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Flamenca: a wake for a dying civilization? Henri Jeanjean Le Roman de Flamenca, a mutilated anonymous manuscript discovered by chance in Carcassonne in 1834 by Raynouard, (who gave it the name of its heroine) and first translated by M . P. Meyer in 1865, has become one of the most written about works in Occitan. Its graceful style has been noted1 and its psychology and realism have been commented upon by Nelli and Lavaud, w h o stress that this poem had a fundamental role in the development of French literature as the Occitan romances (Jaufre and Flamenca) started the long tradition which lead to Marcel Proust via the Princesse de Cleves2 . All comic forms are to be found in Flamenca—comedy of situation, play on words, understatements—and all critics w h o have studied Flamenca from various perspectives agree that one of its special qualities is its humour. Whilst some of the comic elements may appeartimeless,inasmuch as they pertain to a tradition which existed prior to the 13th century and continued until the present, w e m a y wonder if some aspects of this humour do not offer a reflection on the social and political upheaval occurring during that period. The combination of direct intervention by the author, and comic exaggeration, may well be the key to understanding the author's deep intentions which can only be fully understood if the socio-political framework within which the work was written is first taken into account. 1 A. Jeanroy, Histoire sommaire de la poesie Occitane, (Toulouse: Privat, 1945) p 2 R. Lavaud et R. Nelli, Les Troubadours, (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1960) p.632. P A R E R G O N ns 16.1 (July 1998) 20 Henri Jeanjean Scholars have tried to determine both the name of the author and the date of composition. C. Chabaneau3 saw in lines 1722-17364 a specific indication about the author whose n a m e could have been Bernadet, a protege of a m e m b e r of the Roquefeuil household, the seigneur d'Alga, while other scholars think that the vagueness of those lines does not seem to warrant such a conclusion. Charles Grimm5 claimed that Flamenca could only have been written after 1272 but his analysis, based on the description of the arms of Archambaut de Bourbon, appears unreliable to most literary critics. Robert Lafont6 and Rene Nelli7 both agree with Alfred Jeanroy w h o asserted that the work was written in Rouergue around 1240 -12508 and Charles Langlois concurs by stating that Flamenca is an incomparable source for the history of feelings and of customs towards the time of Louis IX's accession to the throne9 . A s early as 1209, the year the Crusade against the Albigenses had started, Occitania was stunned by the ruthlessness of the invasion. In Beziers, the first town to fall to the crusaders, the entire population, estimated between 10,000 and 24,000, was systematically slaughtered, including the thousands—mainly w o m e n and children—who were burnt alive in the church where they had taken refuge. The impact of the Crusade was felt by all and the troubadours were not i m m u n e from the upheaval. A n immediate effect of the Crusade was to halt the development of trobarw and a n e w literature of resistance emerged. 'L'idee de resistance s'enrichit tres vite d'une contestation des fausses valeurs que represente l'ordre installe par les Frangais et le Clerge'." This was mostly evident through the sirventes12 campaign against the Crusade which lasted from 1210 to around 1270, sharpening the Occitan society's already well-formulated public moral conviction. S o m e of these poems had lasting popular success: a bourgeois from Toulouse was interrogated by the 3 C. Chabaneau, in Revue des Langues Romanes, 4e serie n, 1888, p.103. 4 Verse numbers correspond to the text established by J-C Huchet, Flamenca, Roman occitan du XIII" siecle, (Paris: Union Generate d'Editions, 10/18,1988). 5 C. Grimm, Etude sur le Roman de Flamenca, These d'Universite (Paris: 1930). 6 R. Lafont, et C...

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