Vernacular Song quotes

Question 1

‘Rich and complex oral tradition’
‘Belongs to the central tradition of trouvère song’ in ‘textual and melodic composition’

Answer 1

Parker (1979), St German chansonnier

Question 2

Troubadours- ‘the earliest and most significant exponents of… music and poetry in medieval Western vernacular culture’

Answer 2

Stevens (2001)

Question 3

19th century romanticised troubadours’ lives, but later on there is a more ‘careful’ and ‘realistic appraisal’

Answer 3

Stevens (2001)

Question 4

Fin’amors (troubadour)- not ‘exclusively literary’, an ‘influential cultural element in medieval society’

Answer 4

Stevens (2001)

Question 5

Gaston Paris (19th century) ‘courtly love’- ‘changing social and ecclesiastical structures of love and marriage’

Answer 5

Stevens (2001)

Question 6

Trobairitz- ‘exalted’ despite ‘context of female suppression’

Answer 6

Stevens (2001)

Question 7

Trobairitz- only 23-46 texts compared to 2600 from male authors

Answer 7

Stevens (2001)

Question 8

Trouvères ‘provide the earliest surviving view of the troubadours’

Answer 8

Stevens (2001)

Question 9

Trouvères ‘often discussed only as a footnote to the more exotic predecessors’

Answer 9

Stevens (2001)

Question 10

Troubadour and trouvère ‘their verse achieved life mainly through the performance of the singer’

Answer 10

Stevens (2001)

Question 11

Women as ‘domna’, ‘mainly…the necessary object of the poet-lover’s desire’, ‘passive and silent’

Answer 11

Sankovitch (1999)

Question 12

Domna as the poet’s “mirror”, as fin’amor ‘holds only nothingness’ for the other sex

Answer 12

Julia Kristeva in Sankovitch (1999)

Question 13

Only by 1170-1260 were women poets’ ‘imagination’ and ‘expression’ considered ‘dynamic’ for the first time

Answer 13

Sankovitch (1999)

Question 14

Trobairitz favour ‘psycho-poetic values’ (fidelity and emotivity) over ‘socio-poetic’ ones (moderation, generosity, reputation)

Answer 14

Bec in Sankovitch (1999)

Question 15

‘Mimicry’- when the woman takes on the role of the courtly man, recreating herself in the man’s view
This is because trobairitz literature revolves more around female society

Answer 15

Irigray in Sankovitch (1999)

Question 16

‘Interest’ in trobairitz ‘generally follows the rising and falling tides of feminism’

Answer 16

Bruckner (1995)

Question 17

Trobairitz studies received special attention in the 1980s because of Meg Bogin’s translation of 23 poem corpus, “The Women Troubadours”
The last edition of the trobairitz as a group was 1946

Answer 17

Bruckner (1995)

Question 18

Argues that all ladies are domnas, either ‘loved by troubadours’ or ‘loving in turn’

Answer 18

Bruckner (1995)

Question 19

Trobairitz are all described using the same adjectives, as they are all domnas, ‘noble, beautiful, charming, educated’

Answer 19

Bruckner (1995)

Question 20

Courtly love originated from the troubadour canso

Answer 20

Gaunt (1995)

Question 21

‘Modern criticism’ is ‘obsessed with origins’, blind spot neglecting how Northern French and Occitan lyric traditions are actually quite contemporary

Answer 21

Gaunt (1995)

Question 22

Bibliographie (1933) lists all the known troubadours
Important reference work as it contains an anthology of poems by 122 poets

Answer 22

Pillet and Carstens (1933)

Question 23

Analysis shows that the ‘rhetoric’ of the trouvères is ‘artificial and calculated’ but in a positive sense

Answer 23

Dragonetti (1960)

Question 24

Reception theory = particularly important to medieval music. Rhythm is of central importance especially in secondary literature

Answer 24

Haines (2004)

Question 25

1970s onwards- interest in reception of medieval music

Answer 25

Haines (2004)

Question 26

First troubadour with surviving poems- Guilhem VI, count of Poitiers 'Sophisticated style and subtle allusions to earlier works'- trobar and cantar were 'already well-established traditions before his time'

Answer 26

Haines (2004)

Question 27

'Assumption' that 'all melodies ascribed to a 12th century author have actually filtered down to us from his pen via oral tradition cannot go unchallenged'

Answer 27

Parker (1977)

Question 28

Purpose of scribes- not just copying music, 'interpreting it, refashioning it to fit the book being compiled' These songs were already 'old music' to them

Answer 28

Haines (2004)

Question 29

Argues that 'the first interpreters of troubadour and trouvere music...were its medieval readers', who wrote 'legends' about them and their 'musical abilities'

Answer 29

Haines 2004

Question 30

Singers were 'brought in for dictations' of extant melodies in the compilation of song books

Answer 30

Haines 2004

Question 31

Chansonniers had 'unprecedentedly wide dissemination', because compilers were 'collecting and editing' songs which had previously only 'enjoyed a comparatively limited, oral tradition'

Answer 31

Haines 2004

Question 32

'waning' of troubadour and trouvere art in late 13c, so patrons commissioned song books to collect songs in 'sanitised, ornate versions'

Answer 32

Haines 2004

Question 33

Deschamps called poetry with musical notation "artificial" and that without "natural", showing that people no longer thought that 'music and text [were] inseparable'

Answer 33

Deschamps 1392, in Haines 2004

Question 34

Troubadours and trouveres = 'belonged to a sphere of music-making already ancient by the time that interest in polyphony had ensured its preservation in a continuous stream', meaning a 'definite revival' is difficult

Answer 34

Parker 1977, evaluation

Question 35

Medieval theoretical writing- often ambiguous- 'many fundamental questions about versification and form...are unresolved'

Answer 35

Stevens, Butterfield and Karp (Grove 2001)