A Handbook of the Troubadours (review)

Reviews Akehurst, F. R. P. and Judith M . Davis, A Handbook of the Troubadours (Publications of the U C L A Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies), Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1995; cloth and paper; pp. vii, 502; 32 tables, 1 map, 6 musical examples; R.R.P. US$55.00 (cloth), US$22.50 (paper). This is the work that, along with Hamlin, Ricketts and Hathaway's Introduction a I'Etude de I'Ancien Provencal (Droz, 1967), will allow the independent scholar to become initiated in the intricacies of ancient Occitan language, literature and culture. Together these books offer an assimilable cultural background, a grammar (including syntax and morphology) and even an essential vocabulary to give access to most of the writings in medieval Occitan which have come down to us. The Handbook, useful to novice and accomplished scholar alike, is destined to become the vade-mecum of English-speaking specialists in Old Provencal. Akehurst and Davis offer no texts and commentaries, as does the abovementioned Introduction, but the twenty-one separate chapters (plus an appendix listing the best editions of old Occitan authors), all by excellent scholars, amply cover the fields one needs to be acquainted with to read and understand texts in this very important area of medieval studies. The contributions are loosely grouped into major sub-sections: The Essentials; Accessory Texts; Origins and Diffusion; General and Technical Considerations. Akehurst contributes an Introduction outlining the book's scope, giving practical suggestions for its use and commenting on the principles guiding its structure. It is left to Paul Zumthor to give an overview of the medieval Occitan phenomenon, indicating to the reader the book's various chapters and their relative importance. This chapter, originally composed in French, was translated for the Handbook by Akehurst. The Handbook recognises that the most important contribution of medieval Occitan was the lyric poetry, in which the tenets of fin' amors ('courtly love'), so important for the development of all of western literature, were first manifested. To Amelia Van Vleck, author of Memory and Recreation in Troubadour Lyric (Berkeley, 1991) fell the all-important P A R E R G O N ns 14.2 (January 1997) 144 Reviews presentation of the troubadours and their poems ('The Lyric Texts'), a task that she accomplishes competently and succinctly in the forty pages allotted to her. From Van VIeck's chapter (Chapter 2) onwards, the structure of each item is set. The reader knows that full details of any book or article mentioned are to be found in a separate bibliography appearing as "Works Cited' immediately following the text of the chapter in question. Although this entails a certain amount of repetition, it is much easier to search for the bibliographical item required in a relatively short list. Unfortunately, however, the Index at the back of the Handbook refers only to citations of m o d e m critics in the body of a chapter and does not allow the reader access to each noting of an author in the individual chapter bibliographies. Some titles of chapters ought to be mentioned to show the extensive coverage of the vast range of topics relating to Occitan studies. Moshe Lazar was an excellent choice for the chapter on 'Fin' Amor', whilst the pioneer work of Hendrick van der Werf (The Chansons of the Troubadours and Trouveres: A Study of their Melodies and their Relation to the Poems, Utrecht, 1972) marked him out for the chapter 'Music'. Suzanne Fleischman gives a workmanlike account of 'The Non-Lyric Texts', Elizabeth Poe of 'The Vidas and Razos', whilst Matilda Bmckner writes ably on women troubadours in 'The Trobairitz'. In William Paden's admirable 'Manuscripts', the reader finds mentioned not only the libraries holding the most important troubadour manuscripts, but also sober advice to any potential editor. Frede Jensen has fifty pages in which to deal with 'Language', while 'Rhetoric' and 'Topoi' are treated respectively by Nathaniel Smith and Elisabeth SchulzeBusackaker . Frank M . Chambers affords a most readable account of the verse patterns and metrics of the troubadours in his 'Versification'. Precious to any reader preoccupied with the aesthetics of troubadour texts will be Eliza Ghil's...