes os ramos en que siian: leda m' and' eu. 5. "Do meu amor e do voss' i enmentavan; vos Ihi tolhestes os ramos en que pousavan: leda m' and' eu. 6. "Vos Ihi tolhestes os ramos en que siian e Ihis secastes as fontes en que bevian: leda m' and' eu. 7. "Vos Ihi tolhestes os ramos en que pousavan e Ihis secastes as fontes u se banhavan: leda m' and' eu."5 In this form the emphasis is on the meeting but everything is in the past. The birds here are used to remind the amigo of the past joys of similar encounters. All of the joys of the former encounters, however, are now gone since the amigo is blamed for having disposed of the birds of joy. This establishes a nice contrast with the present moment which is devoid of joy, and as in the alba the parting has brought sorrow: "e ilhis secastes as u se banhavan" (1. 20). The refrain, "leda m' and' eu", is a call for renewal of former love "let me [again] go joyfully". Ibid., pp. 328-329,

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More tenuously, affinities to the Mozarabic kharjas (verses in dialect or in the vernacular) have been drawn. Although these parallels exist, the early Portuguese and Galician dawn poems are quite unlike the Provencal alba and the German tageliet. As Edward M. Wilson points out, these Portuguese and Galician examples ... imply other conventions and a less complex theory of love. Their language is simple, and in the parallelistic poems, the slow, repeated, antiphonal development acts as a kind of inner music or incantation.6

He further suggests that the fact that the symbolic associations of dawn in the Iberian tradition were of a different nature may account for the paucity of dawn poems in medieval Spain and Portugal.7 There seems to be no direct affinity with secular English lyrics of the Middle Ages. As T. J. B. Spencer notes in an article on the English dawn poem: ... the evidence for the existence in England of a special kind of dawnparting poems corresponding to the alba, the aube and the Tagelied is slight and insufficient. No actual example survives.8

However, the alba influence is perceptible in a few fourteenth century Welsh examples - a likely occurrence since it is reported that the Welsh poets were knowledgeable of both Old Provencal and Old French poetry. In this connection, Melville Richards writes Although there are stray references to the dawn in Welsh poetry from an early period, it is not until the fourteenth century and later that we find fully developed dawn poems in the erotic sense, and even then only two. Moreover these two poems bear unmistakable traces of foreign influence, that of the ΡΓονεηςβΙ α/όα-convention.9

Of great significance is the fact that there is no clear support for the appearance of corresponding dawn songs in medieval Arabic 6

Ibid., p. 309. For a summary of the dawn associations of early Galician poetry, see Wilson (op. cit.), pp. 308-309. 8 T. J. B. Spencer, "English", in Eos, p. 503. 7

9

Melville Richards, "Welsh", in Eos, p. 568.

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APPENDIX B

or in medieval Latin, a point of some consternation for scholars seeking to prove either an Arabic or Latin origin for European vernacular poetry. The dawn motif, however, does appear in lyrics of both literatures - but as a very minor element.

LIST OF REFERENCES

Abbott, Claude C., Early Medieval French Lyrics (London: Constable, 1932). Alden, Raymond Macdonald, An Introduction to Poetry (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1909). Alonso, Damaso, "Cancionillas 'de amigo' mozarabes", Revista de filologia espanola ΧΧΧΙΠ (1949), 297-349. Ancona, A. d', Studi Sulla Letteratura Italiana dei Prim (Ancona, 1884). Appel, Carl, Provenzalische Chrestomathie (Leipzig: Reisland, 1907). Audiau, Jean, La pastourelle dans la poesie occitane du Moyen Age (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1923). —, Les Troubadours et VAngleterre (Paris: Philosophique J. Vrin, 1927). Bagley, C. P., "Courtly Love-Songs in Galicia and Provence", Forum for Modern Language Studies Π (1966), 74-88. Barrow, Sarah F., The Medieval Society Romances. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1924). Bartsch, Karl, Die Schweizer Minnes nger (Frauenfeld, 1886). —, Romances et Pastourelles Francoises des XIIe et Xlll* siecles (1870; rpt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1967). Bec, Pierre, Petite anthologie de la lyrique occitane du Moyen Age (Avignon: Eduard Aubanel, 1962). Bedier, Joseph, "Les Plus anciennes danses francaises", Revue des Deux Mondes (January 1906), pp. 398-424. Beiperron, Pierre, La "joie d'amour", Contribution a f etude des troubadours et de l*amour courtois (Paris: Plon, 1948). Bertoni, G., Poesie Leggende Costumanze del Medio Evo (Modena, 1917). Bezzola, Reto R., Les origines et la formation de la litterature courtoise en Occident (500-1200). 3 vols. in 5 (Paris: E. Champion, 1944-63). Booth, Wayne C., The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961). Brinkmann, Hennig, Liebeslyrik der Deutschen Fr he (D sseldorf: P dagogischer Verlag Schw rm, 1952). Brook, George L., ed., The Harley Lyrics'. The Middle English Lyrics of MS. Harley 2253 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1948). Brown, Carleton, ed., English Lyrics of the XIHth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932). Burke, Kenneth, "Three Definitions", The Kenyan Review ΧΙΠ (1951), 173-92. Caboni, A., ed., Antiche rime italiane trotte dm memoriali bolognesi (Modena, 1941).

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LIST OF REFERENCES

Chaytor, Rev. H. J., The Troubadours (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912). Cirlot, J. E., A Dictionary of Symbols (New York: Philosophical Library, 1962). Crescini, A., Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto LXXXV (2), pp. 1925-26. Curtius, Ernst Robert, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (New York: Harper and Row, 1963). Dante Alighieri, La Vita Nuova. terza edizone, con il commento di Tommaso Casini (Firenze, 1951). De Bartholomaeis, V., Studi medievali, N. S. IV (1931). Delbouille, M., Les Origines de la pastourelle (Bruxelles: M. Lamertin, 1926). Dronke, Peter, Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love-Lyric, 2 vols., 2nd. ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1968). —, The Medieval Lyric (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1968). Du , Edelstand Pontas, Poesis populaires latines du Moyen Age (Paris, 1847). Eastman, Arthur M., ed., The Norton Anthology of Poetry (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970). Ellmann, Richard, Yeats: The Man and the Masks (New York: McMillan, 1948). Fisher, John H., ed., The Medieval Literature of Western Europe: A Review of Research, Mainly 1930-1960 (New York: New York University Press, 1966). Forster, E. M., Aspects of the Novel (London: Edward Arnold and Company, 1927). Frank, Istvän, Trouveres et Minnesänger (Saarbrücken: West-Ost-Verlag, 1952). Frings, Theodor, Die Anfänge der europäischen Liebes-Dichtung im 11 und 12 Jahrhundert (Sitzb-München: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1960). —, "Erforschung des Minnesangs", Forschungen und Fortschitte XXVI (1950), 9-16. —, Minnesinger und Troubadours (Berlin: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1949). Garcia Gomez, E., "La lirica hispano-ärabe y la aparicion de la lirica romanica", Al-Andalus XXI (1956), 303-38. Gerold, Theodore, La musique au Moyen Age (Paris: H. Champion, 1932). Grimminger, Rolf, Poetik des frühen Minnesangs (München: C. H. Beck'sehe Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1969). Guiette, Robert, "D'une poesie formelle en France au Moyen Age", Revue des sciences humaines 54 (1949), 61-8. Hanford, James Holly, "Classical Ecologue and Medieval Debate", Romanic Review II (1911), 16-31 and 129-43. Hatcher, Anna Granville, "Marcabru's A la fontana del vergier", Modern Language Notes 79 (May 1964), 284-95. Hatto, Arthur T., et al., Eos: An Enquiry into the Theme of Lovers' Meetings and Partings at Dawn in Poetry (The Hague: Mouton, 1965).

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