Two Contrasting Views of Love in the Songs of the Troubadours and the Trobairitz

TWO CONTRASTING VIEWS OF LOVE IN THE SONGS OF THE TROUBADOURS AND THE TROBAIRITZ The female troubadours, or trobairitz, composed their songs in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the region of France where Occitan was the language ofcommunication and also ofculture, an area, broadly speaking, which lies south of the Loire Valley and extends to the Mediterranean. About twenty women poets are known to us by name, whose compositions range from the love song, orcanso, and thetenso, or debate poem, to the sirventes, a satirical poem dealing with political themes or social comment. The names of seventeen other female troubadours have been recorded by authors of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, whose compositions are unfortunately lost. This amounts to a total of almost forty female poets who were active in the region of Languedoc and Provence at the time of the flowering of Occitan poetry and song, women who undoubtedly took a full part in the cultural life of their day and were highly regarded by their contemporaries.' The scholarship devoted to the trobairitz in the last twenty years has focused on their poetic technique, their social class and their love discourse, their attitude towards^«'amor. These studies have ascertained that the women poets came from the aristocratic class, that for the most part the themes of their poems are similar to those of the male troubadours, although they show a more independent and perhaps more realistic attitude towards love. Their use of rhetoric and poetic technique is also similar, though not identical to that of the male poets. There are clear differences in the poetic expression ofindividual trobairitz, who do not, in fact, sing with the same voice.2 These studies have shown some of the similarities and the differences in the love discourse oftroubadour and trobairitz, both in the form and in the content of the poems. Both male and female poets pledge undying service and devotion to the object of their love, who is often remote and unattainable, or proud and unresponsive. They suffer endless torments which will bring death without the longed-for reward from the beloved. These laments are common to both male and female 24 TWO CONTRASTING VIEWS OF LOVE poets and constitute the majority ofthe songs left to us in the troubadour tradition. But there is an important element of the Occitan poetic tradition which is exclusive to the male troubadours; this is found in the boasting poem, orgab, in which the male poet boasts of his prowess as a lover and seducer ofwomen. The verbgabar means to open the mouth wide, the behaviour of a loud-mouth or braggart. We can find no instances of the gab in the extant corpus of the trobairitz; it appears to be exclusively a male genre. In the love discourse of the women poets caution and restraint are more often in evidence than extravagant display. The trobairitz does not boast ofherpoweroverherbeloved; she ismuch more disposedto lament the loss of love and the harshness of the beloved, whom she reproaches for his pride and boastful conduct. The woman poet also complains ofthe impediments which prevent her from enjoying her love, such as the constraints of social conventions, concern for her reputation, for the dangers which disclosure may bring, even if her love is returned. The trobairitz are more preoccupied with the problems oïfîn'amor than with itsjoys; they are not given to boasting about their charms or celebrating their conquests. This is the exclusive domain of some male poets, from Guilhem de Peitieu in the early twelfth century to the songs oftroubadours composing at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The boasting song orgab has its origins in the epic exaggeration ofthe chanson de geste, where it expresses superlative courage and strength. In the love song it consists ofan extravagant display ofsexual prowess, placing the male loverat the center of the action, while the lady's role is reduced to that of an object of desire, a trophy to impress his companions. As Simon Gaunt has shown, the male poets are speaking to each other, rather than addressing their song to the lady, who is merely an excuse forthe song.'* Among the troubadours...