Grażyna Urban-Godziek

The Courtly Alba of Troubadours (Parting at Dawn)

The second in the series of studies devoted to the genre of love songs, which combines the motif of lovers parting or meeting at dawn, presents the most canonical form of the genre, i.e. the courtly alba of the Occitan (Provencal) troubadours. Chapter 1. Courtly alba (knightly, learned, aristocratic) presents the definition of the genre according mainly to Elizabeth Wilson Poe. It then introduces a classification of the varieties of the genre following Christopher Chaguinian’s critical edition (alba de séparation, alba formelle érotique, alba religieux) enriched by the division into two types of mixed albas (presented in the previous paper) that are on the borderline of courtly and traditional forms. Additionally, following Toribio Fuente Cornejo, the collection of Occitan albas is supplemented with French and Galician-Portuguese examples, all created between the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 14th century. Chapter 2.1. Traditional alba versus knightly guard song presents—following Chaguinian—a falsification of Alfred Jeanroy’s hypothesis that assumes the existence of an intermediate link between two preserved Latin guard songs from the 10th and 11th centuries and the troubadour alba, indicating the latter’s origin in the traditional form. This hypothesis is corroborated by the oldest definition of the genre in the treatise Doctrina de compondre dictats. Chapter 2.3. The Arabic hypothesis presents the motif of ibtakara (the parting of co-nomadising peoples or the morning parting of lovers from two different peoples), often referred to in Andalusian courtly poetry. The example of Ibn Zaydūn’s qaṣīda (10th/11th century) shows motifs that are intrinsic to the troubadour alba. Chapter 3. Types of Occitan amorous alba. Analysis of texts presents the further varieties of the genre: 3.1. Alba de sépartion (example—Rimbaut de Vaqueiras, Gaita be), 3.1.1. Alba de sépartion, type: a courtly version of chanson de malmariée (Cadenet, S’anc fui belha), 3.2. Alba formelle érotique (Uc de Bacalaria Per grazir).

* The article is supported by the National Science Centre (NCN), Poland, project: Od paraklausithyronu do serenady, grant no. 2012/07/B/HS2/01297.

Iberian Alborada. The Woman’s Song at the Dawn, 11th-17th Century

The aim of the article is to define the genre of alborada, referring to its oldest Iberian forms, Mozarabic and Portuguese, and showing its evolution in the Early Modern Castilian poetry. This study will therefore serve as a basis for delineating the genre, which was present also in other European literatures, i.a. Polish from Renaissance to Romanticism. Iberian songs discussed here display a clear structure established in a long tradition and exploit the theme of lovers meeting at dawn, originating in the folk tradition, and implemented in Medieval formal courtly genres of kharja, cantiga de amigo (examples of Pero Meogo and Dom Dinis), and in 15th-century villancico, and entering other genres, most prominently sonnets, during the Renaissance. These multiple formal changes result in a gradual evolution of the lyrical subject of the alborada - the original complaint of a girl in love, a girl who is active and fighting for her happiness, has been transformed into a song of adoration and regret of a he-lover who serenades at nights for a lady who is mute and confined to the frame of her window. By this token, the history of the lyrical genre reflects the gradual removal of voices and subjectivity from women.

Artykuł powstał w ramach realizacji projektu badawczego „Od paraklausithyronu do serenady” nr 2012/07/B/HS2/01297 finansowanego ze środków Narodowego Centrum Nauki.

Traditional and Courtly Alba: A Selection of Romance Lyrics Translated by Magdalena Pabisiak

A selection of mediaeval Romance lyrics complementing the two previous studies published in this issue of Terminus. It presents the first Polish translations of a number of works classified as traditional and courtly albas. The translations were made from five mediaeval Romance languages and Latin. The works whose authors are known are provided with a biographical note. Additionally, a historical and literary perspective for the presented collection is outlined. It also discusses some terms of fin’amor poetry that are difficult in translation. A comprehensive introduction gives information on the intentions of the authors of this collection, the translation technique developed here, and the specifics of translating Romance lyric into Polish. The three troubadour albas (Rimbaut de Vaqueiras, Cadenet, Uc de Bacalaria) examined here illustrate the translation strategies developed by Magdalena Pabisiak, presenting different variants of the translated text and criteria for making particular choices in the translation. Difficulties related to recreating the metric system of Romance lyric in a language with different prosody, syntactic structures, length of words, and vowel frequency are discussed, showing, inter alia, how difficult it is to obtain in Polish the same repeatability of rhymes so characteristic for this type of lyric.

* The article is supported by the National Science Centre (NCN), Poland, project: Od paraklausithyronu do serenady, grant no. 2012/07/B/HS2/01297.

De consolatione somni – the figure of the comforter in renaissance love poetry. Jan Kochanowski and the current of Latin literature in Europe (Boecjusz, F. Petrarca, G. Pontano, J. Secundus)

This paper presents the history of a motif that the author calls De consolatione somni. It is based on the Boethian pattern of consolation brought about by a woman who appears in a dream. Lady Philosophy, who in De consolatione Philosophiae morally and philosophically comforts Boethius when under sentence of death, is later introduced by Dante and Petrarch into the Renaissance poetry. The motif was applied to two ends: to express love in amorous poetry and grief in poetry of mourning. In Dante’s Vita nova and Petrarch’s Canzoniere (the author analyses poems No. 282 and 359) the deceased beloved appears to the bereaved lover in a dream and brings him comfort. Boccaccio, the third jewel in the “Tuscan crown,” in his eclogue Olympia introduces this motif to literature of mourning, creating the patterns of poetry dedicated to deceased girls (his influence is visible, for instance, in the Middle English poem The Perl, in the Dialogue en forme de vision nocturne by Margaret of Navarre or in Lament XIX by Kochanowski). The 15th-century lyric bonds mourning and erotic elements together even more strongly, adding a sensual dimension. Giovanni Pontano, in his poems dedicated to the memory of his late wife (the author analyses works from Lyra 9, Eridanus II 1; II 32, Hendecasyllabi II 29), evokes dream visions in which her spirit visits him. This consolation, however, had a clear sensual and erotic character, for the dead wife would come to her husband’s bed. He also likewise envisioned the prospective unification of the spouses in Elysium. In the next two centuries, in anti-Petrarchan poetry such consolation experienced in erotic dreams appeared both in poems of mourning (when the beloved passed away) and in love poems (when fulfilment was impossible for other reasons). The latter option is here illustrated in elegy I 10 by Secundus. A dream that compensates for the deficiencies of reality is a frequent motif in baroque poetry (G.B. Marino, A. Morsztyn). Yet the target point of this study is determined by the works that constitute the compositional frame of book II of Jan Kochanowski’s Elegiarum libri IV. Here we come across a rather unusual idea. A betrayed lover wishing to free himself from his humiliating love has a dream in which the goddess Venus appears (elegy II 4). Like Lady Philosophy (the Boethian pattern is particularly visible in a previous version of the elegy that is preserved in a manuscript), Venus tries to convert her charge to her domain, that is, to renew love in him. (This character, and especially her way of reasoning, is reminiscent of the creation of the Mother in Lament XIX). The triumph of the comforter is not long – elegy 11 brings another concept: a suicide committed in a dream that symbolically puts an end to unhappy love.
Another significant aim of this paper is to draw attention to the influence that Boethius and his version of Platonism had on Renaissance poetry, and on Jan Kochanowski in particular. It seems especially important for recognising the sources of Lament XIX and elegies from book II of the printed volume. The first to have noticed Boethius’ impact on Kochanowski’s work was Izydor Richter (1912) but his discovery has not been exploited by later researchers.
To sum up, the paper presents the history of a non-obvious (singled out by the paper’s author) motif in modern poetry and its relation to both love poetry and poetry of mourning as well as the Neoplatonic basis of Renaissance erotic lyric. It also explains the origin and the meaning of the dream vision in Kochanowski’s book II of Elegies and (although it is not the chief aim of the paper) the genesis of the comforting Mother who appears with Orszulka, the departed daughter of the poet, in Lament XIX.

 

Romanic Traditional Alba—Between Popular Poetry and Courtly One

This paper initiates a series of texts devoted to genres of love songs that combine the motif of a parting or meeting of lovers at the break of dawn. It is a genological introduction to the classification of Polish poems of this kind from the 16th and 17th centuries (Chapter 1. Introduction. Premises for this cycle of studies). Morning love songs—here referred to as albas or alboradas—appeared at the very beginning of mediaeval Romance lyricism, that is, at the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries (Mozarabic kharja). Although they originated from folk ‘women’s songs’, they were soon included in the repertoire of troubadours and incorporated into their genre system. The first study is devoted to works focusing on lovers parting in the morning. It investigates the functioning of this type of lyric on the borderline between the traditional and courtly registers (Chapter 2. Controversy. Folk and learned albas; Chansone de femme and grand chant courtois) and presents a traditional version of alba (Chapter 3. Traditional alba (popular, folk)). The traditional alba is a thematic genre, focused on the scene of lovers parting at dawn. It is distinguished from the courtly alba (the troubadour type) by the important role of nature. The lovers meet outside the city, in natural scenery, and are awakened by the singing of morning birds (there are no guards, spies, or jealous husbands lurking in the background). The classification presented is based mainly on the findings of Pierre Bec, as well as on the research and collection of albas gathered by Toribio Fuente Cornejo. Chapter 3.1. Mozarabic kharja and its derivatives; Romanesque and Latin albas presents the oldest surviving texts, which are refrain-like fragments. Chapter 3.2. The Galician-Portuguese courtly version of traditional alba analyses a type of folk alba adapted to courtly lyricism, illustrated by the example of Nuno Fernandes Torneol’s Levad’amigo. The discussion of these canonical forms of albas is extended with two proposed subtypes. The first is defined as the mixed type—traditional alba with courtly elements (chapter 3.3.) and illustrated by an example of the French alba Entre moi et mon amin. The elements of the setting (meeting in the open air, the role of the bird) come from the traditional form, which is also indicated by the lyrical subject—a woman. On the other hand, the strophic composition and metrics of the poem reveal the influence of courtly poetry. The other mixed type—courtly alba with traditional elements (chapter 3.4.), represented by two Occitan and two French texts, belongs to the fin’amor culture and has the features of the courtly version (types of characters, terminology, formal structure) with the traditional role of nature.

* The article is supported by the National Science Centre (NCN), Poland, project: Od paraklausithyronu do serenady, grant no. 2012/07/B/HS2/01297.