Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry (Cambridge Studies in French)

Cambridge Studies in French

SUBJECTIVITY IN TROUBADOUR POETRY

Cambridge Studies in French General Editor: MALCOLM BOWIE Recent titles in this series include ANN JEFERSON DALIA JUDOVITZ

Reading Realism in Stendhal

Subjectivity and Representation in Descartes: The Origins of Modernity

RICHARD D.E. BURTON Baudelaire in 1859: A Study in the Sources of Poetic Creativity MICHAEL MORIARTY JOHN FORRESTER

Taste and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century France

The Seductions of Psychoanalysis: On Freud, Lacan and Derrida

JEROME SCHWARTZ

Irony and Ideology in Rabelais: Structures of Subversion

DAVID BAGULEY LESLIE HILL F.w. LEAKEY

Naturalist Fiction: The Entropic Vision Beckett's Fiction: In Different Words

Baudelaire: Collected Essays,

1953-1988

For a complete list of books in the series, see the end of this volume.

SUBJECTIVITY IN TROUBADOUR POETRY SARAH KAY Lecturer, Department of French, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Girton College

The right of the U versity of Cambridge o prin nd sell all manner of books was granted by Henry VIII in 1534. The University has printed and published continuously since 1584.

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Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1990 First published 1990 British Library cataloguing in publication data Kay, Sarah Subjectivity in Troubadour poetry. - (Cambridge studies in French). 1. Poetry in French, to 1400. Special subjects: Courtly love, critical studies I. Title 841.109354 Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data Kay, Sarah. Subjectivity in troubadour poetry / Sarah Kay. p. cm. - (Cambridge studies in French) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-521-37238-0 1. Provencal poetry - History and criticism. 2. Subjectivity in literature. 3. Troubadours. I. Title. II. Series. PC3308.K39 1990 849'.1009 - dc20 90-1535 CIP ISBN 0 521 37238 0 hardback Transferred to digital printing 2003

WG

CONTENTS

Introduction

page 1

1

Indeterminacy of meaning

17

2

Allegory

50

3

Gender and status

84

4

Performance

132

5

Romance appropriations

171

Conclusion

212

Notes

215

Select bibliography

254

Index

258

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The stimulus to undertake this project has come from my colleagues in the French Department at Cambridge and in Girton College, without whose starry achievements it would never have occurred to me to write a book. I also owe a great deal to the many gifted students I have been lucky enough to talk with over the last few years. A major part of the book was written while I was on sabbatical leave, which gives me more pragmatic grounds for thanking the University and Girton College. I have importuned a number of people with drafts in various stages of completion, and I should like to record my thanks for their help, patience and advice to Colin Davis, Liz Guild, Ruth Harvey, Tony Hasler, Bonnie Krueger, Toril Moi, Linda Paterson, Naomi Segal, Tony Spearing, Nicolette Zeeman, and also to John Marshall who has illumined some of the textual difficulties for me. My warmest thanks go to my colleague Simon Gaunt for his help, learning and encouragement throughout.

INTRODUCTION

Occitan lyric poetry is very similar to modern scholarly writing. Both are obedient to pre-existing rhetorical models that are resistant to change, and constantly express their indebtedness to earlier compositions in their respective genres. Both adopt a first-person perspective which is complicated by requirements of convention and * objectivity' and which is often subsumed to the masculine, even when the writer is a woman. Oral performance of a song or an academic paper, combined with written composition and transmission, can complicate the status of the textuality of both. Medieval poets didn't live on royalties any more than most scholars do, but they exchanged their literary production for inclusion within a courtly life-style in much the same way as academics use their writings as a means of admission to a professional elite. Composition, whether poetic or scholarly, involves an element of competition and self-promotion as well as an inevitable debt to pre-existing traditions. In writing a book about the troubadours, I, like them, write partly because of what has already been said, and partly, in some sense, 'as myself. Although I defer to scholarly institutions such as 'the literature', this study is personal - 'subjective' in the colloquial sense - in that I defend my own readings of troubadour lyric and criticize some of the readings advanced by others. Like the poetry it addresses, this book is the product of many influences. But because I have undergone these influences at a particular time, in a particular order, and have internalized them to varying degrees, for example according to my competence to understand them, there is a sense in which it is also 'autobiographical'; that is to say, it records a particular coincidence of the intertextual with the historical. The help which I have received from others, and which is detailed in the Acknowledgements, shows that 'autobiography' here does not exclude the notion of collaboration, and hence of the collective. By 'subjectivity', I mean above all the elaboration of a first-person (subject) position in the rhetoric of courtly poetry. The status of such 1

Introduction a subject is at issue in much postmodernist writing, of which it is impossible for even a medievalist to remain innocent. The 'decentering' of the subject as a result of the individual's entry into the social codes of language, and its consequent 'construction' by those codes, underlie the concern with language and rhetoric throughout this study, and especially the reading of allegorical self-presentation in Chapter 2.1 Our inevitable dependence on prior discourses, which broadly constitutes what since Kristeva has been styled ' intertextuality', can be seen as overdetermining subjectivity;2 when T write, what others have written writes through 'me'. The subject is thus simultaneously the subject o/what T write (or say) and subject to what others write (or say). The question of whether such a subject has any individuality, or any ontological status outside discourse, also runs through this whole book; I return to the relationship between intertextuality and autobiography later in this Introduction. Male domination of the social order and its representations means that women's relationship with language is particularly problematic. My discussion (in Chapter 3) of whether the discourses of misogyny or courtly adulation make available to women writers a subject position from which they can compose first-person poetry owes much to the feminist rereading of Lacan by Irigaray and others.3 The notion that a multiplicity of discourses exist in competition with each other, and that elite factions such as 'the courtly' have an interest in preserving their linguistic exclusivity, is an obvious one which finds echoes in Foucault,4 and underlies much of the discussion of status in Chapter 3 and of performance in Chapter 4. From the thirteenth to the mid-twentieth century the reception of the subject position in troubadour lyric followed a consistent tradition, which I call the 'autobiographical assumption'.5 This consists in assuming that the T of an individual text refers in some way or other to its supposed author and that the ideas and feelings expressed there are in some sense his or hers. The translation of poetry into autobiography by the vidas and razos rests on theoretical assumptions which remain largely unchanged in the work of a scholar such as Hoepffner.6 According to this way of reading, texts which cannot be perceived as conveying solidarity between first-person subject and author are problems, for which a range of solutions can be invoked. They may be classed as parody or burlesque. They might be explained away as pieces de circonstance or as exercices litteraires. In the last resort they are stigmatized as 'insincere'; the criterion of 'sincerity' forms the chief basis for literary judgement in the writings of the great Alfred Jeanroy.7 The advent of formalism marked the end of this

Introduction era of criticism. 'Insincere' lyrics stood revealed as celebrations of their tradition8 Inventories of the rhetorical procedures underlying individual instances of song did not altogether eliminate the subject, but did limit the options open to it to two: selection and appropriateness (decorum).9 From the seventies onwards, under the influence of Zumthor, the critic rose in status from humble stocktaker of rhetorical techniques to high priest, dismembering the literary subject on the altar of intertextuality.10 The autobiographical assumption met with no better luck in Marxist-inspired criticism; any apparent expression of subjective experience was translated into a metaphor of social aspiration with the poetic T as either metonym or synecdoche for the social group concerned, depending on whether he or she could be shown to belong to it.11 Until very recently, therefore, the mainstream of Continental criticism12 had completely reversed the centuries-long tradition of autobiographical reading, and deservedly so. That tradition had two radical flaws. The first was its optimism with regard to the transparency of meaning in any language, especially poetic language. The 'literal' was held to translate into autobiography and the 'metaphorical' underwent a translation procedure before also being recuperated autobiographically. This resulted in an over-literal understanding of 'autobiography' as anecdotal truth. The second was that its ideas about personality, or subjecthood, were unreflecting: scholars devoted endless patience to palaeography, metre, textual criticism, or archival research, and yet took it for granted that terms such as 'personality' and 'sincerity' were unproblematic. The notion of 'individuality' remained paramount and the rise of courtly literature was glossed as the 'discovery of the individual'.13 Reliance on such concepts as 'individuality' and 'sincerity' is not surprising, given that the advent of medieval studies coincided to a great extent with Romanticism; reappraisal of these same ideas by more recent medievalists accompanies the general re-evaluation of our Romantic inheritance.14 An important advance in medievalist scholarly thinking on literary subjectivity is marked by Michel Zink's recent book La Subjectivite litteraire au moyen age (1985). Examining literary texts of various genres from the twelfth to the thirteenth centuries, Zink observes that in early twelfth-century writers (such as Wace), subjectivity is dependent on antecedent texts and prior 'truth'; the subject is subject to preceding values with which it identifies, and is thus generalized. In the thirteenth century, however, the subject situates itself with respect to the contingent, and to the here and now; it thereby becomes far more particularized.

Introduction The texts which I study here span the same period as Zink covers, but unlike Zink, I do not seek primarily to chart historical evolution. Zink's argument is largely founded on the development of new genres in the thirteenth century {fabliaux, dits such as those of Rutebeuf)* whereas all the texts which I study in the first four chapters are lyrics, and principally love lyrics (cansos), a tradition characterized more by homogeneity than change. This relative conservatism includes the first-person subject position, which appears not to undergo marked development in the course of the century and a half which separates the careers of Guilhem de Peitieu and Guilhem de Montanhagol. For this reason, this book is not organized either chronologically, or troubadour by troubadour. I do, however, perceive a shift in the notion of value, and thus of status, in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, the problem of whether or not to innovate is seen to be posed differently in the late thirteenth century from the way it had been in the midtwelfth; and Chapter 5 considers retrospective interest in lyric subjectivity by romance writers. The conservatism of medieval lyric does not mean, in my view, that it is untouched by time. Like Zink, I take account of 'autobiography' in its widest sense.15 That is, I consider that the time of insertion into rhetorical and linguistic tradition influences selfpresentation; that time itself is relevant to subjectivity perceived as process and interaction (notably in performance, on which see Chapter 4); and that historical factors such as gender and economic status, relationships with authors and patrons, leave perceptible traces on the subjective voice. Thus although this study is primarily concerned with subjectivity as produced by language or rhetoric, it also attempts a revival of the 'autobiographical assumption', in an (I hope) improved form. Chapter 1 confronts the indeterminacy of troubadour rhetoric, with a view to avoiding the trap of semantic optimism, and Chapter 2 begins the analysis of subjectivity within the domain of language specifically, allegory and spatial metaphor. The subjectivity produced by this language is rhetorically complex, and the songs are not amenable to reading as 'true' or 'false' with respect to specific emotions or incidents. Chapters 2 and 3 keep open the question of how far this subject is 'individualizing' and how far it is 'generalizing'. Combining the typical with the particular is a feature of medieval autobiographical writing;16 Christianity, which provided the first impetus to autobiography, justifies this duality since each Christian soul follows a unique path and yet epitomizes the universal potential for sin or salvation. Thus, in resurrecting the 'autobiographical

Introduction assumption', I do not adopt an exclusively individualistic view of subjectivity. The 'individual' need not be conceived of contrastively, as differing in some essential way from others. The historical influences which combine with different discourses to construct the sense of self necessarily contribute features which are held in common with other selves. Some of these historical influences are discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. The notion of the 'individual' is more to the fore in Chapter 4, a study of conditions of performance in which the bodily presence of the performer is seen as transforming the song from 'text' to 'act' in the context of a specific, yet indefinitely repeatable exchange between individual interpreters and their audiences. In the remainder of this Introduction I wish to elaborate on my contention that the coincidence between the intertextual and the historical is compatible with a view of 'autobiography' that can reasonably be applied to troubadour poetry. Although Occitan lyric poetry is clearly a poetry of 'convention', this does not necessarily mean that it thereby excludes all sense of 'self. The contrary view, that intertextuality and subjectivity are incompatible, is most forcefully expressed in the influential writings of Paul Zumthor, who has consistently represented the subject as either marginal or irrelevant to the lyric. For Zumthor, lyric poetry is the best exponent of the traditional character of medieval literary aesthetics (Essai pp. 189ff.). By 'tradition' is meant not merely topics, comparable with the commonplace of earlier rhetorically based criticism (such as the locus amoenus), but their expression in registres:17 un reseau de relations pre-etablies entre elements relevant des divers niveaux de formalisation [that is, versification, lexis, syntax, motifs] ainsi qu'entre ces niveaux; ce reseau constitue une prefigure globale de la chanson, et elimine de celle-ci la pure impressivite. {Essai p. 232)

The omnipresence of these 'registers' in the courtly lyric of the North is demonstrated by statistical analysis of a substantial corpus and cited as the basis for the two claims which underpin Zumthor's conception of intertextuality: (i) that 'la reference du texte, c'est la tradition' (Essai p. 117) and (ii) that any individual text is overdetermined or objectified by that tradition. The first of these claims is expanded in the critical doctrine of la circularite du chant.18 No text possesses autonomy; all meaning is mediated through the consensus about possible meanings which underlies the whole corpus of texts; within individual songs these meanings are so disposed as to be mutually supporting. Thus T defines (in purely grammatical terms) 'you', the lady to whom T sing;

Introduction and 'sing' includes the notions of 'compose' and iove'. Meaning circulates within the text, and between the text and its tradition, without ever escaping from this self-referring circle: La chanson [a song by the Chastelain de Couci] apparait ainsi comme un ensemble extremement complexe dont tous les elements possedent la double qualite de signifiant et de signifie, ce qui implique une circulation interne du sens dans le discours, comme si le message, dans le temps meme ou il s'acheve, (Essai p. 206) remontait a son point de depart. The effect of this circularity, for Zumthor, is the objectivization of the text. Any subjectivity it might once have possessed has been 'swallowed up' ('englouti') and scattered among the 'miroitements de la forme', so that 'la chanson est interpretable, par le critique moderne, en sa seule qualite d'objet' (Essai p. 192). The text is wholly determined by its participation in tradition, and we can have no access to the subjective world of author or audience except via the 'objectivizing' force of that tradition (Essai p. 82). There would be no point in challenging now the views Zumthor held in 1972, if they were not still so influential.19 His central point, that meaning in the lyric is mediated through a tradition, is incontrovertible, and indeed is not exclusive to him.20 But Zumthor's account of intertextuality as 'objective' is too monolithic and inflexible. In the first place, his rejection of subjectivity seems to rely on an 'individualizing' notion of the subject: if one allows that the representation of subjectivity in language involves a collective dimension, then one can speak of the subject as being 'generalized' rather than 'objectivized' by intertextual reference. Secondly, it allows too little space to the historical. Despite his admission of the importance of incorporating diachrony into his theory (Essai p. 58, pp. 144ff. for example), it is difficult to see how a wholly circular system of meaning could be capable of change, for if all meaning derives from tradition, then anything not already traditional can only be meaningless. That Zumthor does not confront this question is not surprising, given that he concentrates his attention on the Northern French trouveres who bought into a particular period of troubadour poetry in the latter part of the twelfth century and maintained it into the thirteenth with little alteration. Zumthor pays almost no attention to the evanescence of literary practice among the troubadours of the South, nor to their apparent factionalism (for a brief mention, see Essai p. 102).21 There are manifest differences between indifferently ('objectively') drawing on a common fund of registres, and citing a specific predecessor by name, quotation or allusion. Some troubadours achieve

Introduction the status of auctoritates. Invoking them might gradually become part of the tradition; but initially at least, such invocations show something of the specific knowledge and interests of those who cite them. They provide us with a fragment of 'autobiography'. The distinction between an allusion based on traditional material and one based on specific reference can be illustrated by two of the four surviving tensos attributed to Bernart de Ventadorn. Two of these seem to have been composed with the participation of the famous troubadour, and don't concern us here. In his article 'Dialogues of the Dead', Marshall has argued that the other two (opposing Bernart with a Teirol' and a 'Gaucelm' respectively), are most probably thirteenth-century fabrications;22 but they differ markedly from each other. The dialogue with Peirol, 'an adroit and in many ways convincing pastiche' (p. 42), shows conversance with the corpus of both troubadours; that is, it seems predicated on reference to known poets or at least to known, 'signed', texts. The second, 'altogether cruder', confronts two stereotypes: a 'courtly' Bernart and an 'uncourtly' Gaucelm. Since Gaucelm Faidit's surviving corpus is just as 'courtly' as Bernart de Ventadorn's, there is little likelihood that it, or he, is being referred to here. Instead, Marshall ingeniously suggests that the misogynistic 'Gaucelm' of the tenso reflects mesaventures attributed to the troubadour in the razos to two of his songs. Thus primed, the pasticheur concocted a misogynistic persona, drawing heavily on poetry in the tradition of Marcabru. The idealistic 'Bernart' owes little or nothing to the works of the authentic Bernart de Ventadorn either.23 The tenso, therefore, alludes to tradition and 'can be seen as embodying a thirteenth-century perspective on twelfth-century literary history' (pp. 44-5). The intertextual reference of the 'Gaucelm' tenso may be 'objective' in Zumthor's sense, since it is determined by tradition; but that of the 'Peirol' one is not, since its unknown author displays specific knowledge. Furthermore, the author of the 'Peirol' tenso emphasizes the 'autobiographical' dimension of troubadour poetry by identifying the poet with his corpus: when (the pseudo-) Bernart de Ventadorn is summoned to sing, he produces stanzas which are (in a sense) recognizably 'his'. The Peirol tenso is thus 'about' subjectivity in poetry whereas the Gaucelm one is 'about' literary tradition. Zumthor's 'objective' model of intertextuality cannot accommodate the difference, because it has not allowed for examples of the Bernart-Peirol kind.24 And what of the patterns which are shared between troubadours known to be contemporaries and who seem, so far as we understand

Introduction the content of their songs, to be engaged in discussion with each other? In such a case, Zumthor's '"lieu commun" de l'auteur et de l'auditeur' (Essai p. 82) is not a timeless and impersonal tradition, and probably not even a reservoir of fictive meanings, but a lively ad hominem debate. The recent accounts of these patterns, in important critical works by Jorn Gruber and Maria-Luisa Meneghetti,25 offer new perspectives on intertextuality in the medieval lyric which, in supplementing that offered by Zumthor, force open his 'circle'and admit possibilities of meaning which he had ostracized. Both Gruber and Meneghetti are influenced by reception theory, which Gruber defiantly dates back to Thomas Aquinas: omne quod recipitur [in aliquo], recipitur per modum recipientis, et non per modum sui. everything which is received by someone is received after the fashion of the (Dialektik p. 8) recipient and not after its own fashion. Gruber's illuminating study of textual similarities in exordial or concluding stanzas of songs by Guilhem de Peitieu, Marcabru, Cercamon, Jaufre Rudel and Bernart de Ventadorn shows how anxious these early troubadours are about the proper reception of their work {Dialektik pp. 62-71). He then adduces examples of how troubadours take up patterns from their predecessors and redeploy them in such a way as to signal solidarity or, more commonly, disagreement. Thus Arnaut Daniel's Doutz brai e critz is composed with reference to Raimbaut d'Aurenga's Braiz, chans, quils, critz (Dialektik p. 161; cf. also pp.238-41); Jaufre Rudel in Non sap chantar cites key words from Guilhem de Peitieu's vers de dreit men in reverse order to mark divergence (Dialektik pp. 89-91). Through the multiplication of such examples a picture of literary history emerges which is altogether different from that painted by Zumthor: instead of the vast, impersonal monolith of tradition, we find a finely drawn network of precise allusion criss-crossing down the century from text to text; and whereas Zumthor's view of tradition stresses resemblances between texts, Gruber's is at least as alert to their differentiation. His terminology for describing this blend of resemblance and difference is Hegelian: the 'taking up' of earlier textual material is styled Aufhebung, 'sublation', the process by which successive mental or historical states transcend earlier ones without discarding them; they adopt and surpass them, for Gruber, per modum recipientis, that is, following an inevitable tendency for the perception of the receiver to redefine the object perceived. This 8

Introduction constant transcendence of earlier by later works results in the historical 'dialectic' of his title.26 Although conceiving this process as inevitable and global, Gruber nonetheless stresses the conscious and deliberate participation of individual poets; thus, for instance, he writes of Peire Vidal: Wie Petrarca, so versteht sich offenbar schon Peire Vidal als Erbe und potentieller Uberwinder aller vorhergehenden Minnesanger: ihn hindert allein der 'Mangel an Materia' an der Realisierung seines Stilideals, das er in bestimmten Liedern Raimbauts d'Aurenga prafiguriert sieht.

(Dialektikp. 194)

He also briefly alludes to the fact that court life in the South fostered contact between small groups of writers (Dialektik pp. 3 -4), a point likewise stressed by Meneghetti, and to which I return in Chapter 4. Intertextuality thus enters the historical fabric of poetic biography. The subjectivity excluded from the intertextual process by Zumthor stages a dramatic come-back in this important work. Meneghetti likewise sees active reception as comprising an element of transformation (Pubblico pp. 101 -4), but the main thrust of her argument (Pubblico Chapter in) is to explain the origins of the dialogue genres, so she is more concerned with demonstrating the existence of particular polemics than with the sweep of historical change. Her presentation is carefully non-committal over the question whether these polemics are between individual poets or between texts; bringing her argument to a conclusion, she writes: Al continuo intertestuale, dato dall'omogeneita tematica del discorso portato innanzi dai coautori, si sovrappone, in questi casi, il discreto delle diverse, spesso sottili interpretazioni deiroggetto del dibattito che si viene realizzando: il testo a piu voci procede grazie ad una materializzazione di quel 'meccanismo di domanda e risposta' che e, come sappiamo, alia base dell'attivita (Pubblico p. 149) ermeneutica e ricezionale in genere. Although there is some overlap in the examples brought forward by these two scholars (who must have been engaged simultaneously on their similar projects) their combined evidence, in conjunction with shorter studies by others,27 necessitates radical revision of Zumthor's conception of literary tradition. Furthermore, the phenomenon of intertextual reference does not just exist between troubadours. Zumthor himself admitted that the existence of narrative cycles within the works of Peire Vidal, Raimon de Miraval and Uc de Sant Circ28 marked a trend towards 'autobiography' (Langue, texte, enigme pp. 171-6), but sought to limit the damage to his theory by minimizing the evidence for narrative

Introduction within the lyric. This is remarkable, given that the extent to which medieval lyric genres drift towards narrative is second only to the way the narrative ones fill up with lyric.30 The fact that the narratives are fragmented only bears witness to their tenacity as narratives which remain recognizable even when their dismembered parts surface from text to text. In Jaufre Rudel, for example, the motifs of distance and frustration unite to construct two opposing stories, one of pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the other of mesaventure in a neighbouring castle, both of which are scattered provokingly, like half-completed, half-mislaid jigsaw puzzles, across his songs. Here intertextual reference is a conscious device of 'autobiography', however fictional it might be.31 In other cases this cross-referencing is not based on narrative. Kaehne, for example, points to the existence of groups of songs by Bernart de Ventadorn which discuss a given topic from a variety of standpoints (Bernart von Ventadorn p. 54). Gruber analyses Raimbaut d'Aurenga's Pos trobarsplans, Aissi mou and Assatz m'es belh as a poetic cycle effecting a synthesis between the thesis and antithesis of the trobar clus and trobar leu (Dialektik pp. 210-19). 'Intertextuality' thus focusses an intellectual or aesthetic preoccupation to which the poet keeps returning at successive points in his career. Another troubadour to refer to parts of his own corpus in other than primarily narrative terms is Arnaut Daniel. I will conclude this Introduction by examining his relatively neglected song xiv in relation to the much better-known song x, in order to show the complex interaction within them between intertextual reference and firstperson representation in time. The text of xiv survives in only three MSS, T, a, and \|/, all of which are in some way unsatisfactory. Here is my version of it:32 29

I

Amors e iois e liocs e terns mi fan tornar lo sen e derc d'aqel joi c'avia l'autr'an 4 can cassava. 1 lebre ab lo bou; era.m vai mieltz d'amor e pieis, car ben am, d'aiso.m clam astrucs, ma non-amatz ai nom enquers, 8 s'Amors no vens son dur cor e.l mieus precs.

II

Cel que totz bes pert a ensems mestiers l'es que ric segnor cere per restaurar la perd' e.l dan, qe.l paubres no.il valri' un uou; per so m'ai ieu causit e lieis,

12

10

Introduction don non aic lo cor ni.ls uoills clues! E pliu.t, Amors, si la.m conquers, 16 trevas totz temps a b totas, fors dels decs. III

Pauc pot horn valer de ioi sems: per me.l sai que l'ai agut berc; car per un sobrefais d'afan 20 don la dolor del cor no.s mou (es ab ioi l'ira no.m for eis) tost m'auran miei paren faducs; pero tals a mon cor convers 24 q'en liei amar volgra murir senecs.

IV

N o n sai un tan si' e Dieu frems, ermita ni monge ni clerc, cum ieu sui e leis de cui can, 28 et er proat ans de l'annou. Liges soi sieus mieltz q u e demieis: si.m for' ieu si fos reis o dues; tant es e lieis mos cors esmers 32 que s'autra.n voil n i ' n deing, done si' eu sees!

V

VI

VII

D'aiso c'ai tan duptat e crems creis ades e meillur e.m derc, qe.l reproers c'auzi antan 36 me dis que tant trona tro plou; e s'ieu mi pec cine ans o sieis, ben leu, can sera blancs mos sues, gausirai so per qu'er sui sers, 40 c'aman preian s'afranca cors ufecs. D e luencs suspirs e de grieus gems mi p o t trair cella cui m'aerc c'ades sol per u n bel semblan n'ai mogut m o n chantar tot nou. 44 C o n t r a m o n vauc e n o m'encreis, car gent mi fai pensar mos cues. Cor, vai sus! Ben sai, si.t suffers, 48 sec tant q ' e n lieis, c'as encubit, no.t pecs. A n s er plus vils aurs n o n es fers c'Arnautz desam lieis ont es ferms manz necs.

I. Love and j o y and time a n d season make me put my mind back on its feet again from that joy which I had last year when I hunted the hare with the ox. Now I stand better with love, a n d worse - for I love truly, a n d so call myself fortunate, but I still bear the name Unloved unless Love a n d my entreaty overcome her hard heart. 11

Introduction II. Anyone who loses all his property at once needs to look out for a rich/powerful lord to make good his losses for a poor lord wouldn't be worth an egg. For this reason I have made my choice of her, and in doing so, I didn't have my heart or my eyes closed! And I promise you, Love, if you win her for me to observe a truce towards all other women from outside her abode. III. A man devoid of joy can have little worth: I know this from my own experience, since my joy was broken; because, through an overload of misery the pain of which never leaves my heart (and indeed, even in the midst of m Y joy, the distress does not leave me) my relatives will soon find me simpleminded; but there is someone who has converted (made a monk of) my heart so that I will long to die an old man in her love. IV. I know of no one so firmly set on God, hermit, monk or clerk, as I am on her of whom I sing, and this will be demonstrated before the new year. I am her liegeman better than I am my own, and would be so still, even if I were a king or a duke; my heart is so immersed (purified?) in her that if I desire or welcome any other woman, let me go blind! V. Because I have been so fearful and timid now I keep increasing, improving, and rising up for the proverb I heard the other year told me that it thunders so much it rains, and if I lack success for five or six years, perhaps when the top of my head is white I shall enjoy that to which I am a serf, for an arrogant heart becomes noble/generous through love and entreaty. VI. From long sighs and grievous groans she to whom I cleave can deliver me, for now, just for one fair glance I have produced this brand-new song. I keep on upstream, and yet that does not displease me for my temple inspires in me noble thoughts. Keep going, heart! Very likely, if you are sufficiently patient it will come about that you do not fail to reach her whom you have desired. VII. Sooner will gold be cheaper than iron than that Arnaut does not love her with whom a secret message is safe.

This song opens with a clear allusion to the tornada of x, allegedly composed a year earlier (v. 3), in which Arnaut Daniel launched his professional catchphrase:33 leu sui Arnautz q'amas l'aura, e chatz la lebre ab lo bou e nadi contra suberna. I am Arnaut who gathers up the wind, chases the hare with the ox and swims against the tide.

The two songs also share the use of an ou rhyme, with many common rhyme words:34 12

Introduction X

XIV

6 mon chantar que de liei mou, (and compare also 13 Pamors q'inz el cor mi plou 20 nou (compare 34 anz d'annou 41 anc plus non amet un ou 44 chatz la lebre ab lo bou

20 don la dolor del cor no.s mou 44 n'ai mogut mon chantar tot nou) 36 tant trona que plou 44, above) 28 ans de l'annou 12.1 paubres no.il valri' un uou 4 chassava la lebr'ab lo bou

Song X further has a rhyme in ert and a difficult rhyme in eri which are echoed by the ers rhyme of xiv, with some overlap of rhyme words: X

XIV 31 esmers35 47 suffers

8 esmeri 36 soferi

Although the two songs do not have the same metre they have the same general 'square' shape: x consists of seven seven-syllable lines, xiv of eight lines all but one of which have eight syllables (the last has ten).36 There is in addition some common vocabulary; and whilst some items are predictable, others are more indicative of an interrelation: meillurar (x v. 8, xiv v. 34), pert (x v. 24), perd' (xiv v. 11), restaurar (x v. 33, xiv v. 11), and compounds with sobre- (x v. 25, xiv v.19). Song xiv is thus clearly a re-presentation of X. This is particularly evident in their imagery, and it is here that intertextuality most clearly combines with the chronological gap between the two songs to generate 'autobiography'. The extraordinary image in x (w. 1 - 7 ) of the poet-craftsman whose business is subsequently taken over by his lady tant a de ver fait renou c'obrador n'a e taverna

(vv.27-8)

truly she has served so many renewal notices on me that she has acquired both the craftsman and his workshop seems to provide the starting point for the image of xiv vv.9-12: having been (emotionally?) bankrupted by her usurious intransigence he turns gratefully to a wealthy 'patron' who will make good his losses. His love, in X, was compared with the physical labour of ploughing (v. 40), and a sense of expenditure of effort to no purpose is also found in the images of the tornada, quoted above. The new policy, in xiv, is to get rich quick with no exertion on his own part: 13

Introduction he makes his choice (vv. 13-14), and bargains with Love to do the rest: to overcome his lady's hard heart (v. 8) and win her for him (v. 15), in return for which he will refrain from other entanglements (v. 16). Clearly the days for the lumbering ox to pursue its own hare are over (vv. 2-4). The (mock?) self-abasement of the labourer in x is thus transformed into the (equally humorous?) anticipation of a comfortable and secure old age (xiv vv.24, 38). In x, the commonplace of being kept warm by love in the midst of winter has new life infused into it by the paradoxical metaphor presenting this life-enhancing emotion as rain:37 e si tot venta.il freid'aura 1'amors q'inz el cor mi plou mi ten chaut on plus iverna. (vv. 12-14) and even if the cold wind blows, the love which rains into my heart keeps me warm when winter is at its worst.

This feeds into a succession of metaphors where the lover is deluged by a water-like emotion: in vv.25-6 the lady's heart submerges his own and prevents it from drying out; in v. 45 he swims against the tide. The troubadour is thus swamped by the flux of sensibility (and/or poetic meaning). The same images recur, but reversed, in xiv: initially relief from the tempestuousness of desire or frustration is presented as rain (v.36),38 and the lover's heart is submerged in his lady (v.31),39 but at the end of the song, instead of drowning in this love/text, he clambers out onto the high ground, the goal of his quest securely within his sights (vv.45-8), and his messages 'safe' (v. 50). This safe haven is signalled not only by the poet's upward movement, but also by the replacement of the watery images by those of metals (xiv v. 49). This allusion to gold in turn picks up the exordium of x: q'Amors marves plan' e daura mon chantar, que de liei mou ... (vv.5-6) for Love swiftly smoothes and gilds my singing which she inspires ... Whereas previously Love was supplying the gold (and a thin layer of it at that), now Arnaut himself is the golden one; and by shifting the image from the beginning to the end of the song, Arnaut concludes on a tone of confidence that he possesses not only fixity and solidity (in contrast with the water earlier in xiv, or the air and water in the tornada of x), but also inherent value to deserve (pay for? outdo?) the wealth of the 'patron' solicited in xiv vv. 9-12, a wealth which he 14

Introduction therefore seems to have not only acquired but also fully internalized by the end of the song. In X, there is a play of religious and secular images in two stanzas: Mil messas n'aug e.n proferi e.n art lum de cer' e d'oli que Dieus m'en don bon issert... e qan remir sa crin saura e.l cors q'es grailet e nou mais Tarn que qi.mdesLuserna. (vv. 15-17, 19-21) No vuoill de Roma Temped ni c'om m'en fassa apostoli, q'en lieis non aia revert... e si.l maltraich no.m restaura ab un baisar anz d'annou mi auci e si enferna. (vv. 29-31, 33-5) I hear and offer up a thousand masses, and burn light of wax and oil, so that God may give me a good outcome ... when I look at her gold mane and her slim young body, I like that better than if someone were to give me Luserna. I don't want the empire of Rome, nor to be pope, if I could not return to her ... and if she does not make good my hardship before the new year with a kiss, she kills me and damns herself to hell. The same imbrication occurs in vv.25-30 of xiv, where images of clerical devotion slip into those of feudal power relationships. In both poems these comparisons hinge on a paradox of power and powerlessness. In x, the lover is a humble worshipper in one breath and a potentate the next; he supplicates for a kiss, and then, in the role of St Peter, sends the domna who frustrates him to hell. Vv.25-30 of Xiv repeat the move of vv. 15-19 of x as Arnaut switches from worshipper to worldly ruler. The hermit or monk is under a vow of (material) poverty but compensates by being ferms en Deu\ the count or duke may not score so well on the spiritual front but holds effective power in the material world. By arresting the recapitulation of X at this point, Arnaut Daniel is able to harvest the benefits of both sides of the paradox, appropriating the spiritual and material resources implied by one half of each clause and suppressing the spiritual and material poverty/powerlessness which form the other half of it. Song xiv thereby avoids the vision of X vv.33-5 where we find (a humorous picture of) failure in both domains: the lover might not get a kiss and his lady might, as a result, forfeit her salvation. The two songs, then, are based on a common imagery tracking 15

Introduction from bankruptcy to wealth, labour to secure ease, and spiritual/material disappointment to gain in both these domains. Songs x and xiv are certainly not linked by narrative similarities of the kind observed in Peire Vidal or Uc de Sant Circ. Song xiv does, however, possess the ghost of a narrative orientation, through its moments of retrospection (vv.3-4, 18-19) and prospection (vv. 21 -24, 28, 37-9); and whilst the former engage with the text of x, the latter markedly diverge from it in their serene (and humorous?) anticipation of old age. That is not without significance: for to evoke material from an earlier song, and simultaneously 'improve' on it, is not just an intertextual dialectic; it is also the metaphorical enactment of the experience of ageing itself. Like the Chretien heroes who reiterate past adventures, eliminating the errors of earlier performances,40 Arnaut Daniel reworks his earlier imagery into a more confident configuration as he advances towards real or fictional senescence. The two songs, read in sequence, therefore invite interpretation in the light of the 'autobiographical assumption'. The firstperson subject is presented through a combination of intertextual reference with evocation of the passage of time. Zumthor's view of intertextuality in the lyric therefore has to be supplemented (and hence undermined) by two further accounts: (1) specific allusion by one troubadour to the work of another, whether as a colleague or an auctoritas; (2) reference by a troubadour to other texts of his own composition. Both introduce history (in the sense of chronology, or insertion into time) as an important concomitant of intertextual reference. Both reinscribe the subject in the framework of autobiography, provided that this term is not taken as referring to an individualistic narrative which is anecdotally true, but rather to self-representation in which discursive generality is tempered by a sense of historical specificity. Given that we do not know what texts have been lost, it is impossible to know which model of intertextuality is most applicable to any individual song: the knowledge that it was closely modelled on another text might profoundly alter interpretation of it. The fact that we do not know exactly where these three models should best be applied is no grounds for discarding them,41 but rather for admitting the possibility of reading any text in the light of the 'autobiographical assumption'.

16

1 INDETERMINACY OF MEANING

Raimon de Miraval begins one of his songs with the declaration Chans, quan non es qui l'entenda, no pot ren valer, (XXII, vv. 1 -2) A song is worthless if no one can understand it, but despite such commitment to accessibility, troubadour lyrics are far from transparent. In addition to philological problems of language and manuscript transmission, and to the difficulties arising from some poets' cultivation of obscurity (the so-called trobar clus), major obstacles to the extrapolation of meaning inhere in the rhetoric of the courtly canso. In my Introduction, I contended that criticism which espoused the 'autobiographical assumption' was often vitiated by failure to recognize these obstacles. I shall not maintain that they render meaning so indeterminate as to be beyond discussion, or indeed beyond an analysis grounded in traditional rhetorical vocabulary. In fact the sections of this chapter discuss what I see as the most characteristic tropes of troubadour composition: irony and hyperbole; metaphor, metonymy and catachresis. But I use these headings somewhat loosely, with a view to showing how they make meaning elusive, subject to slippage, and resistent to univocal reading. I use the term 'irony' rather broadly to refer to the capacity of a text to signal disengagement from its apparent meaning, and thus admit uncertainty about its purport. Irony can both raise and suspend the question of how far a text is committed to what it appears to affirm.1 Within this climate of indeterminacy, hyperbole2 creates uncertainty about the degree to which its claims might, or might not, be upheld. A consideration of metaphor and related tropes suggests that the traditional rhetorical opposition between the 'figurative' and the 'literal' is unstable in these songs; hesitation between the two adds a further source of indeterminacy. I shall argue that the rhetoric of the courtly lyric invests the texts with a subjective significance by organizing textual effects around the first-person position. This first 17

Indeterminacy of meaning person tends, however, to be exposed to doubt through irony, and becomes unlocatable on the spectrum of possible positions which result from the use of hyperbole, or from the unstable alternation between 'literal' and 'figurative' meanings. Irony and hyperbole

Occitan lyric poetry is a poetry of paradox which exploits public performance for professions which are alleged to be personal and secretive in nature, combines the material support of patronage with flights of idealizing sentiment, uses highly elaborated forms for professedly inspirational outbursts of emotion, adduces images of natural and social normality for sentiments which are presented as posing a threat to the social or natural order, and draws on conventions of praise and blame to express a purportedly unique affectivity. In such a poetry, irony is inescapable and pervasive. Its many forms have been studied in Simon Gaunt's recent book, Troubadours and Irony. Here Gaunt shows the extent to which 'courtly' language may be undercut by sexual equivoque,1 divergent meanings implied from those which appear on first reading,4 and ironic personae constructed.5 The most 'alarming' form of irony is that in which the dissolution of the surface meaning is not compensated for by the reassuring emergences of an alternative reading, so that the text seems simply to evacuate itself around its own language: a technique which Gaunt initially illustrates from the poetry of Guilhem de Peitieu {Irony pp. 27-9). 6 A corpus which coruscates with contrary meanings or baffles by allowing rival meanings mysteriously to seep away will obviously cause headaches for anyone hoping to interrogate possible subjective presences within it. The problems can be illustrated using Marcabru's^l lafontana del vergier (Dejeanne I). Finding a young noblewoman in a natural setting which he immediately construes as a debutprintanier (w. 10-12), the male first-person protagonist switches into courtship mode. Far from being moved by the woman's grief for her absent lover, he merely admonishes her that crying will ruin her complexion (vv. 31 -2) and rounds off this seduction with the assurance that God will provide her with pleasure (vv. 34-5), presumably in the form of himself. The woman's words lament the departure of her lover on crusade, blaming Jesus for this devastating exodus of all the bravest men (vv. 17-21) and cursing Louis VII for his crusading initiative (vv.26-8). The language of both protagonists contains striking juxtapositions of the religious with the secular: 18

Irony and hyperbole Jhesus, dis elha, reis del mon, per vos mi creis ma grans dolors, quar vostra anta mi cofon. (vv. 17-19) e no vos qual dezesperar, que Selh qui fai lo bosc fulhar vos pot donar de joi assatz. (w. 33-5) * Jesus,' she said, 'king of the world, because of you my great grief grows, for the outrage done to you brings confusion upon me.' 'You mustn't give way to despair, for He who made the woodlands green can supply you with abundant joy/pleasure.' In both passages a theological register is used to introduce and decorously mask a statement of selfish desire. Despite its narrative cast, then, the song is put together from different first-person voices. On first reading there seem to be two: the narrator and his would-be victim. Both turn out to be ironic.7 The masculine first person is set up in order to betray his moral blindness to those able to diagnose it. This blindness naturally prevents him perceiving the blasphemy in the woman's voice - indeed, he doesn't even listen to her reply, whereas the audience have to listen beyond it, to what she should have said. Irony here functions through effacement of the text in favour of unexpressed meanings. But those alert to this irony can construct a third position in the text, which can be inferred as condemning the way sensual love misleads people to the point where they confuse it with religion. This third subjective position informs the exordium, with its revealing conflation of Christian and secular poetic models: a paradise garden with its fountain and white blossom,8 and a troubadour locus amoenus where the trees are cultivated ones and the ail-too familiar erotic accompaniments of blossom and birdsong are on tap: A la fontana del vergier on l'erb' es vertz josta.l gravier, a l'ombra d'un fust domesgier, en aiziment de blancas flors e de novelh chant costumier, (vv. 1-5) At the spring in the garden, where the grass is green beside its sandy brink, in the shade of a cultivated tree, with its appropriate decking of white blossom and habitual spring birdsong. This poem illustrates the frequent reliance of irony on intertextuality, since the conflict of meanings is achieved by playing off existing registers of language (here Christian and secular) against each 19

Indeterminacy of meaning other. It instances the propensity of lyric writing to produce ironic personae, and suggests how surface meaning can be rendered problematic by the juxtaposition of incompatibles. There is a possibility of discerning, amidst this conflict, a further subject position which is disengaged, by the irony, from either of the first-person speakers, and which consists of an ethical point of view on the rhetorical traditions of seduction and religion. (Further examples of a subject as arbitrator will be encountered later in this chapter, and in Chapter 2.) But although constructing this third subject position means that irony is to some extent controlled in this poem, this subject too remains caught in the play of voices. Disagreements over interpretation are an index of the uncertainty which this splitting of the first person in this song has generated. Some of the texts which I consider below allow greater scope to indeterminacy as a. result of the divergence which irony introduces between possible subject positions within them. Hyperbole, one of the most characteristic tropes of Occitan love poetry, can be seen as a particular form of irony in the broad sense advocated above, and poses similar difficulties of reading. This is true of even the most 'accessible' troubadours; the defender of clarity, Raimon de Miraval, apprehends the problem: Tuich cist trobador egal, segon qu'ill ant de saber, lauzon dompnas a plazer, e non gardon cui ni cal; e qui trop plus que non val lauza sidons, fai parer qu'escarn ditz e non ren al. (VI, vv.41-7) All these troubadours alike according to their capacity praise ladies ad lib. with no regard for which one it is, or what she is like; yet anyone who praises his lady above her worth shows that his words are a mockery and nothing else.

Raimon criticizes other poets for seeing composition as a complacent exercise in saber and for disregarding the principle of appropriateness of expression to material. His views are in line with those of his contemporary, the rhetorician Geoffrey of Vinsauf:9 Se nisi conformet color intimus exteriori, sordet ibi ratio: faciem depingere verbi est pictura luti, res est falsaria, ficta forma, dealbatus paries et hypocrita verbum se simulans aliquid, cum sit nihil. (Poetria Nova, vv. 741-5) 20

Irony and hyperbole Unless the inmost colour conforms to the outer, meaning there degenerates: to adorn the surface of words is to give a picture of filth, a falsehood, a pretence at form, a whitewashed wall and a hypocrite word making out it is something when it is nothing.

At the end of the stanza quoted, Raimon dexterously establishes the conformity of his own text to the 'truth' by means of the amusingly outrageous claim: mas ieu n'ai chausida tal com no.n pot en dir mas ver, si doncs no.n dizia mal. (VI, vv.4850) but I have chosen such a one that, provided one says no ill of her, one can speak only the truth.

Since it is evidently not possible for a troubadour to relinquish the convention of hyperbolic praise, 'reality' must be brought into line with rhetoric, and the lady's nature be acclaimed as such that art, provided it praise her, cannot lie. The claim to 'truthfulness' relies on the assertion that other poets are ironic, in the sense that their words can only be understood as diverging from 'true' meaning. But the attitude towards hyperbole is also ironic: exaggerated praise forms part of a conventional, establishment practice which the poet must adopt, however uncommittedly. And finally, in protesting the 'truth' of its own hyperbole, the text adopts an ironic stance towards its own criterion of 'reality' by alleging that it can be summoned to substantiate rhetorical expectation. Arnaut de Maruelh's poetry also alludes to this conflict between the requirement of truthfulness and the convention of hyperbole, maintaining, like Raimon de Miraval, that his praise alone is founded on fact. But whereas Raimon deplored the devaluation of language by his competitors, Arnaut thanks them for creating a climate of mendacity which allows the 'truth' of his own songs to pass unnoticed by the general public: D'aisso sai grat als autres trobadors, qu'en sas chansons pliu chascus et afia que sa domna es la genser que sia, si tot s'es fals, lor digz lau e mercei, qu'entre lurs gaps passa segurs mos vers, qu'uns non conois ni no so ten a mal c'atressi ere chascus, sia plazers. (XII, vv. 15-21) I am grateful to other troubadours because each one swears and affirms in his songs that his own lady is the most beautiful in the world, and even though 21

Indeterminacy of meaning it is false, I applaud their words and thank them for them, for between their empty boasts my song can safely pass without anyone discerning it or taking it amiss, for everyone imagines that it is just idle fancy. Arnaut conceives his public as engaged in a translation procedure: they hear a song proclaim a domna as the genser que sia, recognize the claim as empirically fals, and so reinterpret the song ironically, as a gap or empty boast. Mistakenly applying the same procedure to Arnaut's compositions, they will never suspect him of telling the unvarnished truth, and so the quality of his love will never be betrayed however openly he sings about it.10 The literary conventions of his day have made them in some radical way 'unreadable', their meaning inevitably ironized and thus protected (segurs, v. 19) from discovery. Arnaut and Raimon agree that the same rhetorical figure ought to be interpreted differently in different contexts according to the character of the referent and the motive of the singer: for both of them, inflation unmotivated truth is idle plazer. They agree that the difficulty arises because hyperbole is incompatible with literal truthfulness (indeed, it is so by definition),11 and imply that, while (other poets') ironic praise may be the opposite of (their own) 'sincere' praise, it nonetheless ironizes their own productions. But their solutions to the problems posed by irony and hyperbole, though equally witty, are quite distinct. Raimon imagines a possible world where any eulogy will be true: he thus retains a 'literal' reading of the hyperbolic but places its referent in the domain of the fantastic. Arnaut admits that the public desire a real-world referent, and that consequently they will somehow systematically scale down hyperbolic claims in order to arrive at a mimetic interpretation with some claim to realism. Although he knows his own songs should be exempted from this scalingdown procedure, the audience will not realize their uniqueness, and so his works will never be correctly understood. Although these troubadours are concerned centrally with the difficulty of representing the domna, rather than themselves as subjects, their 'solutions' serve to focus the reader's dilemma. How does one read such hyperbolic language? By conceiving a reality to match the rhetoric, with Raimon de Miraval? Or, like Arnaut de Maruelh's audience, by rewriting the rhetoric to match 'reality'? Neither procedure is defensible, as even a cursory consideration of an example would show. When Bernart de Ventadorn sings: 22

Irony and hyperbole Aquest' amors me fer tan gen al cor d'una dousa sabor: cen vetz mor lo jorn de dolor e reviu de joi autras cen ... (I, vv.25-8) This love strikes me so pleasingly through the heart with a sweet savour that I die a hundred times a day with the pain, and come to life another hundred...

we can hardly construe such claims literally as 'multiple death and resurrection of well-known poet'. Yet on what axis of meaning would one reduce them? Read 'suffer' for 'die'? Read 'seventy' for 'a hundred'? Here is another passage, from Guillem de Cabestany: ... totz bons pretz en ma dompna s'autreia, e de beutat null' autra non enveia, tant la fe Deus de covinent estaje; car se era entre sos enemis non dirien qu'om mais tan bella vis: senz es en lei, beutatz e cortesia; Horn non la vei qui cent tans meill no.n dia. (VII, vv. 10-16) every good quality is conferred on my lady, and God made her so attractive that she can envy no other lady her beauty; even if she were among her enemies, no one would claim ever to have seen such a beautiful lady: she possesses understanding, beauty and courtliness; no one can see her without saying this a hundred times better (than I).

Hyperbole pervades these lines, sometimes quite dramatically imaged as when the domna is pictured among her enemies, or when everyone who sees her outdoes the eulogy of the modest poet. This is not meant to be understood 'literally'. Yet it would be grotesque to imagine her instead 'among half-hearted admirers', 'some of whom speak quite well of her'; it would hardly repay such conscientious efforts by understanding merely that this lady is 'quite good-looking'. Arnaut de Maruelh's vision of audience scepticism is as hard to translate into a critical practice as is Raimon de Miraval's tongue-in-cheek strategy of believing every word. Hyperbole opens up a space within which determinate reading becomes impossible. Its excessive claims are ironic in that they conduce to an emptying out of meaning. Irony works by insinuating divergence from or uncertainty about the claims of the text; more restricted in its import, hyperbole presents the reader with a scale of possible positions, none of which can be justified at the expense of the others. Exaggerated claims for the 'self of the lover-poet - his sensibility, skill, refinement and so on - abound in the poetry of the troubadours. How does this affect understanding of the first-person 23

Indeterminacy of meaning position? Rather than accumulate examples, I will respond to this question by examining in detail a text whose consistent hyperbole has met with such resistance from its principal editors that they have done their best to eliminate it. The song in question is Bernart de Ventadorn's Can I'erbafresch * eJhfolhapar (xx in Lazar's edition), which contains seven stanzas celebrating the various excesses of emotion of which the loverprotagonist is capable. In the ordering preserved by the MSS,12 these stanzas mark an escalation in the poet's desmezura, the mounting hyperbole of which has been censored out by Appel, Lazar and Nichols, whose invented stanza order is motivated by preconceptions of what is permissible in a courtly poet.13 Two stanzas fantasize about the lover kissing his lady; one is a violent vision of reducing his enemies to impotence and then branding the domna with a kiss so fierce that the mark lasts for a month, the other a pacific one of finding his lady asleep and stealing a gentle kiss (un doutz baizar, v. 43) since no valh tan qu'eu lo.lh deman. (v.44) I am not worthy to ask it of her. These stanzas are ordered v and vi respectively by these editors but are in the opposite order in all the MSS except C; that is, the song in the MS tradition manifests an impetus towards increasing violence, the song of the editions towards increasing control. Likewise there are two stanzas in which Bernart describes his inability to approach his domna with requests: one describes a motley of conflicting emotions - desire, urgency, fear - which between them reduce him to immobility; the other celebrates a stance of conventional submissiveness, and trusts to the domna's discernment to reward him. Again, these are ordered in and iv by these editors, whereas in all the MSS (except C) which contain both stanzas, iv precedes in; so that while the medieval text moves from grateful submission to inner turmoil, the modern printed text does the reverse. Finally, the most hyperbolic account of the lover's desmezura, SL state in which he finds himself utterly at odds with reality, is contained in this stanza: Ai las! com mor de cossirar! Que mahntas vetz en cossir tan: lairo m'en poirian portar, que re no sabria que.s fan. Per Deu, Amors! be.m trobas vensedor ab paucs d'amics e ses autre senhor. 24

Irony and hyperbole Alas, how I am dying of longing! For often I am so absorbed in longing thoughts that robbers could carry me away without my having an inkling of what they are doing. By God, Love, you find me an easy conquest, with few allies and no other lord but you. This forms a replique to the joyful exordium in which the poet finds himself similarly isolated, but because he is 'enclosed' and 'encircled' by joy (v. 7); and it is placed immediately after it, as stanza II, in the editions of Appel and his followers. In the ordering of all MSS except V, however, it comes at or near the end of the canso. The song of the MSS therefore rises towards a climax of desmezura whereas for these editors it brings desmezura gradually under control. Appel's edition of Can Verba frescha was the object of lengthy criticism by Crescini.14 He rejected Appel's stanza order, advocating instead one which displays the hyperbole of Bernart's text to best advantage. The courtly reticence now gives way to inner turmoil (iv and in), the fierce kiss (VI) follows the gentle one (v), and the rapt misery exposing the poet to kidnap by bandits comes almost at the end, there being a question mark in Crescini's mind over the authenticity of the final stanzas vn and vm. The order he prints, then (represented using Appel's numbers), is I iv m vi v II (vn vm). This respects the MS ordering more closely than Appel and his followers, but is certainly not exclusively based on it: like Appel, Crescini edits in the light of literary-critical convictions. 15 What Crescini sees, however, is not hyperbole but a movement from the world of reality into one of dream. Identifying Bernart's narratio as indicating the impossibility of communication with the lady, Crescini comments: Che rimane al poeta? II sogno! Potess'egli coglierla dormiente, o che tal s'infingesse, e rapirle un bacio ... Questo pensare astratto, intenso, strugge il poeta, che non di rado tanto si sprofunda nella visione inebbriante che nulla piu della realta intorno lo tange e ladri potrebbero sului por le mani e derubarlo, ch'egli non se n'avvredrebbe.16 Can I'erbafrescha, then, is a song which may have originally been constructed, or at least construed by medieval readers, as an excercise in hyperbole. It thinks of an idea and then doubles it: from a gentle kiss to a fierce one, from patient waiting to inner strife, from a joyful opening to a nightmarish conclusion. Modern editors, other than Vossler and Kaehne, have responded by resorting to the 'solutions' of either Arnaut de Maruelh or Raimon de Miraval. Appel and his followers found the whole effect embarrassing and unseemly. Like Arnaut de Maruelh's audience, they sought to mitigate the excessive claims by the simple expedient of scaling them down; for this is 25

Indeterminacy of meaning precisely what their spurious stanza order effects, their 'later' stanzas being, as it were, translations or revisions of 'earlier' ones. Crescini, on the other hand, adopted the literalizing tactic of Raimon de Miraval; he accords the hyperboles mimetic 'truthfulness' but then, finding himself unable to situate the resulting representations in the real world, relegates them to the domain of fantasy. Bernart's song is 'subjective' in that its organizing principle is the attribution to the central, subject position of a succession of extremes of emotion. All the editors, medieval and modern, have responded to this principle, albeit in different ways. But although it seems a transparent figure (and indeed is used in conjunction with invoking the 'truthfulness' criterion), hyperbole is indeterminate in so far as the reader hesitates to construct a 'meaning' for it. (Indeed, the example from Guillem de Cabestany suggests that the more details are accumulated to reinforce a hyperbolic description, the less credible it becomes, and the more a significant proportion of its meaning, like that of Arnaut's song, 'passes safely' out of our grasp.) The status of the central reference-point of the lyric, the subject 'I', is clearly implicated in this indeterminacy. Unless the reductive solutions of Appel ( T imposes courtly control) or Crescini ( T embarks on a dream fantasy) are accepted, the subject must be accepted as sharing the indeterminacy of the dominant trope - that is, as co-extensive with the space opened out by the song's excessive claims, and not identifiable with any single position amongst them. The relation of hyperbole to irony is also shown by this text. Read hyperbolically, it poses the unanswerable question 'Where (on this scale of possible readings) can one situate meaning?' Viewed ironically, it confronts the reader with the more radical question of whether to opt for any of the positions on offer: joy or dismay? fierce kiss or gentle kiss? reticence or abandon? Appel or Crescini? or none of them? This question of commitment to meaning is posed particularly acutely by a sub-tradition of the love lyric which I shall call 'narratives of two women' and which consists of songs where the poet-lover evokes the love (and songs) he felt (and composed) for a previous domna, regrets that he could have been so misguided, and directs the current composition to a new domna from whom he hopes for better things.17 Such songs are ironic in that they oppose one love narrative against another, in a self-cancelling juxtaposition which undermines belief in either. The whole genre of the love lyric is implicated in this irony, because it suggests the possibility that any love narrative may be unreliable; this possibility is increased by the manifest intertextual 26

Irony and hyperbole reference between such songs and 'straight' love songs, as well as within the tradition of 'narratives of two women' itself. The lyric convention which is principally ironized is hyperbolic praise; irony draws attention to the incapacity of hyperbole to guarantee meaning. The earliest example of a 'narrative of two women' is Marcabru XXVIII, Lanquan fuelhon li boscatge, which is a parody of the contemporary love song, trotting out a hotchpotch of motifs which, like the birdsong in v. 5 of A la fontana, have become costumier: spring opening (st. I),18 indifference to the cold (st.n), distant love and the intervention of fatality (st. Ill), a lovers' quarrel (st.iv). 'Realizing' that this quarrel is caused by his lady's folhatge (v.31), the first-person protagonist promptly changes horses in mid-stream with a: leu n'ay autra espiada, fina, esmerada e pura ... (vv.32-3) I have spied out another, true, pure, like refined metal... The final stanza, taking off from the further commonplace that he is devoted to all this new domna's family and admirers (vv.36-7), praises her for having made him her intimate from the moment she set eyes on him, and anticipates the pleasures of further concessions (vv. 38-42). The tornada wryly concludes: Be.m tengratz per folhatura, si be.m fai e mielhs m'ahura, s'ieu ja m'en plane quar l'ai viza. (vv.43-5) You would hold it as folly in me, given that she does me good and augurs better, if I ever complain about having met her. Through parody, the song exposes the sexual cupidity of the 'courtly' love song. The 'courtly' moral vocabulary is seen as a thin veneer over the realities of lust and frustration: if his lady frustrates him, that is Orguelhs, Non-Cura (v. 27) and eventually folhatge (v. 31); not to praise the lady who promises to gratify him would be folhatura on his part (v. 43). The convention of eulogy, ironized by the litotic 'no complaints' of v.45, emerges as a venal exchange of platitudes for sexual favours. In Marcabru's case, the target of the parody is clearly compositions other than his own. As in A lafontana, the subject position is split between an ironic persona and an ethical viewpoint which objectifies and condemns it. The irony is present but controlled. When Bernart de Ventadorn, courtly love poet extraordinary, likewise turns his hand to a 'narrative of two women' (Lazar xxx), the effect is quite 27

Indeterminacy of meaning different. Bernart signals both his debt to Marcabru, and the difference between them, by his choice of metre and rhyme scheme.19 In Bernart's first pair of stanzas the seven-syllable lines in -atge imitate Marcabru, while the rhyme in -utz is a reminiscence of Marcabru's -ura rhyme, but from stanza in onwards his rhymes diverge from those of his model:20 I

Estat ai com om esperdutz per amor un lone estatge, mas era.m sui reconogutz 4 qu'eu a via faih folatge: c'a totz era de salvatge, car m'era de chan recrezutz; et on eu plus estera mutz, 8 mais feira de mon damnatge.

II

A tal domna m'era rendutz c'anc no.m amet de coratge, e sui m'en tart aperceubutz, 12 que trop ai faih lone badatge. Oi mais segrai son uzatge: de cui que.m volha, serai drutz, e trametrai per tot salutz 16 et aurai mais cor volatge.

III

Truans volh esser per s'amor, e cove c'ab leis aprenda; per o no vei domneyador 20 que menhs de me si'i entenda. Mas bel m'es c'ab leis contenda, c'autra n'am, plus bel' e melhor, que.m val e m'ayud' e.m socor 24 e.m fai de s'amor esmenda.

IV

Aquesta m'a faih tan d'onor, que platz li c'a merce.m prenda; e prec la del seu amador 28 que.l be que.m fara, no.m venda ni.m fassa far lonj' atenda, que lone termini.m fai paor, car no vei malvatz donador 32 c'ab lone respeih no.s defenda.

V

Ma domna fo al comensar franch'e de bela companha; e per so la dei mais [lauzar] 36 que si.m fos fer' et estranha: 28

Irony and hyperbole dreihz es que domna s'afranha vas celui qui a cor d'amar. Qui trop fai son amic preyar, 40 dreihz es c'amics li sofranha. VI

Domna, pensem del enjanar lauzengers, cui Deus contranha, que tan com om lor pot emblar 44 de joi, aitan s'en gazanha. E que ja us no s'en planha! Lone terns pot nostr' amors durar, sol can Iocs er, volha.m parlar, 48 e can Iocs non er, remanha.

VII

Deu lau encara sai chantar, mal grat n'aya na Dous-Esgar, e cil a cui s'acompanha.

VIII 52 Fis-Jois, ges no.us pose oblidar, ans vos am e.us volh e.us tenh char, car m'etz de bela companha. I. I have been like a man out of his mind for a long time, because of love, but now I have realized that I was crazy, for I was a wild outcast in relation to everyone, because I'd given up song - and the longer I were to remain dumb, the more I would contribute to my downfall. II. I had given myself up to a lady who never loved me in her heart, and it took me a long time to notice that I had been waiting too long. Now I shall do as she does: I'll be the lover of whoever wants me (or whoever I want) and I will send greetings everywhere and will henceforth have a fickle heart. III. Because of my love for her I will be a deceiver, and it is fitting that I learn it from her: though I never saw a suitor with less understanding of deception than me. But it suits me to vie with her in this, because I know another lady, more beautiful and better, who acts in my interests, helps and assists me, and compensates me with her love. IV. This new lady has shown me the honour of granting me her favour; and I beg her, with regard to her lover [i.e. me], that she does not sell me the good she does me, nor make me wait too long, for adjournment to a distant date fills me with alarm, given that there is no miserly giver who can't defend himself by means of long postponements. V. My lady was, at the beginning, noble and pleasant company; and on that account I should praise her more than if she were fierce and distant: it is proper that a lady should be tamed by someone who has a loving heart. And it would be just if anyone who makes her lover go on courting her were to go without. 29

Indeterminacy of meaning VI. Lady, let us devise a way to deceive the lauzengeor, whom God constrain! for every bit of joy stolen from them is so much gained. Let none of them complain! Our love can last a long time, provided when the opportunity arises she speaks to me, and when it doesn't, we let it be. VII. Thank God I still know how to sing, however little that may delight my lady Dous-Esgar and her companion. VIII. Fis-Jois, I cannot forget you, instead I love and desire and cherish you, because you provide me with your good companionship.

Vv. 1 -12 are a narratio of the protagonist's situation where themes of love and song, familiar from Bernart's corpus, are bound together in their customary parallel: failure in love causes mental confusion, and is linked with an interruption of his poetic career, which harms him increasingly the more it is protracted. Because the lady was fickle towards him, he resolves in vv. 13-16 to try fickleness for himself. This is a reversal of the usual motif whereby a troubadour depicts his lady as a means of access to an ideal. It also inverts the motif introduced into the lyric tradition by Bernart himself (see Chapter 4), that song is valueless unless it is an expression of sincere feeling; to underline the contradiction, vv. 19-20 allude to the extreme difficulty of thus behaving 'out of character'. The embracing of new-found hypocrisy is at once followed by the switch to the new domna (vv.21-2), whose compliance with his desires is celebrated in the remaining stanzas. The tornadas crystallize the two narratives by cocking a snook at a faithless Dous-Esgar (vn) and exuding fervour towards a welcoming Fis-Jois (vin). As in Marcabru XXVIII, there is here a juxtaposition of two narratives: rejection of a deceitful woman and courtship of a more welcoming one. However, if we 'believe' the first of these narratives, we forfeit the credibility of the second because it follows the crucial passage announcing the poet's intention to vie with his lady in deceit (vv. 13-21). Does he 'really love' this second domna any more than Marcabru did? There are several indications that the whole of the second 'love' story is ironic. The poet had declared that he would be the drutz of anyone who would have him. Having apparently found such a person, he must compose in her honour, but the very terms in which he celebrates her are self-undermining: if she seems more beautiful and better than the first, it is because she is more forthcoming with her favours (vv. 22-4), and her graciousness is grounds for him to extend himself in her praise (vv. 33-5). Like Marcabru's, Bernart's text reveals the duplicity of 'courtly' vocabulary, particularly in vv.23-8 where a series of terms evoking feudal relationships of 30

Irony and hyperbole service, justice and exchange are incendiarized by the final, commercial image of purchase (yenda). This implies that the aristocratic talk of ideals in circulation masks a vilan reality of commodities on sale. The conventional motif of the lauzengeor in stanza vi also conceals an assault on 'courtly' poetic practice. Advocacy of policies of theft, deceit and stealth goes beyond 'courtly' discretion; moral superiority over the lover's traditional enemies is compromised in the evocation of a society where everyone is engaged in deceiving others. If the poet is deceiving the lauzengeor (that he is not in love), and his domna (that he is), why should the audience believe a word he says? All guarantees of reliability are written out of the text by this final stanza. Thus the second part of the song can be read as an (open) deceit, an ironic re-presentation of courtly poetry. The impact of this is quite different from that of Marcabru's parodic Lanquan, because the motifs, techniques and vocabulary under the knife here are Bernart de Ventadorn's own: he is both subject and object of this ironization.21 That this is problematic not just for this text but for his whole corpus is suggested by the framing references to singing in vv.6-7 and 49-51. At the beginning of the song the protagonist wishes to resume his career as a lover-poet, and at the end congratulates himself that he has done so, yet the cynicism of the intervening material undermines belief in him both as lover and as courtly poet. Once that has been ironized, how can we continue to underwrite the opening narrative of disappointed love? Both Bernart's 'love' stories are corroded by his irony. One of the difficulties in this song arises from the uncertainty about the reference in stanza v. The term ma domna (v. 33) is unspecific, and could well be taken as referring to the lady of the first narrative who alone has previously been identified by this term (v.9); the preterite fo of v. 33 lends weight to this impression, since earlier the second narrative has been placed in the future (13 -16) or the present and present perfect (22-32). As stanza v continues, it becomes more likely that this domna of v. 33 is in fact the second one, but w. 35 -40 are couched in such general terms that they could well be taken as legislating about possible erotic/poetic configurations, rather than commenting on alleged experience. This ambiguity is adopted by the next generation of poets who experiment with the theme of the 'narrative of two women'. Peire Vidal's Atressi co.lperilhans (xxvn) clearly indicates a transition from one domna to another, but which of them is the object of stanza iv is left playfully uncertain.22 Raimon de Miraval composes several 31

Indeterminacy of meaning 23

songs of this type, of which the following is the most interesting for my purposes: 24 I

II

Aissi cum es genser pascors de nuill autre temps chaut ni frei, degr' esser meiller vas domnei per alegrar fis amadors; 5 mas mal aion ogan sas flors qe m'an tan de dan tengut q'en un sol jorn m'an tolgut tot qant avi' en dos ans conques ab mainz durs affans. 10 Ma domna et eu et Amors eram pro d'un voler tuich trei, tro c'aras ab lo dols aurei, la ros' e.l chanz e la verdors 11'an remenbrat que sa valors 15 avia trop desendut car vole so q'eu ai volgut. Pero no.i ac plasers tanz, q'anc res fos mas sol demanz.

III

Aquel m'era gaugz et honors, 20 mas no. ill plaz que plus lo m'autrei, e puois midonz vol q'eu sordei, be.m pot baissar car il m'a sors. Las, per qe no.ill dol ma dolors puois aissi.m troba vencut? 25 Q ' e u ai tant son prez cregut, q'enanzat ai sos enans e destarzat toz sos danz.

IV

Un plait fan domnas q'es follors; qant trobon amic qe.s mercei, 30 per asai li movon esfrei e.l destreingnon tro.s vir' aillors; e, qant an loingnat los meillors, fals entendedor menut son per cabal receubut, 35 don se chala.l cortes chanz e.n sorz crims e fols mazanz.

V

Eu non faz de totas clamors ni m'es gen c'ab domnas gerrei, ni ges lo mal qu'eu dir en dei 40 no lor es enois ni temors; mais s'ieu disia dels pejors, 32

Irony and hyperbole

45

VI

tost seria conogut qals deu tornar en refut, que torz e pechatz es granz q a n d o m n ' a prez per enianz.

Cab leis qu'es de toz bes sabors ai cor c'a sa merce plaidei, E ges per lo primer desrei, don faz mainz sospirz e mainz plors, 50 no.m dezesper del ric socors c'ai lonjament atendut. E si.11 plaz q'ella m'ajut, sobre toz leials amanz serai de joi benananz.

VII 55 Domna, per cui me venz amors, cals que m'ai' enanz agut, a vostr' ops ai retengut toz faiz de druz benestanz, e Miraval e mos chanz. VIII 60 AI rei d'Aragon vai de cors cansos, dire qe.l salut, e sai tant sobr' altre drut qe.ls paucs prez faz semblar granz e.ls rics faz valer dos tanz. IX 65

E car lai no m'a vegut, Mos Audiarz m'a tengut, qe.m tira plus q'adimanz ab diz et ab faiz prezanz.

I. Just as Eastertime is lovelier than any other season, warm or cold, it should be better for courtship, to gladden true lovers: but a curse on its flowers this year, which have dealt me such a loss that in a single day they have taken from me everything which I had won through two years of terrible hardship. II. My lady and love and I were all three of us absolutely of one mind until now, with the soft breeze, the rose, the song and the greenery, she was reminded that her merit had sunk too low, because she wanted what I wanted; yet there were not so many pleasures involved, for there was never anything but requests. III. That was my joy and my honour, but now she does not care to grant it to me, and since my lady wishes me to be worse off, she can certainly debase me, for she has raised me up. Alas, why is she unmoved by my suffering, now that she can see me vanquished in this way? For I increased her reputation/worth so much by enhancing her advantages and holding harm at bay from her. 33

Indeterminacy of meaning IV. Ladies adopt a policy which is madness: when they find a lover who begs for their favour, in order to try him they make his life fearful, and torment him, until he turns elsewhere. When they have got rid of the most deserving, then petty and deceitful aspirants are received as though they were the best of all, and at this, courtly song is silenced, and censure and foolish rumour are born. V. I'm not complaining about all of them, I don't like to attack women, and the ill I am bound to say of them is not meant to annoy or alarm them; but if I could speak about the worst, it would soon be known which of them ought to be held in contempt, for it is a great injustice and moral outrage when a domna gains a reputation by treachery. VI. For I sincerely desire to ask the favour of her who is the epitome of all good qualities; and the first setback, for which I repeatedly sigh and weep, in no way makes me despair of the rich help which I have long awaited. And if it pleased her to assist me, I would be more blessed with joy than all other loyal lovers. VII. Lady, on whose behalf love has overwhelmed me - whoever may have had me previously - I have reserved to place at your disposal all the actions befitting worthy lovers, and Miraval, and my songs. VIII. Quickly run, song, to the king of Aragon, to tell him that I greet him and that I know so much more than his other companions that I can make a little merit go a long way, and increase the value of splendid actions twofold. IX. And the reason why he has not seen me is that my Audiart has retained me, who draws me more than a magnet by his distinguished words and actions. There are three ways in which irony is introduced into this song: (1) by crossing the courtly canso with the misogynistic sirventes; (2) by creating ambiguity about the identity of the domna who is the object of these different phases of the poem; (3) by drawing attention, in this destabilized environment, to certain stylistic and thematic traits of the courtly lyric which are thereby exposed as incongruous or unconvincing. These observations will provide the guiding lines through my commentary. The song starts in courtly vein with an evocation of the spring and its familiar consequences for male sexual arousal (vv. 1 - 4 ) ; no sooner does the lover hear its call, however, than his domna too responds by 'realizing' that she has 'lowered herself (vv. 14-15) in loving him as she did - i.e. to the extent of listening to his wooing (v. 18). After stanza ill, with its exemplary rhetorical expressions of humility, the song moves from the 'courtly' to the misogynistic and from the particular to the general. Domnas are unjustly prudish towards their true lovers and promiscuous with the undeserving (stanza IV); 34

Irony and hyperbole these criticisms are not being levelled at all domnas, only at the one to whom they apply (!) (stanza v). Stanza vi is a requete d'amour, addressed periphrastically to lets q'es de toz bes sabors (v.46). Does the lover mean to retract his criticisms and placate his domna by means of a return to the 'courtly' mode? The allusions to an earlier setback (v.48) and a protracted courtship (v.51) seem to favour this interpretation, since they tally well with vv.7-9. The scribes of M and V, which do not contain the first tornada, presumably understood stanza VI in this way, though they may have been discouraged from including the tornada by the confusion and corruption which have affected v. 56 in several MSS.25 The majority reading of this line is, however, a clear indication of a change of domna; in that case, this new lady is almost certainly the object of stanza vi. The version of the song transmitted by R has displaced stanza in to after stanza v, in a way which makes the transition from one domna to the other even more marked, since Raimon's regrets at having lost the first in III immediately precede the courtship of the second in vi. All the MSS are agreed, then, in combining courtly and satiric material. (MSS L and N contain the text only up to stanza iv, thus concluding it in the satirical mode.) From this perspective, the song contains two narratives of the lover's disappointment. The initial, 'courtly' one attributes his domna's desertion of him to a proper recognition, on her part, that she is too good for him (vv. 14-15) and excuses it on the grounds of her infinite power over him (vv. 21 -2). The second, misogynistic one offers a contradictory account. All women, it asserts, have a perverse tendency to abandon the lover who pleads for their favour, and to throw themselves away on fals entendedor menut (v. 33). Far from excusing such behaviour, the poet brands it as follors (v. 28), and denounces the social and moral ills which follow (crimSy fols mazanz v. 36; torz e pechatz v.44). This second narrative ironizes the first one, making it appear either naive or disingenuous in relation to 'objective' facts about the nature of women which the satiric tradition 'reveals'. It also ironizes the requete d'amour which follows in stanza VI, since we cannot be sure how far its strictures admit of exceptions (vv. 37-43). The MSS differ in whether or not they perceive the song as a 'narrative of two women'. The uncertainty of reference in stanza vi is further ground for viewing its requete d'amour as ironic. If the lover is addressing a second domna here, the very similarities between her and the first lady (cf. again vv.48 and 51 with vv.7-9) undermine 35

Indeterminacy of meaning the credibility of the second courtship and seem, from the outset, to rule out any chance of its success. A third source of irony in this text is the exposure as unconvincing or incongruous of certain aspects of 'courtly' style. The spring opening is the first victim. Genser though the Eastertime may be for fis amadors (w. 1 -4), its effect on his domna is little short of disastrous, and this leads to an immediate retraction of the exordium in v. 6, mas malaion ogan sasflors. This curse marks dissatisfaction with a literary motif which bears no relation to reality: spring has not 'worked' in this case, quite the opposite, and so its literary associations stand revealed as a trite and meaningless convention; cf. also vv. 12-13, where the conventional attributes of spring are firmly associated with his lady's desertion. V. 10 is a line which also occurs in Arnaut de Maruelh, as if Raimon were seeking here to contextualize the conventions he is attacking.26 Arnaut's posture of grovelling humility and ineffectual pleading is perhaps also the target of vv. 17 -18, where we learn the extent of the lover's loss: next to nothing, since all his domna gave him was occasion to plead for her love. The careful annominatio of stanza in looks increasingly fragile the more ground is conceded to irony in this text: sordei and sors, dol and dolors, enanzat and enans, destarzat and danz - who is going to believe at face value a message whose face is so obviously daubed with the rhetorical coloresl Vv.25-6 are themselves a reflection on the poet's power to improve on 'reality', since he can enhance the good and defer what is disadvantageous. This idea, once expressed, keeps recurring. Domnas who love criminally will find advocates however slight their merits, and bask in undeserved reputation (vv. 44-5); this song is placed at the service of the new domna (v. 59); the king of Aragon is reminded of its political usefulness, to 'make slight merits great and to make the powerful doubly so' (vv.62-3). It is commonplace, and professionally justifiable, for troubadours to praise the power of song, but the accumulation of such references here serves as a signal to irony27 pervading the entire text. What is the 'courtly' opening half but an illustration of 'dressing up' events for public consumption? And what of the satirical middle section is that the unvarnished truth, or is it rather an essay in depreciation? If domnas can so easily recruit eulogists (w. 44-5), is there any reason to believe in the de toz bes sabors of the next following line? What is hyperbole but a failure to represent 'reality'? Raimon's text asks questions but does not answer them. And as with the previous example from Bernart de Ventadorn, it is not just this song, but all song, which is implicated in his irony. 36

Metaphor, metonymy, catachresis These examples from the ironic sub-tradition of 'narratives of two women' show how far the world constructed by a troubadour text can defeat attempts at reading. The first person of the lover-poet organizes the text around itself, but divests that text of stable or reliable content. The words cannot lead us from one love to another, or from one domna to another; the lover seems not to be a lover, and the poet may be a fraud. If there is a subjective presence to be located here, it will not be the static image of a lover-laureate rapt in adoration of a haloed female figure, but an interplay of mutually ironizing perspectives. It may be that we can recuperate this interaction on a more abstract level, saying for example that there is, in Marcabru's Lanquan, a subject that denounces (like that of A la fontana del vergier) the hypocrisy of courtly poetry; that in Bernart de Ventadorn's song, there is a subject position which plays with the simultaneous revealing and concealing of meaning that is the hallmark of his aesthetic; and that in Raimon de Miraval, there is a subjective point of view which is amused by the diversity and potency of the contemporary poetic scene. Traces of the interaction of competing voices would nonetheless have to form part of any account of 'subjectivity' in these lyrics: only an adamantly reductive critic would seek utterly to efface it by a 'higher' (or 'deeper') reading. Abstruseness of meaning in the lyric seems, on this account, to be inseparable from a complex view of the subject. Further examples of this are presented in the next section. Metaphor, metonymy, catachresis

Another major source of semantic indirection in the courtly lyric is the use of metaphor and related tropes. Particularly 'indirect' is the technique of Arnaut Daniel, which consists in accumulating strings of terms from very diverse semantic fields with apparent figurative import but little guidance as to what it might be. If these are terms in an equation, then the other half is disconcertingly blank. The problem of reading is compounded by the difficulty of determining which elements are 'literal' and which 'figurative', since these categories have an unsettling capacity to revolve and shift. Furthermore, it can be difficult to specify the nature of the 'figure' involved. Rereading a passage can make metaphor tilt into metonymy, or both collapse into catachresis ('improper use of words; application of a term to a thing which it does not properly denote; abuse or perversion of a trope or metaphor', OED). Of particular interest is Arnaut Daniel's song xvi, much of which 37

Indeterminacy of meaning is placed in the mouth of Amors who, as the highest authority, consecrates this style as most appropriate to herself (i.e. the topic love). Amors addresses the 'Arnaut' of the song, and tells him what he should be like. Her 'difficult' rhetoric is thus intended to characterize the subject position within the text. 'Arnaut' must not serve other women (or other authorities) now that Love takes his part (vv.9-11);28 e.m di que flors no.il semble de viola, qui.s camia leu, sitot nonca s'iverna, anz per s'amor sia laurs o genebres. (vv. 12-14) and she says to me that I should not be a violet flower for her, which easily changes, even if it's not yet winter, rather for love of her I should be a laurel or a juniper.

The two succeeding stanzas range through technical language from law, horsemanship and religion as Amors imparts instruction viva voce. Thus from the law courts29 we have: totz plaitz esqiv' e desmanda, sai e lai qui qe.t somoigna; que ses clam[s]30 faill qui se meteus afola.

(vv. 17-19)

refuse and deny [gainsay?] all legal suits here and there, whoever summons you, for a man's case fails if he destroys himself [i.e. undermines the justice of his own cause].31

The term t'afranchas, 'you achieve free status' (v.22), also belongs in the legal domain. Horsemanship - either hunting or fighting is represented by: sec, s'il te fuig ni.t fai ganda, que greu er c'om no.i apoigna.

(vv.24-5)

follow if she flees or swerves away from you, for it's unlikely that one wouldn't get there by spurring.32

The estanchas of v. 15 also belongs to the vocabulary of riding; it is used of horses, meaning 'to come to a halt through exhaustion';33 coartz (v.22), 'coward', inclines more towards knighthood than hunting. Religious colouring comes with the lines: [om] qui s'afortis de preiar e non cola; q'en passara part la palutz d'Userna mon34 pelegrins lai on cor en ios Ebres.

(vv.26-8)

[a man] who fortifies himself with prayer and does not desist;35 for he will pass beyond the marshes of Beaucaire, a pilgrim indeed, there where the Ebro flows down. 38

Metaphor, metonymy,

catachresis

An apt disciple, Arnaut takes his cue from Love's style and comes up with: S'ieu n'ai passatz pons ni planchas per lieis, cuidatz q'ieu m'en duoilla? Non eu, c'ab ioi ses vianda m'en sap far meizina coigna, baisan tenen. (vv. 29-33) If I have passed bridges or beams for her, do you think I regret it? Not I, for with joy without food I know how to make for myself elegant (learned?) medicine (healing), by holding and kissing. The metonyms of travel or quest in v. 29 can be seen as referring back to the immediately preceding pilgrim image, though they also resonate with the language of horsemanship more narrowly conceived as knight errantry. The interweaving of different professional discourses continues with the allusions to fasting (monasticism?) and healing (medicine). The subject, internalizing the authoritative rhetoric of Amors, becomes identified with it. The difficulties which inhere in Love's language therefore problematize it too. Traditionally, scholars have started to read Love's words as 'symbolic'. Thus for Toja, the laurel and juniper are 'esempi di vitalita e durata dell'amore fedele di Arnaut' (note to v. 14), because they are evergreen plants and the colour green 'ha sempre significato il giovane amore pieno di speranza'. The violet, by contrast, 'symbolizes' the evanescence of other people's love. 36 Supposing such glosses to be in some sense 'correct', their only intersection with publicly acknowledged imagery is in the equation 'green' = 'young love' (which does not strongly support Toja's gloss on 'evergreen'); in so far as the violet, juniper and laurel are 'symbols', they seem to be of Arnaut's own creation. They are bound to be difficult of access. Once past this botanical image the principle of trading off meanings becomes difficult to apply in detail to Arnaut's text, though the general drift is, perhaps, to recapitulate in a variety of metaphors Love's initial instructions in 'plain' speech: Ab razos coindas e franchas m'a mandat q'ieu no m'en tuoilla ni autra.n serva ni.n blanda puois tant fai c'ab si m'acoigna. (vv. 8-11) With reasoning elegant and noble (sincere?) Love has sent me word that I must not take myself off nor serve nor honour another lady since she [Love] is so obliging as to take my part. 39

Indeterminacy of meaning The ideals purveyed here to the lover, of persistence, fidelity, and support from a higher power, can be traced through the variety of figurative transforms in stanzas in and iv which culminate in the image of the pilgrim/knight errant at the beginning of stanza v; thereupon they re-emerge in 'plain' language in the conclusion to that stanza: e.l cors, sitot si vola, no.is part de lieis qe.l capdell' e.l governa. Cors, on q'ieu an, de lieis no.t loinz ni.t sebres. (vv. 33-5) and my heart, even if it wishes to, does not leave her who rules over it as captain. Heart, wherever I may go, do not separate yourself from her or go away from her. 'Arnaut' is to be as steadfast in love as the just, as faithful and persistent as a huntsman or questing knight, and as devout as a pilgrim - a unique amalgam of what is best in others. But if this terminology from the domains of law, horsemanship and religion is to be interpreted as expressing ideals of persistence, fidelity and devoutness, should it be described as 'metaphorical'? To be sound in pursuit of a case, agile in the chase, a pious pilgrim ... are also metonyms of the ideals in question, in the sense that they illustrate or extend them, rather than metaphors which would serve as an analogy to them. Indeed the instructions of stanzas in to v could be read literally; Amors would then be saying that, to be a perfect lover, 'Arnaut' must also excel in linguistic finesse, chivalry and piety; in other words, that he must be the very epitome of a medieval romance hero as conceived in the 1180s, in such characters as Yvain and Lancelot - who are lovers of course, but who are also adept jurists, consummate knights and representatives of (an admittedly not over-serious) piety.37 Since in Arnaut's song the figure of Amors is itself a rhetorical fiction, her 'instructions' are tantamount to the subject sketching a programme of heroic self-identification, under cover of an amusingly disingenuous show of modesty. The technique of reliteralizing metaphor to read from it programmatic statements of personal aspiration is associated, in Occitan studies, with the work of Erich Kohler. In his celebrated commentary on Can vei la lauzeta,38 Kohler drew attention to the chain of feudal metaphors in which the lover's complaints in this song are couched; then, with some dozen pages of socio-historical study and a single flick of the wrist, he turned the song inside out to show how it might be read as voicing the political dissatisfaction of the lesser nobility, for whom feudal realities were a constant source of aggrieved 40

Metaphor, metonymy, catachresis concern. Feudal 'imagery' presenting the lover as vassal is so ubiquitous in the lyric that it has been seen as possible to claim that the whole genre is a promotion not of love, still less of the domna, but of the vassal.40 Kohler's readings consecrate the subject as hero, but relieve it of individuality since it is collective aspiration which thus finds a voice. This 'heroic' reading of metaphor, however, is not just social but intertextual. If all the ramifications of feudal 'imagery' in the lyric (including not only issues of homage, service and suzerainty, but also treason, vengeance, pursuit at law and warfare) are literalized, then the 'hero' of the love song emerges as barely differentiated from the hero, not of the court romance, but of the equally contemporary chansons de geste.41 Thus Arnaut Daniel's song xvi can be read as (humorously?) detailing how Amors authorizes him to be a hero, or at least to fantasize himself as such. But that is not all. So far I have read the allegory of the opening stanzas on accepted 'metaphorical' lines: if Amors is the poet's teacher, then we assume that the subject being taught is Love. The 'metaphors' of the schoolroom in the exordium are, however, equally as susceptible of literalization as those of the law, etc., in the central stanzas. If Love is his teacher and he her pupil then what he is primarily learning is the art of poetry - the artz de s'escola (v. 5), the liberal arts, beginning with grammar, rhetoric and dialectic, and represented here by the manipulation of razos (v. 8). Arnaut Daniel's heroism is that of the pen, his whole oeuvre a virtuoso performance in a domain where, by his own admission, the sword is useless.42 Once the schoolroom 'imagery' is literalized, the technical language of the central stanzas is plunged back into the figurative, no longer representing the persistence, fidelity and devoutness of the lover/hero, rather the adroitness, deftness and relevance of poetry. The term 'metonym' once more seems most appropriate to the first wave of this figurative language: the knowledge of when to be silent and when and how to speak in a court of law is an illustration or extension of the poet's control of language: 39

que ses clam[s] faill qui se meteus afola, e tu no far failla don horn t'esqerna. (vv. 19-20) for a man's case goes astray if he is overcome by folly - do not commit any mistake for which you might be mocked. The allusions to horsemanship can be read as metaphors for silence (non t'estanchas, v. 15), as well as for adroit pursuit of elusive meanings:43 41

Indeterminacy of meaning sec, s'il te fuig ni.t fai ganda, que greu er c'om no.i apoigna qui s'afortis de preiar e no cola ... (vv.24-26) follow, if she eludes or evades you - for the man who draws strength from pleading, and does not desist, will assuredly get there by spurring ...

The concluding pilgrim image suggests that meaning has found a route, through the many difficulties of expression, to reach its goal. Since this imagery not only represents poetic skill, but also exemplifies it, it is self-reinforcing, and becomes, as it were, so many synecdoches of itself. Indeed, the path taken by meaning is made particularly strenuous by the way the various kinds of language tangle together across it, as in v. 22 where coartz anticipates the horseman image to follow, but afranchas harks back to the lines before. This entanglement verges on catachresis, and seems a kind of semantic enactment of the brambles and thorns encountered by the knight errant on his quest: parmi une forest espesse. Mout i ot voie felenesse, de ronces et d'espines plainne. (Yvain, vv. 181 -3)u through a dense forest. It was a treacherous path, full of thorns and brambles.

Another image of this instability of figurative language is suggested by the terms relating to water in flux. Lai on cor en ios Ebres (v. 28), 'there where the Ebro flows', picks up cola (v. 26), literally meaning 'set sail'; together these retrospectively orient estanchas (v. 15) back towards its root meaning of 'staunch [the flow of water or blood]', 'dry up [an area of water, etc.]'. These metaphors, which I have so far ignored, could be seen as constructing a view of poetic language as a flow (corir) of intermingling signifiers which elude the poet's attempts at stemming (estancaf) or dominating (colaf) them. In summary, these are the problems posed by Arnaut Daniel's use of tropes. (1) The reader hesitates between the alternatives of reading one part of the poem as 'figurative' and the other as 'literal', or vice versa.A5 (2) Consequently it is unclear which elements are 'tenors' and which 'vehicles' - i.e. which way up the rhetoric should be read. (3) The reader hesitates between identification of the tropes as 'metaphor', 'metonymy', 'synecdoche' or even 'catachresis'. (4) Far from being univocal, the song offers at least three interpretations of the figurative, according to which the subject of the poem is instructed to be, variously, lover, hero or poet. The authoritative presence of Amors in this poem makes it a kind 42

Metaphor, metonymy, catachresis of literary manifesto, not just of poetic language but also of the role of the subject position within the song, presented by the allegory as subject to a language originating in authority. In the course of its discipleship, it is made to waver between different fields of discourse (botany, horsemanship, the law, the church ...), and its hold on all of them is made precarious by the unstable relationship between the figurative and the literal, and the uncertain status of the figures themselves. It is possible to see some of the imagery as constructing 'character' roles analogous to those of the heroes of epic and romance, but these roles are contingent upon a particular, and hence partial, reading of the tropes as 'metaphorical', 'literal' or 'metonymic'. The referring capacity of the song (except to other texts) is undermined by the constantly shifting ground between these categories. The succession of images (flower, knight, lover, lawyer, pilgrim) is more suggestive of the protean nature of poetic discourse than it is constructive of mimetic categories. The poet may learn from authority, and from other texts, but the very song which displays his capacity to learn also reveals the indeterminacy and elusiveness of what is learned. The double position of the subject as both subject o/and subject to the medium which delineates it is explored in this difficult text. The subject position may be implicated in an indeterminacy of meaning generated by the problems of the 'figurative' in poems which are far easier than those of Arnaut Daniel. One which does notprima facie present any air of difficulty is Peire Vidal xx: I l Ab l'alen tir vas me l'aire qu'ieu sen venir de Proensa; tot quant es de lai m'agensa, 4 si que, quan n'aug ben retraire, ieu m'o escout en rizen e.n deman per un mot cen: tan m'es bel quan n'aug ben dire. II 8 Qu'om no sap tan dous repaire cum de Rozer tro c'a Vensa, si cum clau mars e Durensa, ni on tant fins jois s'esclaire. 12 Per qu'entre la franca gen ai laissat mon cor jauzen ab lieis que fa. Is iratz rire. III

Qu'om no pot lo jorn mal traire 16 qu'aja de lieis sovinensa, qu'en liei nais jois e comensa. 43

Indeterminacy of meaning E qui qu'en sia lauzaire, de ben qu'en diga, no.i men; 20 que.l mielher es ses conten, e.l genser qu'el mon se mire. IV

E s'ieu sai ren dir ni faire, ilh n'aia.l grat, que sciensa 24 m'a donat e conoissensa, per qu'ieu sui gais e chantaire. E tot quan fauc d'avinen ai del sieu bell cors plazen, 28 neis quan de bon cor consire.

I. With my breath I draw towards me the breeze I feel coining from Provence; everything which hails from there pleases me, so that, when I hear good reports of it, I listen to it with a smile, and for every word want to hear a hundred more, so much does it please me to hear it well spoken of. II. For no one knows of such a pleasant place to dwell as between the Rhone and Vance, and from the coast to Durance, nor of where such true joy shines out. For thus I have left my heart rejoicing among the free/aristocratic/ generous race, with her who makes the sorrowful smile. III. For no one could suffer on a day when he remembered her, for in her joy is born and has its source. And whoever may praise her, he does not lie in the good he says of her, for she is the best, without dispute, and the fairest to be seen anywhere in the world. IV. And if I have any skill in words or deeds, it is thanks to her who has given me wisdom and discernment, through which I am joyful and a singer. And everything which I do which is agreeable, I derive from her beautiful and attractive body/person, right down to the desires of my sincere heart.

Presenting this song in Los Trovadores n, p. 872, de Riquer asserts that the first two stanzas are of nostalgia for Provence, the second two of praise for the poet's lady. The 'figurative' seems to have no purchase on this simple excercise in reminiscence.46 However, because Proensa is feminine in Occitan, and the lady is never named, there is no clear point of demarcation between the two 'parts' of the text. (The many ambiguous pronouns are italicized in my translation.) Indeed, it would be possible to read the song as an increasingly adventurous personification of Provence, which makes its final and most outrageous bid for credibility with the praise of its bell cors plazen in v.27. After all, the lieis que fa As iratz rire (v. 14) is only a minor modification of ieu m'o escout en rizen (v.5); the qu'en liei naisjois e comensa (v. 17) is likewise only a very slight augmentation of on tant fins jois syescalaire (v. 11); the eulogy which closes stanza 44

Metaphor, metonymy,

catachresis

in could be simply an amplification of v. 3; and the very existence of this song testifies to the inspirational qualities which could be attributed to Provence in vv. 21 - 5 . Thus instead of there being two 'literal' themes, Provence and the lady, there could be just one, Provence, afforded the metaphorical treatment of personification. One could equally well reverse the image, however, and discern in the territory a (transparently) discreet way of alluding to the lady periphrastically through her attributes. Working backwards from the end of the song where she is most explicitly manifest, she is the subject's inspiration (stanza iv), the universal object of praise (vv. 18-21), a source of joy (vv. 15-17) even to the distressed (v. 14), and altogether the locus of sweetness and light, not to mention soft breezes {exordium). Such a reading would be confirmed by the presence of the motifs of inhaling the air from the beloved's country, and relishing every word that is said about her, in the poetry of Bernart de Ventadorn where they are explicitly associated with love (IV vv. 61 - 8 and xxvi vv. 1 - 4 ) . The parallels pointed to above between lady and country (vv. 5 and 14, 11 and 17), might license categorizing this second figurative reading as * metaphorical', but the similarities could simply be the effect of contiguity, suggesting metonymy, or more properly, synecdoche.47 The use of synecdoches of place is standard from the earliest troubadours. There is the public place, hallowed by association with the domna, where courtly rituals may be ceremoniously enacted, as in Guilhem de Peitieu: Ja no sera nuils horn ben fis contr' amor, si non l'es aclis, ez als estranhs et als vezis non es consens, et a totz sels d'aicel aizi48 obediens; (VII, vv. 25-30) No one can be truly sincere with respect to love if he is not submissive to it, acquiescent to strangers and neighbours alike, and submissive to all people of that place; and there are places of private enjoyment, both those which contain the domna and those contained within her, as in Jaufre Rudel: [Dieus ... mi don poder] qu'ieu veia sest' amor de lonh, veraiamen, en tals aizis, si que la cambra e.l jardis mi resembles totz temps palatz. (IV, vv. 39-42) 45

Indeterminacy of meaning God grant me to be able to see this distant love in such places that the garden and the chamber might always seem a palace in my eyes. For the medieval audience, however, the association between women and territory is no mere poetic ornament. It is a fact of life that both are commodities of male trade, separately and in conjunction, with women taking second place to land. This is illustrated by the opening scenes of Girart de Roussillon where Girart agrees to marry the older and less pretty sister, who was betrothed to the king, and to let the king instead marry the younger, better-looking one to whom he was engaged. Girart's 'love' (for his fiancee) and 'honour' (sworn promises of betrothal) can only be appeased by massive grants of territory from the king. The idea that women are a commodity along with the lands they may bring as dowry (or else provide heirs to administer) seldom makes such a naked appearance in the love lyric, though it is well illustrated in the coblas addressed by Bernart Arnaut d'Armagnac to Lombarda. 49 [LJombards volgr' eu es[s]er per na Lonbarda, qu'Alamanda no.m plaz tan ni Giscarda ... Seigner Jordan, se vos lais Alamagna Fransa e Piteus, Normandia e Bertagna, be me devez laisar senes mesclagna Lonbardia, Liverno e Lomagna. (vv. 1-2, 9-12) For my lady Lombarda's sake I wish I were a Lombard, for Alamanda and Giscarda do not please me so much ... My lord Jordan, if I leave you Alamagna (i.e. Germany), France and Poitou, Normandy and Brittany, then you should certainly cede to me without a struggle Lombardy, Livernon and Lomagne. Here Bernart Arnaut (probably the younger brother of the count of Armagnac) seems to be proposing a sexual partition of Europe to his friend Jordan. The latter can make his conquests throughout vast, though distant, tracts of territory (vv.9-10); the fact that these include Alamagna presumably means that the Alamanda despised by Bernart Arnaut in v. 2 thereby falls to his share. All Bernart wants in return is to enjoy the favours of his own lady Lombarda (here represented by Lombardia) in his own neighbourhood of Livernon and Lomagne. Although in her reply Lombarda apparently mocks certain of the conventions adopted in Bernart's coblas, she does not appear to take exception to this casual identification of women with their territory, as a 'place' of conquest. Thus it may be (to follow a Kohleresque exegetical strategy) that 46

Metaphor, metonymy, catachresis the two parts of Peire Vidal's Ab Valen tir vas me Vaire are both 'literal' after all, though not in the sense understood by de Riquer: the poet desires landed wealth just as he desires his domna, and his text is no dupe to the connection between these two aspirations in contemporary experience. There are, however, other desires voiced by this song, and if we focus on them, this material base of the text's economy (land and a powerful woman) begins to recede back into metaphor. The subject's attitude is undisguisedly acquisitive. He likes tot quant es de lai (v. 3) and sets about appropriating it: 'true joy' (v. 11), 'knowledge and discernment' (vv.23-4) and a circulating current of pleasure and approval (vv. 26-8) which leave him full of self-admiration. The tot quanfauc, placed three lines from the end, echoes and transforms the tot quant es of the third line from the beginning, as the formal correlate of this appropriation. The longing for Proensa and/or lieis remains unsatisfied, perhaps because fulfilment is not seriously pursued. The lack of any clear distinction between them may simply reflect relative unconcern about them both. Lady or county, cui caP. Either or both can serve, indifferently, as the vehicle of self-enhancement, the quest for which is sufficiently absorbing, gratifying and successful.50 Ecstasy, intellect and approval are what count. The first-person subject here, as in Arnaut Daniel XVI, aspires to the heroic. This song also resembles Arnaut's in that it contains a further, selfreferential, dimension of metaphor commenting on its own composition. As in the reading just discussed, the textual elements which indicate the presence of this metaphor are symmetrically disposed at the beginning and end of the poem. Four lines from the beginning the motif is introduced: quan n'aug ben retraire, ieu m'o escout en rizen e.n deman per un mot cen: tan m'es bel quan n'aug ben dire. when I hear good narratives about it/her, I listen with a smile, and for every word I hear I ask for a hundred more, so much do I like to hear it/her spoken of ably.

The translation has been modified from the one given on p. 44 in order to highlight the connotations relevant to a professional poet and performer, who pictures himself here as the ideal audience, consuming, appreciating, and clamouring for more. Four lines from the end of his song, he concludes a complementary portrait of himself, now in the role of producer: 47

Indeterminacy of meaning que sciensa m'a donat e conoissensa, per qui'ieu sui gais e chantaire. for she/it has given me the wisdom and discernment to be that model of courtly gaiety, a troubadour. Again I have modified the translation to emphasize this highly strategic move. Peire is offering an account of the commutability of reception and production which insinuates the song's origins in 'true' and pleasurable accounts communicated to the poet and prepares for its reception by an astute prolepsis, prefiguring in himself the role of the hoped-for audience. The flattery of self thus becomes flattery of others and the circulation of approval in the text (cf. the comments above on vv. 26-8) becomes its circulation by the text. The content of the song is irrelevant beside the fact of its existence as a term of exchange in courtly society, and its value in that exchange. Its figurative import is to constitute itself as a prized commodity. Referring back to the points made about the 'difficult' song xvi of Arnaut Daniel, it is apparent that they are equally applicable to an 'easy' piece such as Peire Vidal's Ab Valen tir vas me I'aire, and could be readily extended to the generality of courtly lyrics. In both are found: (1) uncertainty as to what is 'figurative' and what 'literal'; (2) uncertainty about distinguishing tenor from vehicle; (3) uncertainty about identification of figures; (4) co-existence of many (probably indefinitely many) increasingly abstract accounts of what the song 'metaphorically' expresses. In both cases attention was paid to three major readings: the first-person subject as lover, as hero and as poet.51 As in Arnaut's song xvi, the first-person position in Peire Vidal's lyric is problematized by this indeterminacy. Reference to a world outside the text is at best precarious, since it is uncertain whether the subject situates itself in relation to Provence, a domna, both or neither; it achieves value in part from a relationship with possible audiences (see also Chapter 4), but also from the inherent qualities of the song. Peire Vidal does not go as far as Arnaut Daniel towards a view of language as wholly allusive and elusive, but his song places meaning, and itself, on a circular path in which the poetic subject is subject to pre-existing discourses, and to audience approval, as well as imposing its own mark on them both. The discussion in this chapter does not support a simple answer to what might be meant by 'subjectivity' in the courtly lyric. The rhetoric of troubadour poetry is such that it is difficult to build 48

Metaphor, metonymy, catachresis mimetic constructions upon it. First-person reference is clearly implicated in this difficulty, though Kohler's readings of metaphors as encoding a collective, social discourse of aspiration to land and power suggest a possible way out from it. It is also possible to see the first person as constructed on the lines of 'characters' in other literary genres - the romance or epic hero, for example. The lyric tradition of the 'love narrative' is a further instance of representation, even though it may be heavily ironized. To what extent can the firstperson subject be seen as referring to an historical or fictional self? This is a question that will be addressed in Chapters 3 and 4 in particular. What this chapter has, I hope, shown, is that textual effects are organized around the first-person position, and that subjectivity is inseparable from rhetorical complexity. I have suggested that the subject position may be split between alternatives (irony), spun across an indeterminate space (hyperbole) and realized by the fluctuations of tropes which both constitute and exceed it (metaphor and metonymy). Chapter 2 will show that troubadour psychological allegory is based, precisely, on the idea of interaction within an indeterminate space. It will also continue to explore the problematic relationship between subjectivity and language.

49

2 ALLEGORY

The last chapter was concerned with the organization of rhetoric around the subject position in lyric poems, and the repercussions of rhetorical complexity on our reading of their 'subjectivity'. In this one, I shall consider rhetorical techniques whose function appears to be to describe or extend the subject as a psychological entity or 'self: the use of personified abstractions (Amors, Jovens, Merce etc.), the narrativization of faculties (heart, will, desire, etc.), and the use of inner dialogue. These techniques, whose use in troubadour poetry is widespread, can all loosely be classified as allegorical.1 There will be no attempt to retract what has been said about the difficulty of estbalishing 'meaning' in these texts; on the contrary, elusiveness of meaning and elusiveness of self-hood are closely connected, whether through uncertainty about perception and epistemology which mediate them both, or because of anxiety about the interrelation of subjectivity and language. I shall argue that while all three of these allegorical devices seem very explicit, even mechanical, their use draws attention to uncertainty on crucial questions relating to the subject. What is its relation to the notion of the 'self? Is such a self stable or changing, single, multiple, or collective? How does it relate to other selves? What is the relation of the subject to language? Personified abstractions This classic medieval form of allegory has been held in very low esteem as a form of psychological analysis,2 despite the fact that it stems from a serious tradition of ethical writing by Christian theologians explaining and dramatizing the interaction of virtues and vices. There is, for example, a psychomachia attributed to St Augustine.3 The virtues and vices are canonical ones and reflect contemporary beliefs about the ethical structure of lived experience.4 As rhetoric, such allegory is in fact extremely audacious, because the simultaneous valorization of the sensus litteralis and the sensus allegoricus enjoins 50

Personified abstractions multiple reading analogous to that of Scripture.5 A combat between, say, Humilitas and Superbia represents, for the exegete, a statement about Christian eschatology (Christ's triumph over Satan), a generalization about the human condition, and an analysis of the inner battles which take place in an individual human soul. These 'allegorical' readings derive from the image of conflict, yet this 'metaphor' also demands a 'literal' reading: moral and spiritual experience is not like a battle, it is a battle in which victory and defeat have momentous consequences. An instance of the richness of this exegetical harvest in troubadour poetry is provided by Marcabru's most extensive deployment of the psychomachia motif in his song Bel m 'es quan la rana chanta (xi) where the canonical vices storm a castle defended by virtues of courtliness, force them to retreat, and finally capture Proeza and cut her limb from limb. According to Scheludko the castle functions both as an image of the individual soul (or mind) and as one of the entire social fabric:6 Pres es lo castells e.l sala, mas qu'en la tor es l'artilla on Jois e Jovens e silla son jutjat a pena mala; qu'usquecs crida: 'Fuec e flama! Via dinz, e sia prisa! Degolem Joi e Joven E Proeza si' aucisa.' (vv. 17-24) The castle and the hall have been captured, and now the fortification is holding out only in the tower, where Joy and Youth and she [Proeza] are condemned to awful suffering; for all the assailants are screaming, Tire and flame! In and take it! Let's decapitate Joy and Youth, and let Proeza be killed.'

The allegory of such a text is 'objective' in that the poet-performer poses as a reliable, outside observer depicting (as it might be, filming) the events of the sensus litteralis for others to gloss.7 The subjective role is rather that assigned to the audience, because in drawing out the sensus allegoricus they are invited to interpret the text as a reflection of their own experience.8 Marcabru's assumed position is one of non-complicity; it is as though he believes in the reality of his fiction and in the authenticity and non-transparency of the characters' names; as though his own emotions are a response solely to the violence and upheaval of the surface narrative. His resistance to the figurative allows the 'metaphor' of war to revert to the literal, and so serve as a grim representation of contemporary political life. 51

Allegory During the twelfth century, allegorical writing undergoes a major transformation with the introduction, alongside the traditional vocabulary of abstractions, of the first-person subject. The fine fleur of this poetic revolution is the Roman de la Rose attributed to Guillaume de Lorris, whose spectacular importance in literary history has meant that the insertion of the subject into narrative allegory has received some attention;9 a further study of the Rose is included in Chapter 5. This development in narrative poetry is, however, preceded (and caused?) by a similar one in the lyric which is less well documented.10 One spectacular consequence of reorienting allegory around the subject position is that a rhetorical (and moral) scheme whose original purpose was the assertion of community can become a means of elaborating difference. Cercamon's Puois nostre temps comens' a brunezir (vi), approximately contemporary with Marcabru xi, and likewise exploiting the castle-psychomachia motifs, is nevertheless rhetorically very different from it. The song opens with an exhortation to rejoice in love, and cultivate it with an eye to future Pretz and Joy (v. 9), for this Love upholds a courtly ideology with which the poet seeks to identify himself: Tant es sos pretz valens e cabalos, qu'anc non ac suenh dels amadors savays, de ric escars ni paubre orgoillos; qu'en plus de mil no.n a dos tan verays que fin' Amors los deja obezir. (vv. 13-18) Love's merit is so precious and supreme that she has no regard for base lovers, miserlyrichmen, or arrogant paupers; there aren't two men in a thousand sincere enough for true love to obey them. The formulation in this final line shows how Cercamon's allegorical technique is a reversal of Marcabru's, for here the personification becomes a supporter enlisted by the individual, whereas for Marcabru the 'individual' is an interpretative construct whose behaviour is generalized by the personifications. This reversal can, perhaps, be characterized by reference to the contemporary philosophical debate between 'nominalists' and 'realists': Marcabru's personifications engage with 'realism' in so far as they designate supra-individual 'realities' whose influence can be traced in the behaviour of particular individuals; Cercamon's personifications, by contrast, have their only existence within the individuals which instantiate them, namely (in this case) himself.11 That Cercamon's campaign is essentially one of selfpromotion becomes clear when his competitors are designated in the next following lines: 52

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1st trobador entre ver e mentir afollon drutz e molhers et espos, e van dizen qu'Amors torn' en biays ... (vv. 19-21) These troubadours, caught between truth and lies, destroy (alarm?) lovers, wifes and spouses, and go about saying that Love is turning crooked ... Cercamon's rivals are then allegorized in terms which clearly contrast with vv. 13-18 above: Cist sirven fals fan a pluzors gequir Pretz e Joven e lonhar ad estros, per que Proeza non cug sia mais, qu'Escarsetatz ten las claus dels baros. Maint n'a serrat dinz la ciutat d'Abais, don Malvestatz no.n layssa un yssir. (vv. 25-30) These treacherous servant-types cause many to abandon Merit and Youth, and leave them far behind, and that's why I believe that Worth doesn't exist any more, and Miserliness holds the barons' keys. She has locked up many of them in the citadel of Degeneracy, and Evil won't let a single one of them out. The social pollution caused by 'base' troubadours is 'explained' by their alliance with vices hostile to the virtues Cercamon himself upholds. The lines of psychomachia are here radically redrawn as the opposing armies are led by 'real' individuals, with allegorical figures forming the rank and file; similarly, the prisoners in Miserliness's fortress are 'real' prospective patrons. The relationship between the particular and the general in Marcabru's allegory is, as it were, turned inside out, in a concern to construct an individual 'self for the poetic subject, and to celebrate its distinctiveness. The desire to extend the first-person subject into a 'self in Cercamon's poem finds parallels in the works of other troubadours. But as my examples will show, establishing an 'individual' ground for allegory does not produce a stable and coherent account of 'individual' psychology. On the contrary, a consequence of reorienting personifications around the first-person subject is the paradox that, in giving the allegory a specific referent (for example, the alleged relation of a poet to his lady), its meaning becomes less, rather than more, precise. The allegorical figurations occupy a kind of uneasy limbo between denoting specific events and reactions in individual experience, and expressing the general human capacity for such experience. This confusion is, indeed, evident in Cercamon's text where the poet's enemies are presented in 'generalizing' terms even as he himself aspires to the 'unique'. 53

Allegory An index of this confusion is that the metaphors traditionally used to locate allegorical figures (trees, gardens, castles, genealogies, opposing armies) lose the spatial definition which, in the 'objective' style of allegory, was their major function. Thus, for example, the metaphors of a tree, and of warring confrontation, used in Marcabru's song xxxix Pois Vinverns d'ogan es anatz (a polemic, from an 'objective' standpoint, against the state of the world) are taken up by Folquet de Marselha in his Mout ifetz gran pechat Amors (VIII); but whereas in Marcabru these metaphors serve to convey unambiguous relationships of genesis, victory or defeat, in Folquet they no longer possess any spatial precision: instead, they are uneasily combined with allegorical abstractions that relate now to the poet, now to the poet together with his lady, and perhaps at other times to the courtly world at large.12 Arnaut Daniel's song V (Lanquan vei fueill' eflor e frug) is a reorientation of the 'objective' motif of psychomachia around the first-person subject. The subject aligns itself with Amors (v. 23) whose allies include Ensenhamens, Fizeutatz (v. 13) and Jois (v.30); their principal enemy is Mentir (v.25) (perhaps also Enguan and Enueg, v.22), and their object is Merces (v.20). Allegorically, then, the song articulates desire for gratification in love without forfeiting integrity in courtship, poetic expression, or courtly conduct. Annexing the psychomachia framework leads to the inclusion, as in Marcabru xi, of a castle as the metaphorical setting for the clash of forces; but whereas in Marcabru this castle, for all the weight of exegetical meaning heaped onto it, retained a kind of 'objective' reality, Arnaut's castle is a mirage of imprecision. Here is stanza n: Ar sai ieu c'Amors m'a condug el sieu plus seguran castel, don non dei renda ni trahug, ans m'en ha fait don e capdel; non ai poder ni cor que.m vir' aillors qu'Ensenhamens e Fizeutatz plevida jai per estar, car13 bon Pretz s'i atorna. (vv. 8-14) Now I know that Love has given me safe conduct, leading me into her strongest castle, for which I pay neither rent nor tribute - for she has made me its lord and captain. I have no power or inclination to turn elsewhere, for Courtly Education and Fidelity dwell there permanently, because perfect Merit inclines there. In an 'objective' allegory, the function of Arnaut's castle would be to define the alliance between the embattled virtues, and constitute 54

Personified abstractions Amors as their protector and guarantor. But this 'universalizing' interpretation is jeopardized by the inclusion of the first-person subject in the castle, and especially by its elevation to a position of captaincy over the virtues assembled within it. The force of the 'castle' metaphor seems to be to subsume the allegorical figures under the first-person subject, and to constitute it as a 'self 'possessing' amors, ensenhamens etc., just as Cercamon's allegory enlisted courtly virtues to promote the 'individual' subject. On the other hand, the 'individualizing' gloss of the castle as structuring the poet's 'self is compromised by v. 12, where he declares that he has no intention of leaving it - for how could 'he' leave 'himself? The amorous situation evoked here appears to be both exemplary and universal, and personal and anecdotal, and the imagery which should serve to locate it is in fact what creates the confusion between the two. In the next stanza the difficulty is intensified as the spatial metaphor shrinks dizzyingly from stronghold to strongbox:14 Amors, de vos ai fag estug lonjamen verai e fizel, c'anc no fis guanda ni esdug d'amar ... (vv. 15-18) Love, I have made a box (store?) for/of you, long ago, true and reliable, for I never strayed or turned aside from loving ... Is love in the box (or store), or is the poet contained in a box/store that represents the security of faithful passion? The relationship of inside and outside, which is what the metaphor of the castle in the psychomachia tradition unambiguously creates, is here irretrievably compromised. The equivalence of locking in and locking out is similarly found in Arnaut de Maruelh's song iv, Usjois d'amors'es e mon cor enclaus ('a joy of love has enclosed itself within my heart'), the image of whose incipit is reversed in v. 14, gu'Amors o vol que ten de mi las claus ('for Love wishes to hold the keys to me, i.e. which imprison me'). If the subject position is extended, by allegory, into a 'self where Love and other forces interact, then the boundaries of this 'self, and its relationship to other selves, are fundamentally unclear. Since the notion of the 'self is obscure, the relationship to it of the first-person subject is likewise problematic. Lanfranc Cigala's song in, Non saisi.m chant, shows a sophisticated awareness of how subjective allegory erodes the distinction between inside and outside, self and other, and thus problematizes the notion of the 'self. In a further elabortion of the castle-psychomachia 55

Allegory motif in stanzas n and III he speaks of being assailed both within and without,15 and illustrates the paradox by comparison with a forest which has nothing to fear from a metal blade alone, but can be cut down as soon as that blade is combined with its own substance a wooden handle - to make a saw. The opposition between self and other is undermined when wood changes from tree to felling tool. Song vn (Quant en bon luec) by the same troubadour offers another example, using a variant metaphor also deriving from 'objective' moralizing literature: that of the fruitful plant.16 In the opening stanza, the poet's heart is the plant, Love the gardener and the song the fruit, so that Love is (in some sense) 'outside', and the song is produced from 'inside': Quant en bon luec fai flors bona semenza, segon razon bons frugz en deu eissir; per que mos cors, qu'amors a faig florir de flor de ioi, tramet frug de plazenza als fins amans, chansonet' avinen, qui nais d'amor e creis de benvolenza ... (vv. 1-6) When a flower produces a good seed, in a good place, then it is right to expect a good fruit to issue from it; and so my heart, which love has caused to flower with a flower of joy, brings forth a fruit of pleasantness to sincere lovers, namely an agreeable song which is born of love and grows with kindness ... In the second stanza, however, the poet and his reason are cast in the role of tenders of the flowerbed of his heart, where the plant of Love is flourishing: Ja fo tals temps qu'eu a via crezenza com si pogues d'amor ab sen cobrir, mas ar no.l crei, anz sai, senes faillir, que s'amors pren en leial cor naissenza, broilan vai tan chascun iorn e creissen que pren lo cor e.l gieng e l'entendenza ... (vv.9-14) There was a time when I believed that one could protect oneself against love by means of reason, but I don't believe it now; on the contrary I know for certain that if love is born in loyal heart it burgeons and grows daily so that it occupies the heart, wits and purpose ... How are 'inside' and 'outside' to be distinguished, following this reallocation of roles? The concluding lines of this second stanza introduce a further, altogether traditional element in the description of medieval gardens - the fountain or spring17 - but whose attributes in this instance undermine the whole metaphoric structure by 56

Personified abstractions admitting to the impossibility of ever establishing figures of spatial containment in a subjective 'garden': ni cap en cors ni neis en pensamen que plus que fons regorga sa creissenza. (vv. 15-16) [Love] can't be contained in the heart, or even in thought, any more than a spring can return to its source. This welling water which cannot be driven back to its point of origin epitomizes the effect of this allegorical style, whereby texts appear to construct a 'self around the first-person subject, yet allow the metaphors which might delineate that self to subvert the very notion of 'structure' or 'boundary' which they seem to imply. So far I have argued that, unlike 'objective' allegory, 'subjective' allegory simultaneously introduces and problematizes a space assigned to the 'individual self. I shall now examine a second aspect of 'subjective' allegory which follows from this: the difficulty it encounters, not just with representing a 'self, but with representing its psychological or emotional transformations. Just as the construction of 'self destabilizes the traditional, spatial metaphors of 'objective' allegory, so the presentation of change undermines its narrative coherence. So long as allegory represents relations between fixed moral categories, Humilatat will always be humble and Orgolh proud; once it turns its hand to individual psychological events, such a straightforward conception of 'character' and 'plot' (!) proves unworkable.18 Guillaume de Lorris wittily adverts to this technical problem in the part of Roman de la Rose where he charts the contradictory impulses of the love object through the figures of Dangier (Rebuff) and Bel Acuel (Receptivity). Rebuff has to alternate with receptivity, so the personifications have to swing in and out like the man and woman of a weather house, making the (literal) plot difficult to motivate; worse, rebuff has to melt into receptivity, and receptivity freeze into rebuff, and how can one 'character' melt or freeze into another one? At the point where Dangier has been mollified almost out of existence he is reproached by Honte (because he ought to be ashamed of himself)-19 II n'afiert pas a vostre non que vous facies se dangier non. (vv. 3695-6) It's not appropriate to your name that you should do anything else but rebuff. Can the allegory used by the troubadours accommodate psychological change? Whirling personifications in and out, on the model 57

Allegory of the weather house, provides the simplest allegorical 'translation' of it. An example of this expedient is the following passage from Guillem de Cabestany's Lo dous cossire (v): Ans que s'ensenda sobre.l cor la dolors, Merces dissenda en vos, don', et Amors: Joys vos mi renda E.m luenh sospirs e plors, no. us mi defenda Paratges ni Ricors; qu'oblidatz m'es totz bes s'ab vos no.m val Merces. Non truep contenda contra vostras valors; Merces vo.n prenda tals qu'a vos si' honors ... (vv.61-70, 76-9) Before the pain bursts into flame over my heart let Mercy descend into you, my lady, and Love; may Joy return you to me, and keep away sighs and tears; let not Rank or Wealth bar me from you; all well-being is eclipsed for me if Mercy does not prevail with you on my behalf. I find no support against your excellence; let Mercy overtake you for me, and so do you honour ... The poet hopes to win his lady with the help of Merces, Jois and Amors, and trusts that the forces hostile to him, Paratges and Ricors, will maintain neutrality, but his text is the merest ghost of a psychomachia because none of the 'characters' has any narrative extension: they flit in and out of the text solely in accordance with the sensus allegoricus, the lover's hope that his lady will show him favour despite her superior status. The allegory does little to illumine the course of this hoped-for development in her attitude. A more interesting representation of psychological change is provided by those poets who opt for the second alternative, allowing abstractions to flow into each other, just as Guillaume de Lorris's Rebuff was allowed to grow welcoming. Arnaut Daniel v as it appears in Toja's edition (and not as cited above) presents a small-scale example in vv. 13-14: qu'Ensenhamens e Fizeutatz plevida jai per estar, c'a bon Pretz s'i atorna. Because Courtly Education and Fidelity abide there, and transform themselves into Merit. 58

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Arnaut de Maruelh also shows a sense of the commutability of the conceptions with which he works in his song xi: Ses joi non es valors ni ses valor honors, que Jois adutz Amors et Amors dompna gaia e Gaiesa solatz e Solatz cortesia ... (vv. 1 -6) There is no worth without joy, and without worth no honour, for Joy brings Love, Love a gay lady, Gaiety solace, and Solace courtliness ... Here 'joy' is capable of merging with 'worth' and 'love', 'worth' subsumes 'honour', 'gaiety' blends into 'solace' and so on: the allegorical abstractions, only partially personified, keep melting into one another. Arnaut even finds that contraries are readily combinable in his song vin (Si cum lipeis an en I'aiga lor vida): tant es valens [sc. ma dompna] que, quan be m'o cossir, m'en nais orguoills e.m creis humilitatz, mais si.Is ten joins amors e jois amdos que ren no.i pert mesura ni razos. (vv.5-8) My lady is so worthy that, when I reflect fully on the matter, Pride is born and Humility increases; but love and joy hold these two so joined together that neither reason nor good measure suffers. This device of shading personifications into one another20 replicates on the literal level the indeterminacy between self and other which was discerned, on the allegorical level, in the use of spatial metaphor. The similarity is not coincidental, since psychological or emotional change involves the self in both continuity and alteration (i.e., becoming other than it was). The scale on which personifications melt into one another in Peire Rogier's Entr' ir' e joy m'an si devis (VII) makes it an interesting study of the 'self as mutable. Written from a first-person perspective, the song presents a subject voice played upon by competing impulses which seem to come from outside as well as from within, and which enact emotional uncertainty about the success of the subject's desire for love. These impulses, which speak in the first person, both divide the 'self, and obscure the relation between 'self and 'other'. As the song continues, however, their 'otherness' to the subjective voice is increasingly eroded; the subjective voice itself appears to change as it tames and assimilates them. The song's opening stanza outlines the initial scenario: 59

Allegory Entr' ir' e joy m'an si devis qu'ira.m tolh maniar e dormir, e joys mi fai rir' e bordir; mas Tira.m pass' al bon conort, e.l joy rema, don suy jauzens per un' amor qu'ieu am e vuelh. (vv. 1 -6) Distress and joy have so divided me between them that distress takes away my appetite and my sleep, and joy fills me with laughter and enjoyment. But my distress changes into good cheer, and my joy remains, which makes me joyful on account of a love which I love and desire. The subject presents a 'self divided by ira and joy, which are personified as agents external to it (tolh, fai, vv.2, 3). The subject identifies with its desire for love, and thus two of the three protagonists (distress, joy and desiring subject) are initially marked by the irritating tautology characteristic of allegory: joy makes one joyful (v.5), loving means that one loves (v.6)! This reassuring state of affairs is, however, doomed to be short-lived; already v. 4 announces the 'passing' of distress into cheerfulness and vv. 5 - 6 hint that the subject, 'divided' between opposing impulses in v. 1, will become identified with one of them (joy)- This is a text where narrative coherence will be achieved at the expense of the stability of the categories which are its 'characters'. In stanza n the song adopts the dialogue form favoured by Peire Rogier and the allegory thereby comes of age with three distinct firstperson voices being discernible. To distinguish them I use roman type for the continuation of the original subject position, italic for joy and capitals for distress. Here the exchanges are at their most clearcut: Dompn' ay. NON AY. Ia.n suy ieufis! NO SUY, QUAR NO M'EN PUESC JAUZIR.

Tot m 'en jauzirai, quan que tir. OC, BEN LEU, MAS SEMPRE N'A TORT.

Tort n'a? Qu'ai dig! Boca, tu mens e dis contra midons erguelh. (vv. 7-12) / have a lady. NO I DON'T. I'm sure of her! NO I'M NOT, BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE PLEASURE FROM HER. But I shall do so, in full, even though she makes me wait. MAYBE YOU WILL, BUT SHE'S STILL IN THE WRONG. In the wrong? What have I said? You are lying, mouth, to speak such presumption against my lady.

The opposing roles of joy and distress are clearly delineated in the opening lines, and the aspersions on the domna by distress prompt the original subject position to comment on them in the last two. 60

Personified abstractions The subject is thus subject to the (external) influence of both joy and distress, and not identifiable with either; but distress speaks from within the 'self, as v. 11 makes plain, and both joy and distress use first-person forms, so the subject also appears to be arbitrating a debate within itself. Are we dealing with a subject negotiating external forces, a subject elaborated into a 'self, or a split subject? The boundaries of self and subject, and self and other, are here thoroughly imprecise. I view the next two stanzas as an interrogation, by the arbitrator-subject, of the evidence it adduces in its role of 'distress'; for instance: BONA DOMPNA, PER QUE M'AUCIS?

Ara.m podetz auzir mentir, que re no.m fai per que m'azir.

(w. 13-15)

GOOD LADY, WHY ARE YOU KILLING ME? Now you can hear that I'm lying, for she gives me no grounds for distress.

and: Molt am selieys qui m'a conquis. ET ELHA ME? Oc, so l'aug dir. (vv. 19-20) I truly love her who has made a conquest of me. DOES SHE LOVE ME? Yes, so I've heard it said.

The subject first undermines its stand as 'distress', and then offers a compromise with it by admitting that the love it feels is the result of violence (conquis, v. 19). This prepares the ground for distress to be mollified, and in stanza v the positions of the three voices melt into each other as the dialogue structure collapses: Per lieys ai ieu joy, joe e ris. MAS ARA.N PLANH, PLOR E SOSPIR; E.L MALS, QUE M'ES GREUS A SUFRIR,

torna.m doble en deport; pauc pres lo mal que.l bes o vens, que plus m'en ri que no m'en DUELH.

(vv. 25-6)

Through her I have joy, sport, and laughter, BUT AT THE MOMENT I LAMENT, WEEP AND SIGH, AND THE SUFFERING, WHICH IS HARD TO ENDURE, turns into twice the amount of pleasure. I have no care for suffering once wellbeing overcomes it, for I laugh more than I GRIEVE.

Here ira is metamorphosed into its opposite and the conflict of the opening stanza is resolved with the two external voices being fully assimilated within the subject. In the remainder of the song there is no division into separate voices, no further need for self-analysis: 61

Allegory the poet returns to his professional obligations of accepting the conditions of amor de lonh and celebrating his lady's beauty. The rhetoric of this song invites reflection on the nature of the self on three levels. The sensus litteralis proposes 'characters' which emerge, interact and then collapse. If the metaphor of personification is read literally, the notion of 'character' or 'self emerges as inherently unstable. The sensus allegoricus, read individually as relating to the subject's own experiences, exemplifies this instability by portraying a subject (or self) in change through an alternation of fragmentation and assimilation. Thirdly, this allegorical level is also able to preserve the traditional ambiguity of allegory between the individual and the universal by suggesting that individual reactions are governed by general psychological principles and that we are all exposed to the conflicts depicted here.21 It thus returns us to the problematic relationship between self and other which the literal level of the allegory implies. Clearly, troubadour lyrics use allegory in such a way as to pose questions about the individuality, location, and stability of the 'self and its relation to the subject position from which they are written. The resulting allegorical dramas are, in a sense, failures, since they forfeit the topological clarity and narrative coherence of traditional 'objective' allegory. But they continue to exploit the semantic richness of the allegorical medium as open, simultaneously to 'literal' and 'metaphorical' readings. Their very failure thus offers a tantalizing commentary on subjective awareness of 'self, confirming the elusiveness and indeterminacy of subjectivity, and the existence of conflict within it, that were argued for in Chapter 1. Personified faculties A second allegorical mode adopted by the troubadours consists in endowing various of their faculties with independent existence. It is thus from the outset 'psychological' rather than 'moral', although in the assumption that everyone has the same faculties it retains an implication of the general alongside its assertion of the particular. Jaufre Rudel, for instance, sings in n (Pro ai del chart essenhadors) of how his heart is with his lady so that even when his body is asleep under the blankets his spirit (esperitz, v.36) goes running to her and his will (voluntat, v.41) returns from his lady's dwelling place with messages for him; the same terminology is used by Arnaut de Maruelh in xxi (A gran honor viu cui jois es cobitz) where his heart and esperitz are under his 62

Personified faculties lady's suzerainty (vv.22-3) and where his voluntatz to love and improve in her service redoubles (vv.30-1). As with personified moral abstractions, it might be expected that these animated faculties would be automatically extended to the other persons represented in the lyrics, but such is not the case. Indeed, personified faculties are even more standardly used than are the allegorized abstractions to underline the fundamental structural difference between 'self and 'other'. The domnas celebrated by these songs do not enjoy the pains or pleasures of an elaborated psychology. An example of this asymmetry is Peire Vidal's song xxxi (Ges pel temps fer e brau) which combines 'autonomous' faculties with semi-allegorized abstractions. The only ones attributed to the lady are her ensenhamens (courtly education), which will induce her to mi tant amar (love me so much) (vv.25-8), and her chauzimens (v.36) (discernment), that will prevent her delaying too long before she does so. These qualities aside, the domna is decomposed into physical attributes and the effect which these have on her admirer: E francs cors gais e gens m'es de totz mals gar ens. Bels ris ab dous esgar me fan rir' e jogar. Ai! domna, tan suau m'apodera e.m vens vostra cara rizens ... (vv. 15-18, 44-6) And the noble body, cheerful and dignified, is my warranty against all suffering. Lovely smile and sweet glance fill me with laughter and enjoyment. Oh my lady, how easily your smiling face sweeps me off my feet and makes a conquest of me ... The lover's assembly of attributes, by contrast, is dignified with heart and mind (sens) as in vv. 29-30, or with Amors, joys and sens, as in this passage: Amors e jois m'enclau et amezura. m sens (vv. 11-12) Love and Joy enclose me, and Reason moderates me. Lanfranc Cigala's Un avinen ris (IV) presents an even more radical differentiation of subject (self) and object (other). The domna is at first reduced, like the Cheshire cat, to a smile: 63

Allegory Un avinen ris vi l'autrier issir d'una boca rizen. (vv. 1 -2) The other day I saw an attractive smile issuing from a smiling mouth. This prompts a dramatic interaction of emotion and reflection in the first-person subject whose heart's ecstasy provokes a cold shower from reason, neither faculty being as yet allegorized. But then the lady is enriched with a further attribute: elsieu dobV esgardpongnen (v. 15) (her piercing double glance), and this really brings the poet's inner universe to life: Quan fon e mon fin cor intratz dedinz lo bels ris e l'esgart, mos cors se.n venc tost e vivatz vas me claman: 'Merce, qu'eu art! Ades siatz enamoratz de Tamoros cors ... (vv.23-7) When the lovely smile and the glance had entered my true heart, my heart immediately sprang up towards me, imploring me, 'Have mercy, for I am on fire! You must at once be enamoured of her amorous body ...22 Like the use of traditional ethical allegory, the use of personified faculties can thus unexpectedly create an asymmetric world in which the subject is fundamentally different from others. Through personification, the subject's attributes are licensed to roam at will around the text and, in its fictional world of reference, to sally out towards the disconnected fragments of the loved one's anatomy. As the next chapter will show, this asymmetry is grounded in a gender hierarchy which is anxiously policed by troubadour poetry. I have contended that moral allegory questions the relation of the subject to the self. Uncertainty about this relation is particularly acute when the self is 'psychological'. Peire Rogier is most unusual when he apparently acknowledges identity with his heart, or mind, or both. Distinguishing between a second person formal (the lady) and a second person intimate (an interlocutor?), the subject claims to 'be', heart and mind, with the former, although bodily visible only to the latter:23 mas be si m'estau luenh de vos, lo cor e.l sen vos ai trames, si qu'aissi no suy on tu.m ves. (VI, vv. 37-9) But even though I am far away from you (my lady), I have sent my heart and mind to you, so that I am not where you (interlocutor?) can see me. 64

Personified

faculties

Far more common is for the faculties to be ranged around a gap which has no name, but from which the song appears to issue. The relationship between 'subject' and 'self appears indeterminate; the subject can seem to be divorced from 'self and reduced to the verbal flow that constitutes the text, 24 yet at the same time (as in Peire Rogier VII, discussed in the last section) arbitrating between the competing elements which constitute that self. The ingenious fictive tenso by Lanfranc Cigala (x) could be seen as addressing the status of this arbitrating subject. Where does it stand in relation to 'psychology'? The tenso also illustrates, though with allegorized faculties rather than emotional impulses, the blurring of 'characterization' found in Peire Rogier VII. The poem's opening lines are provocative: Entre mon cor e me e mon saber si moc tenzos. Between my heart and me and my understanding a debate arose. The tenso centres on the question why so many lovers are unsuccessful, and the respective positions of the participants are as follows: the heart blames the capriciousness of Love; the understanding blames women for their injustice in loving whom they choose (!) and failing to reward the love service of true lovers; and the T voice unexpectedly blames the inadequacies dels amadors, qui son fals e chanjan.

(v.27)

of lovers, who are treacherous and fickle. Each participant proceeds by redefining the problem from his own perspective, and thereby annexing the position of the previous debater. Heart attributes everything to the emotion of Love; Reason in turn explains Love in terms of the unreasonable behaviour of women; and the T arrives at an overview which incorporates the partial insights of its faculties into a final account which is reconcilable with both and superior to either: e car domnas i trobon pauc de fe, si fan preiar e longnon lur merce per conoisser lo leial del truan; e quan trobon amic senz tricharia li fan amor, si com a faig la mia. (vv.28-32) and because ladies find so little faith in them, they impose long courtship and defer reward in order to single out the loyal from the deceivers; and when they find a lover without deceit, they give him their love, just as mine has done. 65

Allegory The T here modestly presents himself as the perfect lover in whom heart and reason combine in harmonious balance, this perfection and this annexation - being amusingly endorsed at the end of the song where the lady is made to declare: si.l drut fosson tal con vos, ia blasman non s'anera negus de drudaria. (vv. 38-9) If only all lovers were like you, no one would go around speaking ill of love.

Lanfranc Cigala's tenso presents the reader with an ironic space between the faculties which is then, in a further ironic move, assimilated to a subject (and/or self?) which is hyperbolic: a consummate lover. In another case the space between the faculties is more readily identifiable as a consummate artist: Arnaut Daniel's song xvi as it appears in Perugi's edition. (Toja's text was discussed in connection with its use of metaphor and related tropes in the last chapter.) The stanza order Perugi adopts25 creates a chain of command in which Love, as schoolmistress, instructs the poet in her arts: fas, que Amors m'o comanda, breu chanzo de raiso Ionia cui gen m'aduz de las ars de sa scola. (vv. 3-5) since Love commands it, I, whom she nobly instructs in the Arts of her school, compose a short song on long theme. Anticipating the pleasures of a successful courtship (stanza n), the first-person speaker then details Love's instructions to him (stanza in), finally (stanzas iv to end) passing the word on to his heart who, as a subordinate, is addressed in the second person intimate: cors, on qu'eu an, de lei no.t loing ni.t sebres. Heart, wherever I may go, you stay close to her and do not leave her. The subject here seems to be less a love than a linguistic faculty which mediates a hierarchy between ideology {Amors) and the actions to be adopted by Heart; it is subject to the first and dictates the behaviour of the second. Lanfranc Cigala and Arnaut Daniel are unusual. Most troubadours accept the rhetorical presentation of 'self by faculties as a given, and seize on it as a useful technique for the dramatization of the subject's experience as a self. The heart, for example, can be a traitor (Gaucelm Faidit xvn v.25), or an ally, messenger and hostage (Bernart de Ventadorn xxxvm vv.80-8): 26 in either case a convenient synechdoche which allows the baring of emotion while at the same 66

Personified faculties time maintaining distance from it. If this is ontologically problematic, the troubadours are the last to care. Indeed, the distinction between the heart and other organs lends itself particularly to treating that ontological conundrum, the commonplace of absence and presence, as in this undistinguished piece by Peirol (xxi, Pos entremes me suy defar chansos): E si tot m'es de semblan orgulhos non ai poder que ves autra m'atenda, que.l cor e.il huel me mostron que.il me renda ... e, quan m'en cug partir, no m'es nulhs pros, que.l sieu' amors m'es denan qui m'atenh, que.m fai tornar vas lieys, tan mi destrenh. Luenh m'es dels huelhs, mas del cor m'es tan pres selha per cui soven plane e sospire ... (vv.7-10, 12-16) Even if she acts overbearingly towards me, I have no strength to turn my attention to anyone else, for my heart and my eyes show me that I must yield myself to her ... and when I imagine I can leave her, it's no good, because my love for her who captivates me is ever present and makes me turn to her, it has such power over me. She for whom I keep lamenting and sighing is far from my eyes but close to my heart...

It seems that for the medieval lover bilocation is just a fact of life. That this is such a widespread poetic conceit reveals to what extent vernacular psychology was at home with the idea of a fragmented self. Particularly among the later poets, this fragmentation of faculties hardens into psychomachia. The scholarly Uc de Sant Circ opens four of his songs with this figure (I-IV); here is the beginnings of i: Anc enemies q'ieu agues nuill temps no.m tenc tant de dan cum mos cors e miei huoill fan; e s'ieu ai per lor mal pres, ill no.i ant faich nuill gazaing; qe.l cors en sospira e.n plaing e.ill huoill en ploran soven, et on cascus pieitz en pren plus volon, qecs, obezir, lai don sento.l mal venir. Per que m'agr' ops, s'ieu pogues, c'al cor e als huoills, qe.m fan aver de ma mort talan, 67

Allegory fugis, mas ieu non puosc ges, anz m'atur e m'acompaing ablor ... (vv.1-16) Never did any enemies I had cause me so much harm as do my heart and my eyes; and if they have made me suffer, they haven't gained anything by it, for my heart sighs and laments and my eyes are forever weeping, and the worse they feel, the more each of them wants to submit to the source of their suffering. And so it would be a good thing for me if I could flee my heart and eyes, which make me wish I was dead, but I can't, instead I associate with them and make them my companions ... In this paradoxical confrontation, the lady who is source of all the harm remains despite that the object of desire. Heart and eyes, who bring the sufferings of love upon the first-person voice and are thereby its enemies, are simultaneously its allies because the reason for their suffering is their devotion to his lady in which the subject shares. Both divided and united amongst themselves, subject, heart and eyes are inwardly torn by conflicting impulses: heart and eyes rush to serve the source of their suffering and the T is unable to flee from them, even though they make him/it suicidal! The process of fragmentation and interaction is set on a path of indefinite recursion or mise en abyme which can only be halted by the intention to devote everything to his lady's service (vv.43-50). These examples show that the allegorization of faculties, like moral allegory, is used to 'individualize' the first-person voice, most notably by establishing the difference between a (masculine) 'self and a (feminine) 'other'. (The notion of the 'feminine' will be more closely defined in Chapter 3.) But whether the allegory is self-consciously witty (as in Lanfranc Cigala) or merely conventional (as in Peirol), it presents a psychology of conflict or interaction in which the place assigned to the subject is unclear. The wittier poets play on the paradoxical implications of the allegory by allowing the subject to be now separate from the faculties that make up the self, now inserted with them in a hierarchy in which the subject occupies a median position (Arnaut Daniel) or a dominant one (Lanfranc Cigala, Uc de Sant Circ). These moves to integrate the subject are undermined by irony and/or hyperbole, leaving its status as problematic as it was before they 'resolved' it. Less sophisticated poets accept the rhetoric of self-division without inquiring where this leaves the first-person voice. Between the 68

Dialogue faculties is a mysterious space from which the text appears to issue. The final section of this chapter considers how this space, too, can be divided by interacting voices. Dialogue The dialogue studied here as a third allegorical device takes the form not of regular exchanges methodically attributed to two or more participants (as in the tenso or partimen), but of irregular interjections which interrupt the first-person voice, and which come perhaps from within the 'self, perhaps from outside it. There seems to have been a flurry of composing songs using this technique over two or more stanzas during the 1160s and 1170s, among poets associated with Raimbaut d'Aurenga, principally Giraut de Bornelh, Peire Rogier and Gaucelm Faidit.27 The anonymity of the participants in these dialogues, and the extreme irregularity of their exchanges, have given rise to considerable disagreement as to what voices are represented and even over where their contributions begin and end. If modern editors find it difficult to identify participants and delimit their contributions while poring over the MSS, then medieval audiences may have been hard put to understand the dialogue in oral performances which were no doubt exposed to miscellaneous distractions - unless the different voices were performed by different jongleurs.28 The opening stanzas of Peire Rogier iv are a vexed example. In reproducing the text, I have italicized elements which imply the presence of dialogue, the better to illustrate the difficulty of apportioning roles: I

No sai don chant, e chantars plagra.m fort, si saubes don, mas de re no.m sent be, et es greus chans, quant horn non sap de que. 4 Mas adoncx par qu'om a natural sen, quan sap son dan ab gen passar suffrir, quar no.s deu horn per ben trop esjauzir, ni ia per mal horn trop no.s dezesper.

II 8 Mas tot quant es s'aclina vas la mort: que prezes tu tot quant fas? leu non re. Mas so ditz horn, qu'avols es qui.s recre, per qu'om deu far tot bel captenemen, 12 que no.l puesc' horn mal dir ni escarnir. I. I don't know what I might sing about (or: what I am singing about) and yet singing would greatly please me, if I knew on what topic - but I don't feel at ease in anything, and singing comes hard when one lacks a theme. 69

Allegory But that is what shows that a person has native good sense, when he is able to be patient under adversity, and endure it nobly; for it's not right either to rejoice to excess at well-being, nor to despair too greatly at suffering. II. But all things are subject to death - why do you set so much store by everything you do? / don't. But it is said that giving up shows that one is worthless; therefore one should conduct oneself agreeably in order that no one can slander or deride one. Editors concur in referring to the participants as the poet and the interlocutor, but as there is no agreement about which of them says what, 29 there can be no characterization of either. The use of mas suggests disagreement, especially in v.8 when reinforced by the challenge of v. 9. But if these lines are seen as a moralistic intervention, what of the passage beginning v. 4 which also starts with mas and contains traditional moralism? 30 The mas of v. 10 introduces a contribution which will be read differently according to what decisions have already been taken. Does this speaker exhort the hesitant and unhappy poet of vv. 1 - 3 to sing? Or is this rather the voice of the poet repudiating the contemptus mundi motif of vv.8-9? The problems do not end here, for the 'interlocutor's voice shifts in stanza v from clerical moralism to prudential considerations, speculating on the slim likelihood of the lover making any headway with this lady. A more successful distribution of roles can be achieved by assuming three rather than two participants (see appendix to this chapter), as in the analysis of Peire Rogier VII proposed above, but there too the dialogue structure was not very clear in stanzas ill and iv, and collapsed completely in stanza v when the participants merged into each other. Given the extreme difficulty, or even impossibility, of arriving at an uncontroversial analysis, perhaps these texts should be read not as examples of dialogue but as representations of it. They are not, that is, to be painstakingly analysed into discrete voices, but rather apprehended as conveying the experience of inner debate. Less explicit than either of the allegorical techniques so far discussed, such dialogue emphasizes the fact of interaction rather than its location. An example which would bear out this interpretation is Peire Rogier v, Tant ai mon cor e joy assis. The 'interlocutor' in this song is a mere stooge. Eager to expatiate on the paradoxes of love, the first-person speaker offers a foretaste of his virtuosity: que.l dans n'es pros e.l mals n'es bes e sojorns, qui plus mal en tray, (vv. 18-19) 70

Dialogue for the losses sustained in love are profit, and the evil good, and it's like a rest cure the more you suffer, following it with the exhortation: demandatz cum! Qu'ie.us o diray. (v.20) ask me how and I'll tell you. Thus summoned into existence, the 'stooge' docilely feeds the 'expert' with questions until finally collapsing with boredom, to the latter's indignation: 'No.us er digz ni sabretz quals es.' 'No m'en qal, qu'atressi.m vivray.' 'I shan't tell you, and you'll never know what it [a mysterious previous utterance] is.' 'I don't care, I can live without it just the same.' On the one hand, the formal structure of debate in this text is trivial and contributes virtually nothing to the meaning. 31 On the other hand, the declarations by the 'expert' are expressed as dialectical oppositions: stanza iv opens with a recommendation to submissiveness in love but ends with the assertion that love is like a war; stanza v continues the use of paradox: Amors ditz ver e escarnis, e dona pauz' e gran afan ... Love tells the truth and speaks derision, she gives relaxation and dreadful misery ... In other words, there is a 'simulated' interaction between two speakers and a 'genuine' one within just one of them. The mismatch between form and content of dialogue reveals the first of these as just that: a form, an impression. It also suggests a way of reading the substantive aspect of such poems as a dialectic, a play of conflicting interpretations. Once such dialogue is seen as concerned not with identifiable agents discussing, but with discussion itself, then it is possible to see how it may illumine the subject position in the songs which use it. The discussion in this chapter has moved from general moral categories - canonical or courtly vices and virtues, potentially universal in their ascription - to the personification of faculties within an 'individual' psychology, and now, thirdly, we come to an unnamed space where opinions from unnamed sources are tested against each other, hesitations voiced and decisions formed. That is, we are looking at the space left so mysteriously blank by the two techniques so far 71

Allegory considered, and finding that it too has a structure, if not a determinate one, and that within it too there is an interplay of forces; but that this psychomachia is between nameless voices which come and go unpredictably and are elusive of characterization. Gaucelm Faidit's D'un dotg bellplaser (xx) illustrates the implications of this use of dialogue for reading the first-person subject in the lyric:32 D'un dotg bell plaser plasen movon miei cant ver, valen, gien, car si mos solatc plat? als fins ben credent?, ni s'ieu be fats re, de midons me ve, cui ne soi grasire liei desire, si c'allior mon desir no vire, car lieis am e lieis ador e causic per la meglior. Sol al sieu voler II m'aten, car del sieu saber apren

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

sen

22

tal, don m'es donate grate pels plus conoisentc. Tant gent me mante, la sua merce, c'ar soi bos sofrire

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

ce gausire soi d'amor, don giausentc consire; et anc a nul amador non avenc tant de ricor. Et fats so parer III soen

30 31 32 33 34 35 36

72

from a single sweet pleasing beautiful delight my true songs are born, precious and noble for if my consolation pleases true believers, or if I do anything well it comes to me from my lady to whom I am grateful for it I desire her so much that I do not turn my desire elsewhere for I love and worship her and I chose her as supreme. I pay heed to her wish alone for from her wisdom I learn such understanding as has resulted in my being favoured by the most discerning. So wonderfully does it sustain me, thanks to her, that now I am good at being patient for I enjoy the love on which, enjoying it, I fix my longing; and never did such wealth come to any lover. And I show it often

Dialogue car, del clar dutc ser giausen, pren consirier amatc. Fate soi, e pauc sofrentc, car en fre no.s te ma boca; per ce tagn, las! qu'ieu.m n'asire cant m'albire sa valor, e fols trop pot dire! Soi done fols, s'ieu die m'onor? Oc, se.l dit torn a folor. IV

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

Com gia.m det poder,

52

enten, q'ieu ages leser disen

53 54 55

jen

56

los bes ce m'a datg.

57

Pate! Sofre.n clau las dentel No.t sove ce se pert drutc, si no ere? Trop potc vers asire ...

58 59 60 61 62 63

Voll m'aucire? Si.m socor cill cui soi servire? morai si.n tais lausor.

64

o si.l dir no.l an a sabor?

68

Ben dei doncs temer temen; pero, leis e'esper grasen, ren merces dels onratc

69

65 66 67

70 71 72 73 74

73

because, rejoicing at the clear sweet evening I begin, although beloved, to yearn. I am a fool and impatient because my mouth is not kept under tight rein; and for that reason it is right I should be distressed when I reflect on her worth; and a fool can say too much! Am I then a fool to speak of the honour done me? Yes, if I turn the speech to folly. Since now she has empowered me, I mean, that I might have permission to tell nobly the good offices she has had for me Be quiet! Be patient and shut your teeth! Have your forgotten that a lover is damned without faith? You can compose too many songs ... Am I to kill myself? Is that how she whom I serve assists me? Am I to die from not speaking her praise, or from her not liking my speech? Therefore I ought to be afraid and fearful; but to her I hope for gratefully I give thanks for the revered

Allegory bonds she has presented me with and she surely knows that even when I am out of her sight my loyalty to her is such that I gaze on her in my heart and sigh with grief and suffer dreadful martyrdom 84 for I fear to return there 85 in case she thinks me a breakfaith.

late de ce.m fes present? e ssap, se n o . m ve, tant li ai lial fe c'el cor la remire; e.n sospire de dolor e.n trauc greu martire,

75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

car del tornar ai paor q u e . m tegna per mentidor VI

P o t li doncs caler s'ieu men? H o c , gia.t vol veser vai t'en Fen tot? altres pensatc, natc de flacs pensamentc! Traire te cove. Vau dunes! Gioi mi me, si q ' e u deia rire! E n o . t tire, chanso! C o r tost, ses escondire a.N Sobira, m o n segnor, cui Pretc pren per validor.

VII

Could she care, then, if I do break faith? Yes, now she sends for you be off! Shatter all other thoughts born of cowardly misgivings! The time has come for you to depart. I go then! May joy lead me, and make me smile instead! Don't delay, song, run quickly, without demur, to the Superlative one, my lord 102 whom Merit takes as her champion.

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101

N ' A g o u t a u s eslire

103 I m a k e bold t o choose lord Agout 104 a n d lord Most Agreeable, for with them 105 I achieve Merit and Worth

e.N Plus Avinent, c'ap lor acap bon pretss e valor.

This song combines a number of features which show meaning as process or becoming, and which show the simultaneous generation of 'text' and 'self from within the first-person voice. It has a demanding rhyme scheme: the lines are so short that rhyme affects one in under four syllables, and this accounts for much of its difficulty, and perhaps for its apparent unpopularity with medieval 74

Dialogue audiences. The nature of the rhymes favours the use of verbal forms (infinitives in -er, participates in -en and -entg, a variety of verb endings in -ire, agentives in -ador) which, given the predominance among them of the imperfective aspect, impart a sense of movement and of the construction or emergence of material. Some meanings have to resolve themselves out of puns, for example the car of v. 37 which could first be taken as adjectival: '[and I often display it as] precious'. The song opens with a cluster of derived rhymesfromplas-:plaser v. 1, plasen v. 2, platg v. 7. Grammatical change is thus combined with a semantic consistency that continues through the many other lexical figures based on derivation and given prominence by rhyme (desire, 33

desir, w . 13, 15; grasire, grate;, vv. 12, 24; gausire, giausentg, giausen,

vv.30, 32, 38; and so on with consir-, sofr-,fol-); other sources of consistency are near-synonymy (am e ador, v. 16; saber, sen, conoisentg, w. 20,22,25); and alliteration or assonance (ver, valen w. 3-4; car, clar in v.37). (This last example is a possible allusion to the characterization by Gaucelm of his style as fins, clar and car in the sister song D'un amor on s'es asis (xix)).34 Thus although the syntax may be hard to grasp, semantically the song is built up of splashes of meaning which overlap and shift as the song progresses, marking the movement of the text. In the opening stanza these meanings are worked into a harmonious unity. The first-person voice is in a rapture of simultaneous pleasure and desire, which intersect in the solatq (v. 6) of the text. A charmed circle is established whereby every desirable experience flows from his lady to him (vv. 9-11), into his song, and thence to the audience (vv. 1-8), while a contraflow communicates the admiration of the audience back to him (vv.7-8). This enchanting harmony extends into the beginning of the second stanza, where the common feast is revealed as intellectual as well: his lady's wisdom brings him understanding, and the plaudits of conoisseurs (vv. 20-25). Both stanza I and stanza II signal in their opening lines the oneness of experience ('d'un dot? bell plaser', 'sol al sieu voler'). Intelligence is to prove its downfall. From v. 29 onwards a more critical spirit makes its appearance, and the happy coincidence of pleasure and desire from stanza I is re-expressed as a paradox: the first person claims to be patient because he is fulfilled, and longs for something already enjoyed (vv. 26-32). The wealth boasted of in v. 34 is a wealth of meaning (patience and possession; possession and desire; desire and patience) as well as of experience. The opening of stanza in is a further account of this sentimental paradox (vv. 39-40); 75

Allegory it brings forward once more the dialectic of presence and absence, enjoyment and longing.35 Now the song takes a new turn. Dialectic opens out into dialogue, and the first person whose experiences converged so happily with those of the collective now finds division within itself. The voice which admits to being a fool (v. 41) sets about overturning the comfortable reflections of the speaker earlier, negating his vaunted sen, denying his claim to patience (v. 42) and decrying his poetry (vv. 49, 63). The lexical root which presides over the end of stanza ill is fol (w. 50, 51), resonating with the fate ('fool') of v.41 and, punningly, with the fats ('make') of v.35. From v.58 the use of the second person intimate marks the widening of this dialogic split. Sense, self and writing are now all in the melting pot. Whereas the dialectical play had concerned the content of experience (the interrelation of enjoyment and desire), dialogue transfers attention to its expression. What degree of licence does a poet have to describe lived experiences (w. 52-7)? What weight is to be given to inspiration and reticence respectively (vv.62-8)? Either speech or silence may prove fatal, now that he has no confidence in his ability to please (vv. 67-8). This inner debate replaces the harmony of speaker, lady and audience from stanza I with internal division and self-doubt. The contending voices are not readily identifiable, but the exhortations to a tremulous decorum seem to be put into effect in stanza V, the style of which departs from that of previous stanzas. Semantically it is placed under the signs of fear (temer, temen, vv. 69-70; paor v.85) and suffering (vv.82-3). The imagery of bondage (vv.74-5) emerges as an acceptable euphemism (!) for desire and possession, and sensuality is succeeded by aesthetic contemplation of the beloved within the loyal heart (vv. 79-80). Manifestly this is the poetic diction which one of the internal voices enjoins as least likely to give offence; it allows the speaker to avoid being a mentidor who reveals what he should keep silent, but by the same token belies his previous expressions of desire. The songs which were ver in v. 3 are now lies, and vice versa. In terms of the poetic fiction the strategy is represented as paying off, because at the beginning of stanza vi the speaker learns that the lady, caring about his trust/truthfulness (of which voice, though? the decorous one or the desiring one?) has summoned him to her presence. The dialogue continues, but with a shift of roles, the voice in the second person which had previously enjoined silence and discretion now advocating prompt and cheerful appearance at the lady's behest (vv. 89-93). Rapidly whirling through a dialectic of 76

Dialogue fear and joy (he must lay aside cowardice and joyfully present himself before his lady, vv. 90-7), the poetic voice resolves itself again into unity within, and harmony without, as the song serves once again to guarantee his welcome with his lady (w. 101 -2) and his insertion into the wider courtly audience (vv. 103-4). This song shows dialogue as one of a range of techniques for setting up meaning as process, of which the others are the rhyme syllables, certain rhyme words whose meaning is indeterminate, and shifting patterns of collocations. Dialogue arises as the extreme point of a process of fragmentation which begins in dialectic and then proceeds back through it to a final harmony which parallels the harmony of the initial stanza. But the elaborateness of the poetic context does not diminish the importance of dialogue so much as point to its nature: it emerges as the culmination of forces of movement and division. As an allegory of the subject, D'un doltg bell plaser offers an extensive commentary on the issues with which this chapter is concerned: the subject can merge into the collectivity, or, separated from it, divide within itself; it is in flux between unity and fragmentation, its parts possessing neither consistency nor predictability; at its most divided, it is preoccupied by its relationship to language, anxiously asking how its desires can best be expressed; the source of text, it shows that text to be as mutable and potentially divided as itself. These divisions suggest the canalizing of desire within the self by an internalized authority of social control which outlaws the inspirational in favour of the decorous, and through its (partial) repression returns the subject, and the text, to social success. The T is split between desire and control, between the 'individual' and the 'social', and this split is enacted by the song. The analysis proposed here for D'un dots bell plazer could be adapted to other dialogue poems where the debate, whatever its ambiguities, is primarily an 'internal' one.36 The appendix proposes a similar reading of Peire Rogier iv, whereby the subject position is split between a voice of individual desire and two voices of control, 'courtly' and 'clerical'. But there are cases where it can be doubted whether the dialogue is wholly internal to the subject. I conclude this chapter with a study of a particularly 'doubtful' case, Giraut de Bornelh's Ailas, com mor (n), which according to some scholars represents an inner debate, and to others, a debate between two different individuals. In this work, the two participants are distinguished by title and form of address if not by name: one is addressed as senher (v. 18 onwards) and as vos, the other as amis (v. 1 onwards) and tu. On the 77

Allegory one occasion when the senher uses the vos form to the amic, this is instantly, and correctly, understood as a plural: Adonc n'obraretz plus ginhos. Nos?Ocbe.

(vv.36-7)

Then you will act more craftily. We will? Yes. This (to the modern eye) peculiar combination of lordship (inequality) with friendship (equality) recalls the complex defining of the respective ranks of lover and lady by Maria de Ventadorn and Gui d'Ussel in their tenso:31 ... .1 drutz deu far precs e comandamen cum per amig' e per domn' eissamen, e.il dompna deu a son drut far honor cum ad amic, mas non cum a seignor. (vv.21-4) The lover should execute her commands and requests as for a friend and for a lady (superior), and the lady should show honour to her lover as to a friend, but not as to an overlord. Such a combination, then, is certainly not incompatible with the proposal that there are two different individuals represented in this song.38 In the opening stanzas the participants certainly seem quite distinct from each other: A Has, com morl Quez as, amis? Eu sui trais! Per cal razo? Car ancjorn mis m'ententio en leis que.mfetz lo belparven ... No Tas re quis? Eu, per Deu, no! E per que menas tal tenso tro aias saubut so talen? Sehner, fai me tal espaven. (w. 1 - 5 , 14-18) Alas, how lam dying! What's wrong, my friend? lam betrayed! For what reason? Because I once set my mind on her who showed me a sign of favour... You have asked nothing of her? No, in God's name, not I! Then why are you making such a fuss before you've inquired what she feels? My lord, I'm so afraid. The senior (in roman typeface) seems ignorant of the feelings and actions of the friend (in italics). Once he has elicited an account of the friend's situation, he proceeds to draw up a programme of action: 78

Dialogue avoid excessive suffering (vv. 12, 24), don't expect the lady to offer you her love on a plate (v. 22), instead go to see her and ask for her love (vv. 28-30), be patient (w. 33 - 4 ) , cunning (v. 36), sensible and brave (vv.45-6), and expeditious (v.60). These instructions are founded on a conscious sense of authority: the senior deals out moral judgements {ben'asgran tort, v.21) and enunciates general principles (totztems bossofrire vens, v. 34; cf. w . 57-8,68) which make it clear that he regards the friend's plight as standard, a text-book example indeed. Not so the friend who cannot see anything beyond his own anxieties, whether at the prospect of death from excessive sensibility, his lack of courage to approach his lady, potential reprisals from the jealous one (her husband?), or at finding himself tongue-tied and starstruck in her presence. Is the senher an exemplary counsellor, or is he rather a facet of the first speaker's 'self which, less exposed than others to the steamy effects of passion, retains its sangfroid when panic threatens its fellows? The comic, and ultimately caricatural, delineation of the two participants might indicate that this is an internal allegory. The voices also seem to move towards self-presentation in these terms in the latter part of the text. The senher urges the friend to get a grip on himself with the words: Er done tos sens que.t valh, e tos ardimens.

(vv.45-6)

So let your wits prevail on your behalf, and your boldness. The friend replies: Oc, e ma bona sospeissos. (v. 47) Yes, and my good hope. They could be describing themselves as antithetical attributes common sense and sensibility, ideology and desire. The split between them would then run parallel to that discerned in the Gaucelm Faidit song just discussed. Furthermore the splitting of the subject would also, as in Gaucelm Faidit, 'explain' the production of the text. When, in the final stanza of Giraut's poem, both participants turn their attention to the necessity of communicating with the lady, the collaboration whereby * desire' provides the content and 'ideology' the impetus to express it, glosses the poem's own genesis,39 and this is commented on by 'desire' in its tornada: Be m'a aduch Amors a so, que sabon tuch 79

Allegory que mal viu qui deziran mor, per qu'eu no sai planher mo cor.

(vv.61-4)

Love has indeed brought me to this, for everybody knows that a man who is dying of desire leads a wretched life, and so I cannot grieve for my heart [i.e. as it now undertakes this courtship]. With this move, Giraut de Bornelh allies his text with works by other poets in which Amors and the first-person subject go hand in hand in the simultaneous perfecting of love and poetic craft.40 But what is this Amors: is it a force from without, or an element already within the subject? Giraut's poem seems to start as a dialogue between two people, but their stereotyping suggests that it can also be read as an inner debate, and it ends, as this quotation shows, with interaction between a firstperson speaker and a personified abstraction. This development leads back to the moral allegory with which this chapter began, and confirms the irremediable confusion of self and other, inside and outside, which was the first point to be made there. The argument has gone round in a circle, from inner to outer, self to other, desire to language, and back again. The conclusion must be that the allegorical techniques so common in troubadour lyric serve to dramatize, and problematize, the subject around which the text revolves and from which it issues. The fact that this subject is protean, lacking in boundaries, and divided within itself, makes it only the more insistent. Its capacity for poetry results from its subjection to codes imposed on it from without, and which, internalized, divide it. So far we have addressed its representation by rhetorical schemata. The next chapter addresses the question of its basis in history.

80

Appendix: Peire Rogier iv Appendix to chapter 2: Peire Rogier iv

The controversies surrounding the apportioning of roles in this poetic jeu d'esprit were discussed in the last section. I present here, tentatively, an analysis of it into three voices. The framing voice (in roman) is the first-person subject in the character of a troubadour. It is a voice of amorous desire, and of the concomitant urge to compose 'inspirational' love songs. Its enthusiasm is partially repressed by two voices of authority which seek to impose on it, respectively, the decorum of courtly restraint (in italic), and the pessimism of clerical moralism (in capitals). On this reading, the song shows the subjection of the subject to two powerful discourses, both of which, in the end, it rejects; but the resulting song remains inherently comic, as the desiring subject, ironized by the two doxas, never recovers from their trivialization of its aspirations. The text is Nicholson's; the translation is my own. I

No sai don chant, e chantars plagra.m fort, si saubes don, mas de re no.m sent be, et es greus chans, quant horn non sap de que. Mas adoncxpar qu'om a natural sen, 5 quan sap son dan ab gen passar suffrir, quar no.s deu horn per ben trop esjauzir, ni ia per mal trop no.s dezesper.

II

MAS TOT QUANT ES S'ACLINA VAS LA MORT: QUE PREZAS TU TOT QUAN FAS? leu non re.

10 Mas so ditz horn, qu'avols es qui.s recre, per qu'om deu far tot bel captenemen, que no.lpuescf horn mal dir ni escarnir; aisso die eu que no.s deu horn giquir aissi del tot qui.l segle vol tener.

Ill

15 Fort estai be qu'om chant e que.s deport. Oc, quan n'es luecx ni temps que s'esdeve. E quoras doncx? Vols o dir ges per me? Sapchas qu'ieu hoc. Quar us grans jois m'en pren. QAR DITZ TOTZ JORNS QUE RIR VOLS E BORDIR? 20 TOL TE D'AISSO, IA T'ER TOST A MURIR. E laissarai per so mon joy-aver?

IV

Si joy non ai, don aurai doncx confort? E qualjoy quiers? De lieys cui clam merce. FOLHS YEST. Per que? PER DIEU TREBALHAS TE, 81

Allegory 25 Nl PER AQUO ... FAI DONCX! Mas per nien t'en entremetz. Tu que saps? AUG LO DIR. Saps tu que? FAI! Laissa me tot guerir. IEU VOLUNTIERS, E FAI TOT TON PLAZER. V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

Tost venra temps que conostra son tort. 30 Aqui t'aten. Si fatz ieu per ma fe. Fas ton talan, mas ieu no cug ni ere tan quan vivras n'ayas nuhl jauzimen. Non dis per als mas quar m'en vols partir. Ieu hoc, per so quar no t'en veyjauzir. 35 E ia saps tu qu'als non ai en poder. Mos cors no.m ditz qu'ieu ab autra m'acort. Quar ben as dreg pel gran ben que t'en ve. El' o fara. E quoras? Er dese. Ben estara si vers es, mas si. t men, 40 tu qu yen faras? Am mais lo sieu mentir qu'autra vertat. MAL HI SABES CAUZIR, QU'IEU NO PRETZ REN MESORGUA CONTRA VER. Per s'amor viv, e s'amors m'a estort de la preizo, e s'amors m'a mes fre, 45 que no.m eslays vas autra, si.m rete; e per s'amor ai tot mon cor jauzen, e.m part d'enueg, e.m platz quan puesc servir; e valon mais de lieys li lone dezir que s'avia d'autra tot mon voler. 50 Lo vers tramet e vuelh que si prezen mon Tort-n'avez, si.l play que.l denh auzir, que totz lo mons li deuri' obezir, qar mai que tot vol bon pretz mantener. E si dons Sanz m'a fag descauzimen, 55 mieus es lo dans et er lo.m a sofrir, et el no.s poc de plus envilanir, e per vilan lo deu horn ben tener.

I. I don't know what I might sing about, yet it would give me great pleasure to sing if I knew what about - but I don't feel content about anything, and singing is difficult when one lacks a theme. But that is what shows that a person has native good sense, when he is able to be patient under adversity, and endure it nobly; for it is not right either to rejoice to excess, or to despair too greatly at suffering. II. BUT EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS SUBJECT TO DEATH - WHY PLACE SO MUCH STORE BY WHAT YOU DO? I don't in the least. But everybody says that anyone who gives up is base, and so one ought to keep one's conduct 82

Appendix: Peire Rogier iv pleasing so that no one can slander or deride it. So what I say is, no one should give up if he wants to survive in this world. III. Surely singing and amusement are good. Yes, in the right time and place. When is that, then? Are you by any chance aiming your remarks at me? / certainly am. Because I am fired by a great joy? WHY ARE YOU FOREVER WANTING TO LAUGH AND ENJOY YOURSELF? PUT THAT BEHIND YOU, FOR YOU ARE SOON TO DIE. Is that a reason to give up the search for joy? IV. And if I don't have joy, what other comfort is there? What kind of joy are you after? The one that comes from her whose favour I implore. YOU ARE A FOOL. Why SO? YOU SHOULD LABOUR IN THE SERVICE OF GOD AND NOT FOR THAT - SO DO SO. You are wasting your time interfering in this. What do you know about it? I HEAR IT SPOKEN ABOUT. But what do you know? DO AS I SAY (i.e., TURN YOUR ATTENTION TO GOD). Let me find a full recovery. GLADLY - SUIT YOURSELF. V. The time will soon come when she will acknowledge that she's in the wrong. Better wait for it then. Heavens above, that's what I am doing. Do as you wish, my personal belief is that as long as you live you 'II not find any joy in her. The only reason you say that is because you want to part me from her. Yes I do, because I don yt see you succeeding with her. And yet you know there is nothing else I can do; VI. my heart doesn't tell me that I could associate with any other woman. How right you are, seeing how far it's getting you! She will yield. And when? Very soon indeed. Good for you if that's true, but if she's lying, what will you do then? I prefer her lies to anyone else's truth. YOU SHOW BAD JUDGEMENT, FOR I SEE NO MERIT IN LIES IN COMPARISON WITH THE TRUTH. VII. I live for her love, and her love has released me from the prison, and her love has placed a bridle on me so that I don't charge off after any other lady, but am held back; and for her love my whole heart rejoices, casts tedium aside, and finds pleasure in service; and my long-unsatisfied desires for her are worth more than having what I want with another. VIII. I send the vers with the wish that it should present itself to my Howwrong-you-are, if she should graciously deign to listen to it - for all the world ought to submit to her, since she is resolved on upholding merit more than any other thing. IX. And if my lord Sancho has done me any injury, it was my fault and I'll have to put up with it. He couldn't be more of a boor if he tried, and that's what everyone should take him for.

83

3 GENDER AND STATUS

Troubadour poetry is composed for public performance; it concerns the pursuit of alleged courtship, or discusses matters of courtly interest. Of constant importance in it, therefore, is a vast vocabulary, rhetoric and thematic of social insertion. I shall consider some of these in order to investigate how far the first-person position in the songs is bound up with group identities of various kinds, such as gender, social peer groups, patrons and audiences. The relevance of this inquiry has already emerged in the discussion of Kohler's view of the subject as a synecdoche for the social group (Chapter 1); in the question of how far allegories of the 'self are individualizing and how far they are generalizing; in the construction of a gender hierarchy; and in the splitting of the subject voice by interventions that seem to represent forces of social control, courtly or clerical (Chapter 2). It is evident that the self with which the subject, however uneasily, identifies, is historically and politically produced in ways that need to be analysed. This analysis is divided between two chapters. In Chapter 4, the focus is on the poet as performer and on the first person's transactions with audiences, patrons, rivals and lovers. In this one, I consider how the subject position in troubadour poetry is situated with respect to gender and status. These cultural categories are a given of their society, though one which leaves some room for negotiation. I have decided to treat them in tandem because together they make up a fundamental paradox of Occitan love poetry: the first-person voice is characteristically that of a man whose love object apparently occupies higher status than his, yet in a society where women usually hold lower status than men. This contradiction results in a number of tensions and obfuscations which this chapter attempts to unpick. I shall contend that the subject of the love lyric is gendered, and that the notion of status to which male poets aspire is dictated by a competitive, masculine economy; but that attributes assigned to the feminine are a source of continuing unease even in male-authored 84

Gender poetry, whilst for female-authored texts they present a major disincentive to first-person composition. Gender

Gender is difficult to write about. Jeanroy is now universally derided for having said what he thought about the women troubadours. Astonished that they should appear to initiate courtship rather than respond to the invitation of a man, he concluded that their works were mere 'exercices litteraires. Hypothese pour hypothese, il me parait plus naturel de preter a ces femmes ' 'nobles et bien enseignees" une certaine paresse d'esprit, une evidente faute de gout, que ce choquant oubli de toute pudeur et de toute convenance' (Poesie Lyrique I, p. 317). More recent feminist reaction makes exactly the opposite claim. For Meg Bogin, only the women speak with an 'authentic' voice: 'Unlike the men, who created a complex poetic vision, the women wrote about their own intimate feelings.... They were writing in a true first person singular at a time when almost all artistic endeavour was collective' (The Women Troubadours pp. 67-8). l It is sobering to learn that seventeenth-century readers did not give them the benefit of the doubt, as Jeanroy did by allowing them to be unimaginative hacks (!), but instead represented them as whores and scarlet women.2 A transformation has also taken place in the critical reception of the woman as love object in male-authored canso. Students today approaching the texts via the tired mythology of the 'woman on a pedestal' are confronted with a feminist critique of the troubadours' sexual politics.3 Rightly seeing a historical continuity between twelfth-century promotion of masculine desire ('courtly love'), and the present-day repression of women, feminist writers have good reason to annex the troubadours to their current political aims, and in unmasking sexism in the medieval lyric, to denounce it in contemporary society. Where values are concerned, what one sees is conditioned by the position from which one views. It is difficult for a twentieth-century feminist-influenced critic to do justice to the perceptions (or lack of them) about the 'self of twelfth- and thirteenth-century poets. For this reason, my argumentation is founded as closely as possible on the troubadours' linguistic and rhetorical usage; and I try to elucidate power relations, rather than attribute value, in so far as these processes are distinct, which I concede is probably not very far. The term gender (rather than sex) is used to mark dissociation 85

Gender and status from a biologically based view of sexual difference, and to suggest instead that the construction of 'masculine' and 'feminine' roles is a matter of social convention, and therefore at least in some degree arbitrary. As used by grammarians, gender merely means 'class' (usually noun class); but it lends itself particularly to denoting the acculturation of sexual roles because of the accident that in most modern Indo-European languages grammatical gender corresponds to a marked degree with sexual difference, without being confused with it. Modern Romance languages, with their two genders, offer the best analogue; and medieval Occitan could also be described as having two genders. But medieval grammars, whilst they recognize an habitual correspondence of the female with the grammatically feminine, and of the male with the grammatically masculine, do not see these as sole and mutually exclusive classes. They allow for a difference between semantic and grammatical gender, and for the existence of common or mixed genders.4 The gender system of male-authored poetry Taking my cue from these grammarians, I suggest that the poetry of the male troubadours does not divide the world simply into two genders but three: the masculine gender to which the troubadours belong; the feminine, to which most women belong; and the gender of the domna, which is mixed, partaking of both masculine and feminine. This mixed character is most apparent in the equivalence of the denotations domna and midons,5 and in the use of masculine senhals and male feudal images alongside evocations of female sexual attributes. The sexual world of the male-authored canso is therefore ordered in terms of a masculine-feminine hierarchy, and its supplementation by the domna.6 The values characteristically ascribed to the masculine and feminine poles are illustrated by Lanfranc Cigala's Escur prim chantar e sotil (xn), which blames critics of other people's verses in these words: Autr' avoleza femenil, que nais d'envei' ab feunia, fan cil qu'en blasmar l'autrui fil s'aprimon ab vilania. (vv. 31 -4) Another form of woman-like baseness, which is born of envy in conjunction with treachery, is committed by those who fortify themselves with uncourtliness in censuring someone else's son. 86

Gender The 'feminine* comprises this list of negative qualities aligned against the male 'son', a metaphor here for the work of literature. Autrui is probably also masculine: the lineage of father and son, that warp of the social fabric, is threatened by feminine depravity. A similar opposition between women and the whole architecture of masculine culture is found in Raimon de Miraval ix, Dels quatre mestiers valens. Raimon praises the capacity of the courtier to give pleasure, as he himself does through his songs (stanza I). Women, however, are uncomprehending of their merits; the use of the plural here signals that Raimon is talking not about the exceptional 'mixed' domna but about the 'feminine' in general: Per donas desconoisens, que per un' autra.n son detz, s'es d'algues camjatz mos sens, car las pluzors no sabon entendre lauzors; per q'ieu no vuelh mos bels ditz plazens cars pauzar davan a lurs nessis cujars. (vv. 10-16) Because of undiscriminating domnas, of whom there are ten for every one who isn't, my mind has been somewhat overcast, because the majority of them can't understand praise; and therefore I don't want to offer my fine, precious and agreeable words to their ignorant fancies. These women are not only excluded from the courtly values Raimon extols, but quite incapable of perceiving them in others (i.e. in men). Uc de Sant Circ voices a complaint of biblical commentators and theologians7 when he characterizes women (again represented by the term domna in the plural) as incapable of rational choice or fixity of purpose: Dompnas desconoissens ab lor leugiers talens an tant faich qe amors par als plus fis errors, qe non podon tener un jorn ferm lor voler, e par lor cortesia engans e falsetatz, e lor nescis baratz jois e bella coindia. (IX, vv. 11 -20) Indiscriminate women with their fickle desires have made love seem misguided in the eyes of the truest man, for they (the women) are unable to keep their will fixed on anything for so long as a day, whereas deception and falsehood seem to them 'courtesy', and their ignorant trickery joy and elegance.8 87

Gender and status The 'scientific' background to these assertions is the belief that woman is a man without ratio, an allegory of castration which identifies the phallus with reason.9 The tone of the song shows that this deprivation has no redeeming quality of innocence but leads straight to the perversion of the values on which the social order is based. Such perversity is defining of the 'feminine': D'aisso.s fa be femna parer ma domna, per qu'e.lh o retrai, car no vol so c'om deu voler, e so c'om li deveda, fai. (Bernart de Ventadorn XXXI, vv.33-6) In this respect my lady shows how truly she is a woman, and so it is that I accuse her, for she fails to want what she ought to want, and she does what she is forbidden to do.

According to male troubadours, women's mental weakness is especially displayed in their bad judgement relative to men. As Marcabru complains to Uc Catola, Delila left a better man for a worse one;10 and this commonplace of clerical misogyny surfaces in countless 'courtly' texts, like this one by Gaucelm Faidit: D'autre faillimen, reignon vilanamen dompnas, per q'ie.m n'azire e las en repren, qe, s'una a drut valen adreich ni conoissen don puosc' om gran ben dire, greu er longamen car tengutz ni amatz; mas us mal enseignatz, ab gran desconoissensa, er seigner clamatz! (XLII, vv. 49-60) Domnas [plural and 'feminine' again] behave contrary to courtliness by committing a further wrong, which I am angry at and reprehend, namely that if one of them has a meritorious lover, skilful, discerning and praiseworthy, then he won't be loved or cherished for long; instead she will call lord some crassly undiscerning roughneck.

Peire Vidal makes humorous use of the same topos when complaining that a lady has abandoned him, self-styled emperor, for a red-headed count {Estat al gran sazo (ix) vv.41-50). Bernart de Ventadorn laments that deceivers should gain more from love than true lovers, blaming this on women's gran falhimen (xxvi, vv.21-30).

Gender There are more sinister reasons why women go astray: lechery and venality. These 'feminine' vices provide the writers of satirical literature with inexhaustible material, 11 but they also form the bottom line of the depiction of women in 'courtly' texts. In his programmatic Chantars no pot gaire valer (n), Bernart de Ventadorn turns on Love's critics for failing to appreciate its true qualities, and for confusing it with amors comunaus (v. 18), by which he evidently means not 'shared love' but 'vulgar, commonplace love'. 12 Responsibility for this confusion lies with aquelas c'amon per avers e son merchadandas venaus. (vv.24-5) those women who love for money and are venal barterers. For this most 'courtly' of poets, women are the cause of the widespread degradation of the ideal he upholds. A particularly virulent attack on female sexual venality by Raimon de Miraval is discussed below. Although they admit the existence of inferior males among their own ranks, notably the lauzengeor, male troubadours take it for granted that men as a class are superior to women in all these respects: sound judgement, for them, is masculine judgement, and true love is masculine love. Composing what Gouiran calls 'un ensenhamen adresse a un jeune homme' 13 to the young count Geoffrey of Britanny, Bertran de Born praises a lady whose merits are obvious to men, but cause nothing but annoyance to other women: Rassa, tant creis e mont' e poia cella qu'es de toz enjanz voia sos pretz c'a las meillors enoia, c'una no.i a que re i noia de vezer que sa beutatz loia los pros a sos obs, cui qu'en coia; que.l plus conoissent e.l meillor mantenon ades sa lausor e la tenon per la gensor ... (I, vv. 1 -9) Rassa, for her who is devoid of all deceit, merit grows, rises and climbs, so that it annoys the best of women, for there is none who does not suffer from seeing how her beauty engages the most valiant men to serve her, whoever might feel incensed by that; for the bravest and most discerning men keep singing her praises and consider her to be the noblest/most beautiful... Although a woman is the ostensible object of this praise, Bertran is here chiefly celebrating male consensus in contrast with female 89

Gender and status division. Men's admiration is presented as 'objective', grounded in a proper estimation of the lady's worth; the distortion is all on the side of the women, who are under the thrall of jealousy. Many troubadours either implicitly or explicitly marginalize the women in their audience by addressing their songs to men, or by considering the act of singing in terms of rivalry between themselves and other male singers.14 Like proper reflection, proper feeling is a masculine domain. One form in which this idea recurs is the commonplace that 'man accedes to value through love', for instance: Ja no sera nuils horn ben fis contr' amor, si non l'es aclis. (Guilhem de Peitieu VII, vv.25-6) nuills horn non a fin pretz verai si d'amor non si met en plai. (Guilhem de Sant Leidier V, vv. 10-11) Bernartz, greu er pros ni cortes que ab amor no.s sap tener ... greu a om gran be ses dolor (Bernart de Ventadorn XXVIII, vv. 15-16, 20) No one can be really true, with respect to love, unless he is submissive to it. No one has true, genuine worth unless he is preoccupied with love. Bernart, it will be difficult for anyone to be worthy and courtly unless he knows how to abide in love... it is difficult for a man to achieve a great good without suffering for it. When Guiraut de Calanson speaks of the great power of love, he represents its constituency as exclusively male: per so car vens princes, dues e marques, comtes e reis. (VII, 5-6) because it overcomes princes, dukes, marquises, counts and kings. In personification allegory such as was studied in the last chapter, Amors is characteristically associated with the male lover; this is maintained in the romances.15 Thus troubadour lyrics written by men (as most of them are) inscribe a gender hierarchy which privileges the masculine over the feminine. The hierarchy is grounded in essentalism (the feminine 'lacks' the qualities of the masculine, and is 'naturally' corrupt), and justified by clerical authority. By virtue of it, the masculine subject occupies a position of superiority to the feminine - at least in so far 90

Gender as conscious formulations are concerned. It is likely that fear is an important unconscious element in this misogyny, as the subsequent argument will show. The problem with this hierarchy is that it presents 'women' as so reprehensible that men's desire for them, and love poetry expressing that desire, become implausible. The solution of constructing a third gender, of women-to-whom-lovepoems-can-be-written, solves this problem but raises new ones. In projecting a semi-masculine identity onto the love object, the distinctions between self and other, subject and object, individual and social are all to some degree obscured, while the 'threat' of the 'feminine' is not always convincingly evaded. The third gender is sexually female,16 but its sexuality is consciously presented as passive. In cases where the whole body of the domna is imagined or glimpsed it is reclining alone, welcoming, and illumined: Las! e viure que.m val, s'eu no vei a jornal mo fi joi natural en leih, sotz fenestral, cors blanc tot atretal com la neus a nadal. (Bernart de Ventadorn XVII, vv.33-8) quan la candela.m fetz vezer vos baizan risen, a! cal ser! (Raimbaut d'Aurenga XXII, vv.65-6) qe.l seu bel cors baisan rizen descobra e qe.l remir contra. 1 lum de la lampa. (Arnaut Daniel XII, vv.31-2) Alas, and what is the point of life if I do not daily see my true, natural joy in bed, under the window, her white body just like the snow at Christmas? when the candle showed you to me, kissing and smiling, ah! what an evening! when she unclothes her lovely body, kissing and smiling, and I gaze on it against the lamplight.

Ideally from the troubadour's point of view, the domna's sexuality expresses itself in acceptance and welcome. An optimistic portrait in Giraut de Bornelh takes this form: Dolz' e bona, umils, de gran paratge, en fachs gentils, ab solatz avinen, agradiva vas me a tota gen. (I, vv. 16-18) 91

Gender and status Sweet and good-natured, gracious, nobly born, distinguished in her actions, pleasing in providing comfort, welcoming towards me in all company. The soft yieldingness of the 'feminine' discerned by patristic thinkers (for example, in the etymology mulier < mollitia of Isidore of Seville)17 is here read not as stupid perversity but as a gracious accessibility. The terms aculhirs, belsemblan, solatz, humils, doussor provide an important component of the ideal domna's psychology. Other aspects of it such as cortesia, franquesa, paratge, pretz, valor are held in common with the troubadour, or represent the qualities to which he aspires. 18 The domna is therefore morally and psychologically androgynous. In terms of social status, however, she is masculine. Imagery derived from feudalism makes the domna the lover's lord from Guilhem de Peitieu onwards,19 and credits her with masculine powers such as making war, appearing in court and granting territories.20 Most of the linguistic structures used to refer to the domna avoid insistence on the female. In early troubadours she is confused with the joi which she brings or the amors she inspires.21 She is often presented via the periphrasis cors, which means 'person' as well as body, and is masculine in gender.22 Likewise there is an overwhelming preference for masculine senhals, even when they denote a female physical attraction such as the lady's eyes (Bel Vezer). Raimbaut d'Aurenga's Assatz sai d'amor ben parlar (xx) illustrates the difference beween the 'feminine' and the 'mixed' gender.23 Spoof though this no doubt is, the explicit humour is directed at differentiating Raimbaut from other lovers; my concern is with the way he distinguishes his domna from other 'women'. After an ambiguous opening stanza professing inadequacy to advise other lovers since speech does not further his cause with his own domna, the poet declares that his 'courtly' credentials (fis e bos e francs e liaus, v. 8) entitle him to deliver instruction, and eventually he releases his formula for seduction: Si.us fan avol respos avar, vos las prenetz a menassar; e si vos fan respos peiors datz lor del ponh per mieg sas nars; e si son bravas siatz braus! Ab gran mal n'auretz gran repaus. (vv. 19-24) If they make you a base, mean reply, then start threatening them; and if they make a worse answer, biff them on the nose with your fist; if they act tough, you act tough! By hurting them, you will get great peace. 92

Gender If this doesn't work, he suggests slandering them in hideous songs, boasting, and being sure to select women of the worst character (w. 25 -33). He himself has no need of such instruction, as he explains in a further ambiguous passage (vv. 35-7) which can be read in two ways: he has no sexual interest in women, or, his sexual concerns would not be furthered by such advice. Amusedly writing his own behaviour off as folly (v. 42), he recapitulates the earlier ambiguities in a froth of apparent contradictions in the final stanza: Mas per so.m puesc segurs guabar qu'ieu, et es mi grans deshonors, non am ren, ni sai qu'es enquar! Mas mon Anel am, que.m ten clar, quar fon el det... ar son, trop sors! Lengua, non mais! que trop parlars fai piegz que pechatz criminaus; per qu'ieu.m tenrai mon cor enclaus. (w. 49-56) But I can make airy claims [about women] quite safely, because to my shame I don't love anyone, or know what love is as yet! But I love my Ring, which keeps me bright, because it was on my finger... You are too forward, sound! Tongue, no more! for too much talk is worse than mortal sin, and so I shall keep my heart sealed. The ambiguities of this text, and the contrast between the poet's love and other people's, depend on a radical distinction between 'women' and the domna. The courtship procedures advocated in the satirical ensehnamen are predicated on the misogynistic topos that 'women' will always prefer the worst and most boorish lover. The poet does not love such 'women' (v. 48), and has no more interest in them than if they were his sisters (v. 37); but then, he has his Ring. Mon Anel is a masculine senhal; its connotations are similarly masculine, deriving from the use of rings in feudal agreements. Its denotation in context is sexually female, or rather, the sex of an individual female: but this sex is divorced from any body but Raimbaut's own, having been on his finger ... Only the ironic use of the motif of discretion (w. 53 - 4 ) draws attention to the extraordinary lubricity of this image, and binds up the 'inability to speak' topos which floated so ambiguously in the opening stanza. He has scored more success with his domna than he can admit, and naturally the crude practices he advocates in the pursuit of 'women' are irrelevant when courting a member of the 'mixed' gender.

93

Gender and status 'Self and 'other' in male-authored poetry Raimbaut d'Aurenga's song marks a comic assimilation of the domna to the masculine 'self (and body) of the poet, and an equally comic relegation of the 'feminine' to an otherness that can be pursued by other lovers. A more typical song which also relies on this distinction between 'women' and the single, exceptional domna is Gaucelm Faidit's Si anc nuills horn (XLI), where the relation of the 'mixed' gender to the 'masculine', and its differentiation from the 'feminine', give rise to unease rather than humour. The song is a requite d'amour in which the first-person role is wholly encoded within a masculine symbolic. He hopes for an onrad' aventura (v.4) by following the dreich viatge (v. 11), terms which link his aspirations with those of a romance hero. The domna is rhetorically drawn in to this world of masculine representations. The term sidons/midons in vv.4, 9, and 13 keys into a whole network of feudal metaphors: anxiety about gatge, don autrei, paraula segura (w. 21 -2); self-doubt regarding his vassalatge and ardimen (vv. 31 -2); and a flood of legal terms - leialmen sesfalsura (v.2),forfaitura (v. 14), senhoratge (v. 43), tortz o drechura (v. 44). Although the domna is referred to by feminine pronouns (w. 23, 24, 36,40) and alluded to in a generalization about pro dompna veraia (v. 47), the prevailing tone of the eulogy adheres resolutely to 'courtly' androgyny: ... ill es tant franch' e de bel estatge que la valors e.l pretz, c'a lieis s'atura fai a totz parer c'Amors i aia poder, qe lai on es valors gaia deuria merces caber ... que tan dopte s'onor e son paratge, son gai joven e sa bella faitura ... (vv.23-8, 33-4) She has such noble candour, and is so well-born, that the distinction and merit attaching to her make it apparent to everyone that she falls within Love's empire; for where there is gaiety and worth, mercy ought to be found ... for I fear her social prestige and her rank, her gaiety and youth and her beautiful form ... The poet finds it understandably hard to broach the subject of sex with this ambiguous figure. The whole song is an elaborate avoidance of a direct request, a ceremonious periphrasis evoking alcun covinen plazer(y. 6), merces (v. 28), deviously pretending not to ask for what it is in fact pleading for throughout: 94

Gender qu'eu no. ill deman, tan tern dir forfaitura, baisar ni jazer ... (vv. 14-15) for I do not ask, I am so afraid of acting wrongly, for kissing or lying together ... Instead, he dares to hope, in a further periphrasis, for ... onrat jorn e plazen ser e tot so c'a drut s'eschaia.

(vv. 18-19)

an honoured day and an evening of pleasure and everything that might fall to the lot of a lover. Delicacy eventually corners him into the admission that it is better to be unrewarded by a worthy lady than have shameful intercourse with an evil one (vv. 46-50), when mention of the latter offers a heaven-sent opportuntiy for voicing sexual desire - except that now it is displaced onto the mala domna and consequently condemned: Q'ieu.n sai una q'es de tant franc usatge c'anc non gardet honor sotz sa Centura sieus es lo tortz s'ieu en die vilanatge! qe, senes geing e senes cobertura, fai a totz vezer cum poing en se deschazer. (vv. 51 -6) For I know of one who is so 'generous' in her customs that she never kept honour beneath her belt - it's her fault if I speak coarsely of her! - for without guile or concealment she reveals to all men how she hastens towards degeneracy. The 'feminine' gender negates the feudal values upheld by the 'mixed' one: franc usatge is here ironic, honour lost, tort ascribed, and vilanatge unavoidable. The sexual licence of the 'feminine' woman is graphically suggested by its physical location sotz sa Centura and outrage duly expressed in deschazer. The three genders of male-authored troubadour poetry emerge here in their classic form: a 'masculine' subject of desire; a 'feminine' gender whose readiness to sate men's desire incurs their contempt; and a third, 'mixed' gender which assimilates the domna to 'masculine' norms, while continuing to represent her desirability as female. Construction of this third gender produces an uneasy mixture of frustration (as the domna reflects back elements of the troubadour's own masculinity) combined with self-righeousness and covert voyeurism (as the contrast between the 'feminine' and the 'mixed' genders is both affirmed and questioned). 24 95

Gender and status Subject-object roles in male-authored poetry Often, as was seen in Chapter 2, the domna's body is chopped up into tempting mouthfuls, a smile here, an eye there. The point seems to be to maintain the sexual interest of the man without the threat of an active female sexuality; to keep sexual activity under control, releasing its excitement a little at a time; to keep the domna, therefore, in the role of object. Requests that she fulfil this role solicit the qualities of aculhirs, merces, doussor etc., which constitute the passive pole of her moral androgyny. The sense of being a desiring subject is often bolstered by the troubadours' evocation of unnamed rivals: false lovers, rivals, gilos, the occasional husband. The poet's desire to place his passion on a willing recipient is so strong that queues of substitute domnas can present themselves to his imagination, as in this humorous example from Giraut de Bornelh: Mas can veirai ome de so linhatge, baizar l'ai tan, tro la bocha m'i fen; tan d'amor port al seu bel cors jauzen! (I, 25-7) But whenever I see a man of her lineage, I shall kiss him till my mouth splits, I feel so much love for her lovely, joyous person/body.

The assimilation of the domna to a masculine social identity gives this fantasy an edge of tension. The very strength of the troubadour's desire means that his domna has power over him. This is often represented by the attribution to her of the 'masculine' status of lordship or sovereignty, whereby she can grant or withold, aid or attack, pursue at law or betray her lover, who thus comes to present himself as object. From the very earliest texts the lover also wants to become an object for his domna's contemplation, just as he desires to gaze on her: Ai! car me fos lai pelegris, si que mos fustz e mos tapis fos pels sieus belhs huelhs remiratz! (Jaufre Rudel IV, vv.33-5) c'aicel jorns me sembla nadaus c'ab sos bels olhs espiritaus m'esgarda; mas so fai tan len c'us sols dias me dura cen! (Bernart de Ventadorn II, vv.46-9) Oh if only I were a pilgrim there, so that my staff and my cloak might be gazed upon by her beautiful eyes! 96

Gender for the day on which she gazes at me with her beautiful, spiritual eyes, seems to me like Christmas; but she is so slow to do so that a whole day is like a hundred! The domna not only looks but speaks. Whereas Guilhem de Peitieu awaits her messenger (x, vv. 7-8), Jaufre hopes to converse with her in person (iv, v. 26), Bernart de Ventadorn records a conversation with her (xxvi, w . 54-6), and Raimbaut d'Aurenga accords her half a tenso (xxv). Whether this is a genuine collaborative composition, or (as more widely held) an imaginary debate, it marks the rapid progress of the domna as subject in the first half of the twelfth century.25 The fact that the masculine speaker is thus cast in the object position is not perceived as a degeneration. The suppliant troubadour shares the moral androgyny of the domna, becoming like her umil, dous and avinen. From the mid-twelfth century onwards, therefore, the canso is likely to exhibit an alternation of subject and object roles, which together construct the experience of desire from the standpoint of the male troubadour. This giddying alternation between passivity and activity is usually perceived as uplifting, exalting, and the source of unqualified moral improvement for the troubadour-subject: Tant ai mo cor pie de joya, tot me desnatura ... c'ab lo ven et ab lo ploya me creis l'aventura, per que mos chans mont 'e poya e mos pretz melhura. (Bernart de Ventadorn IV, vv. 1-2, 5-8) Tot iorn meillur et esmeri car la gensor serv e coli... (Arnaut Daniel X, w. 8 -9) My heart is so full of joy that everything is transformed for me; for with the wind and rain my happiness grows, so that my song climbs and rises up and my value increases. Every day I grow better and more pure, for I serve and venerate the noblest lady ... There seems no reason not to believe that this emotion is not, indeed, an improvement on the degrading lust for the 'feminine', though given that the domna's gender is an effect of language and metaphor it offers little consolation to 'real' women (see below). Less commonly, the subject affirms absolute control over the textual experience by admitting it all to be a creation of his imagination. 97

Gender and status Thus Elias Cairel (song vn) rebuts the complaints of the forsaken Isabella with the avowal that courting her was merely an exercise of his professional talents; Raimbaut de Vaqueiras claims that if his lady is not forthcoming with her favours he will simply stop loving her (VII vv.41-4). There is, however, a further possibility in this play of subject and object: that the domna will revert from the 'mixed' gender to the 'feminine'. The temptations of the flesh which 'women' embody pose a constant threat to men's salvation. As Ferrante puts it, 'the object of man's temptation becomes the cause of it; in other words, he projects his own weakness onto its object' (Woman as Image p. 21). The 'promotion' of woman from object (of desire) to subject (temptress) is made conditional on the moral turpitude of the subject role. Conversely, this misogynistic fantasy 'explains' the man's helplessness as victim, and so relieves him of guilt. Women portrayed as 'feminine' are therefore standardly subjects, albeit alien and hostile ones.26 Comparison with wild animals may be used to convey this vision of savage alterity. Thus for example in a song in which his lady has degenerated from the 'mixed' gender to the licentious and venal 'feminine' one, Raimon de Miraval writes: ... midons es a semblan de leona;27 ar sai que.s tocan las peiras d'Alzona,28 pus premiers pot intrar selh que mais dona. (VIII, w. 6-8) my lady is like a lioness; now I know that the stones of Ausonne come together, since the man who pays the most can penetrate there. He leaves her, not wishing to be a cuckold, but regretting he did not discover her venality earlier since he could then have made use of it: Mas, s'ieu saupes qui.lh fos leos, ieu Pagra avut caval ferran, pus de lieys non es poderos horns, si non es d'aital semblan. (vv. 17-20) Had I know who was going to act as lion to her, I could have played the grey horse, since no one can posses her unless he is of such [i.e. bestial! appearance. I have altered Topsfield's punctuation at v. 17, where he prints qu'ilh, translating 'qu'elle fut pareille au lion'. 29 Raimon is comparing her animal copulation with an unworthy competitor to the 'stallion' she might have had in him, had he known how easily she could be seduced.30 'Courtly' troubadours live with the anxiety that their domna might turn into such a beast as this,31 even if outside satirical and moralizing poetry such fear is rarely realized. The 'subject' role 98

Gender of the first-person speaker of the lyric is precarious; or rather, the masculine subject is unsure how far he is subject to feminine desire, how far 'he' is the locus of desire himself. This precariousness is well illustrated by one of the songs assigned to the corpus of women troubadours, but almost certainly written by a man.32 The tenso between Rosin and domna H presents a female persona corresponding with the misogynistic 'feminine' gender of male-authored poetry; the masculine persona, on the other hand, wishes to persevere in 'courtly' aspirations. The topic of discussion is this. A woman with two lovers wants them to swear that they will do no more than kiss and hold her before she will go to bed with them. One dares not take the oath; the other hastily swears, but with no intention of keeping his word. Which lover acts better? Rosin defends the 'courtly' one who respected the sanctity of the oath and shrank from disobeying his domna or committing violence against her; whereas domna H applauds the initiative of the oath-breaker who saup gen sa valor enansar, quan pres tot so que.lh fon plus car mentre.lh fon l'amors aiziva. (vv.46-8) knew how to increase his valour by taking everything that was most dear to him while love was available. According to this fiction, the knight who resolves on what is effectively rape is acting in conformity with his lady's wishes, and gratifying her desires.33 However active his role in appearance, he is not responsible: she 'asked for' it, and domna H endorses her desire. The desire of the masculine subject is displaced onto the 'feminine', allowing him simultaneously to uphold 'courtliness' and to achieve sexual gratification. Thus the construction of 'woman' into two genders by masculine discourse problematizes masculine subjectivity even as it promotes it. The man is constantly being drawn into an object role (one where he is subject to another's desire) by the possibility of the woman assuming 'feminine' agency. The tenso is a work of cavalier cynicism, exploiting the gender system of the male-authored canso to provide an alibi for masculine sexual desire. It takes the jaundiced brilliance of Marcabru to expose the self-deception on which construction of the 'mixed gender' is founded, which he does in the extremely difficult Contra Vivern que s'enansa.34 In this song, derived rhyme sets up chains of morphologically linked rhyme words whose endings alternate between -a and the absence of a, suggesting the translation of experience between a 'feminine' polarity and one which is de-'feminized'. The song itself 99

Gender and status is a palimpsest of two texts: a denunciation of the 'feminine', which is clearest in stanzas n, vi and vn, and a love song, which is least ambiguous in stanza IX where the love object is a domna described in the sexually neutral vocabulary of the traditional lyric: D'aquesta qu'ieu chant sobransa sos pretz senes devinalh et en valor es sobrans ... (vv.43-5) Of this one of whom I sing the merit is unsurpassed, without exercise of the imagination: and in worth she is supreme ... The song thus acknowledges the duality of male emotional experience (love of the domna and fear of the 'feminine'), which is commented on via the ambiguities of stanza iv: L'amar[s] d'aquesta no.m falh pels tries enojos d'amansa, ab sol qu'en amar no.m falha e.m sia d'amar amans. (vv. 19-22) I do not cease to love this lady (I escape no bitterness from this lady) through the vexatious tricks of loving, provided she does not fail me in love (bitterness) and is loving towards love (bitterness) for my sake. Furthermore, the most difficult stanza (stanza II) seeks to explain it: Mos talens e sa semblansa so e no so d'un entalh, pueys del talent nays semblans e pueys ab son dig Pentalha, quar si l'us tray ab mal vesc lo brico, l'autre l'envesca. (vv. 13-18) My desire and her appearance are, and are not, of the same cut; since from the desire the appearance is born, but then she sculpts it with her words, for if the one [the appearance] draws the fool with an evil bird-lime (decoy?), the second [her words] limes him fast. This passage depends on a fowling image which has been explained by Dafydd Evans. The lover-poet is a fool (brico, v. 18), caught in the snare of the fowler who is his lady. Her trap is set up by means of her charms, her appearance (semblansa) and her words, which between them lure the fool and hold him fast.35 The song uses this metaphor in conjunction with that of sculpture to describe the play of subject and object in the experience of desire. The image of the beloved object is first produced by the one who desires her (v. 15), that is, it is a projection of the subject's fantasy or aspiration. 100

Gender But having thus been fixed upon, the beloved becomes in her turn a subject who, through her words, modifies the image which the lover has of her. Thus desire and appearance are, and are not, the same (vv. 13-14), and that which was desired turns into a trap for the desirer (vv. 17-18). In this way the love object or domna passes out of the control of the lover and, as subject, exposes him to all the dangers of the 'feminine'. (This 'feminine' is close to the diabolical, since the fowling metaphor is used of the devil in religious and moralizing literature.)36 The metaphor of the sculptor relates simultaneously to the artistic imagination of the poet 'creating' a love object in the image of male desire, and to the threat of the malign feminine 'carving' the mind of her victim. The two models of the female, the 'mixed' and the 'feminine', and male desire for them both, are therefore disquietingly superimposed in this song. The 'mixed' one emerges as a lure of language, just as the 'feminine' is a lure to the body and its perceptions. Marcabru's commentary is, however, unique; and, with only one MS attestation, apparently unheeded by his contemporaries. Male-authored poetry and masculine law One of the principal safeguards which male-authored poetry devises against potential confusion of the domna with the 'feminine' is feudal imagery. Principles of feudal exchange are invoked to regulate the circulation of service and reward. The power invested in the domna is thereby held in check by masculine law; and her political nature, rooted in the masculine, becomes an extension of the lover's. To what extent does the subordination of 'individual' love to 'social' regulation affect the subjectivity of the male troubadour? How does the use of feudal metaphors affect the status of the domnal Discussion of these complex questions is reserved for the second part of this chapter. The poetry of the trobairitz The foregoing discussion helps to explain why there is so little medieval Occitan poetry by women writers. Male troubadours speak from a position of consensus, and use imagery in which male homosocial bonds provide the norms of moral and social interaction, but they create division among women by separating them into two distinct gender categories. I am unable to agree with Paden ('Utrum copularentuf p. 80) that 'the trobairitz could not easily express in song attitudes determined primarily by their female sex, because the 101

Gender and status preponderant poetic model of the age was predicated not on sexual identity but on autonomous poetic convention'. Paden is confusing the 'autonomous' with the 'masculine', a confusion fostered by maleauthored song, which works to reinforce male sexual identity, and to represent it as 'identity' itself,37 whilst undermining the sexual identity of women. From what subject position could a woman compose? The 'feminine' of misogynistic fantasy is hardly a position with which to identify. Yet the 'mixed' gender is by definition exclusive; although it sanctions certain 'female' traits (softness, beauty, sexual passivity), these are not ones which make for articulateness, whilst others of its characteristics (lordship and power) are transplanted from a masculine ethos. How easy would it be for a woman to write from within a masculine role? Moreover if a woman did write in the voice of a domna, how could one be sure it was a historical woman speaking? This problem is given practical realization in disagreements over attribution, by both medieval and modern editors. If the women writers uncritically use the same gender system as the men, then ascription of their texts to biological women is of only contingent interest and does not imply anything about their poetry. Only if they use this gender system ironically, or attempt to reform it, will their status as subjects be distinguishable from the masculine model. With few exceptions, female subjectivity in the dialogue poems seems to me to be assimilated to the male gender system. Perhaps this is because the majority of these texts were indeed composed by men.38 Alternatively, the dialogue form may be the controlling factor; even if these stanzas are by women, their position in the text is scarcely more free than that of the fictional women in male-authored narrative genres, such as the pastorela.39 (It is possible, however, that as in the pastorela, the female voice in tensos and partimens is used to ironize the complacency of the male speaker, if not to develop the concept of femininity.) The domna's alleged lordship is at issue in four of the tensos which are presented as joint compositions by a male and female poet. (The male poets in question are Giraut de Bornelh, Gui d'Ussel, Pistoleta, and Lanfranc Cigala.)40 The link between this 'authority' and the domna's passivity figures in two further ones. Raimbaut d'Aurenga and Elias Cairel both clearly intend to abandon their domnas regardless of their complaints; the exchanges reveal the same gender roles - whereby 'masculine' desire takes the 'mixed' gender as its (temporary) recipient - as characterize men's verse. Similarly, the fantasy that masculine timidity and humility 'deserve' reciprocation 102

Gender could be seen as underwriting the exchanges of coblas between Garsenda and her lover, and between two anonymous poets.41 A woman may indeed be the speaker in these two texts, but her part is dictated by the male creation of a noble, acquiescent sexuality in the 'mixed' gender. Two further dialogue poems are constructed using the misogymstiz persona of the male troubadours' 'feminine' gender: the dialogue between Rosin and domna H (analysed above) and the pornographic exchanges between Montan and his eager partner.42 That leaves only two of the ostensibly male-female dialogue poems as possibly representing a woman's voice: the tenso between Raimbaut de Vaqueiras and the Genoesa, and the coblas exchanged between Lombarda and Bernart Arnaut. These are interesting for their respective attacks on two devices for 'neutralizing' women's sexuality: their incorporation within the male political hierarchy (the Genoesa is not an 'overlord' but an Italian bourgeoise),43 and erosion of their identity by means of a senhal (Lombarda's coblas play on the various appellations used of herself and other domnas).44 In the cansos of the trobairitiz?5 there is less obvious readiness to identify with the role of domna. True, the adoption of a masculine role is instanced in the Comtessa de Dia's comparison of herself with a male hero (n v. 10; iv vv. 13 -14). There is some feudal vocabulary, as when she expresses consciousness of her poder (iv, v. 18) and wishes to autreiar her heart and love to her lover (iv, v. 15). But masculine status is not assumed with any confidence. More characteristic is Castelloza (II v.45) regretting her lack of podiratge over her lover. In the Comtessa de Dia's best-known song, A chanter m 'er de so q'ieu no volria, the first-person speaker hovers between endorsing a set of values which have public sanction (i.e. are standard in male poetry) and lamenting their lack of correlation with her own experience. Disappointedly she enumerates the qualities of a domna which she possesses, but which have not 'worked' for her: c'atressi.m sui enganad' e trahia cum degr' esser, s'ieu fos desavinens.

(vv.6-7)

For I have been deceived and betrayed just as I should have been had I been unpleasing.

Her first impulse is to accuse her lover of pride (v. 15); if she incarnates his values, and he rejects her, then it is he who must have contravened them. But she hesitates to adopt such a strong line, and when the accusation is repeated, it is palliated by endearments and deflected 103

Gender and status into an alternative mals talens, the obvious implication of which is that the fault might, after all, lie with her: Valer mi deu mos pretz e mos paratges e ma beutatz e plus mos fis coratges, e voilh saber, lo mieus bels amics gens, per que vos m'etz tant fers ni tant salvatges, non sai si s'es orguoills o mals talens. (w.29-30, 33-5) My merit and my rank and my beauty and still more my true heart should prevail on my behalf ... and I want to know, my handsome, noble love, why you are so fierce and grim towards me: I don't know if it is pride or anger.

The first-person subject of this song, it appears, has all the qualities of a domna except poder; she does not have the strength to put her lover in the wrong, although this is what the entire text is striving to achieve. Her claims to domna status are therefore self-undermining. Similarly, Azalais de Porcairagues appears to identify herself as a domna when she defends the lesser nobility against the ric ome in the famous literary controversy about whom to love: Dompna met mot mal s'amor qu'ab trop ric ome plaideia, ab plus aut de vavassor; e s'il o fai, il folleia. (vv. 17-20) A lady makes a bad choice of lover who becomes involved with a wealthy man, higher than the rank of vavassor, and if she does so, she acts foolishly. This stanza was originally understood by Sakari as containing an allusion to Guilhem de Sant Leidier's song ill, w. 41 - 8 . On this basis he conjectured that Azalais must have left the ric Raimbaut d'Aurenga (who designates her by the senhal Joglar) for the relatively humble Guilhem.46 Following a re-evaluation of the passage in Guilhem, however, Sakari withdrew this suggestion.47 The biographical conjecture therefore founders, and with it any guide as to the status of Azalais's lover. Indeed, it becomes less clear that a contrast is being made between Raimbaut and another man. That it is the poet Raimbaut d'Aurenga who is referred to in vv. 14 and 42 of Azalais's song is extremely probable, in view of the similarities between Azalais's text and at least two of Raimbaut's poems.48 The association of the unusual word esglai with a paradox about speaking truth in Azalais, vv. 13-14 104

Gender E s'ieu faill ab motz verais, d'Aurenga me moc l'esglais And if I go astray by speaking the truth, the dismay came to me from Orange recalls Raimbaut x x n , vv. 3 5 - 9 , a passage boasting of his prowess as a lover: c'autras m'en faran faiturar, don m'esglai: qu'en farai? Cobrirai doncx mon gran ben ab jauzen ver? so that other women might seek to win my love by witchcraft, at which I am dismayed: what shall I do? Shall I conceal my great asset with rejoicing truth? Another parallel is Raimbaut xv, where the singer disclaims any similarity between himself and the slanderers who have injured him: que s'amava eel que retrais so don me nais aquest esglais no.il faria enog ni fais. (vv. 33-5) for if [the slanderer] were in love, who told me this which causes me such dismay, I would not place obstacles or troubles in his way. This latter song, like Azalais's, starts with a winter opening which presages the hurdles in the path of love (in Raimbaut the slanderers; the obstacle is not specified in Azalais). The opening lines make a relationship between the two songs seem likely: Ar em al freg temps vengut, e.l gels e.l neus e la faingna ... (Azalais, vv. 1-2) Entre gel e vent e fane ... (Raimbaut XV, v. 1) Now we have come to the cold season, and the ice and the snow and the mud... Amid the ice and wind and mud ... In the part of Azalais's text which Sakari took to be about Guilhem, the second lover, there is a further similarity with Raimbaut xv: Bels amics, de bon talan Son ab vos toz jornz en gatge, cortez' e de bel semblan, sol no.m demandes outrage; tost en venrem a l'assai qu'en vostra merce.m metrai. (Azalais, vv.33-8) 105

Gender and status E, dompna, car tant m'estanc? qu'eu no.us veg, per als non resta mais tern - c'aisso.m n'espaventa c'a vos fos dans, dompna genta. Mas mandatz mi per plans essais, per tal cobrir sol sapcha.l cais! (Raimbaut XV, w. 43 -8) My handsome love, I am pledged to you at all times with a good will, courtly and welcoming, provided you do not ask anything shocking of me; we will soon put that to the test, for I shall place myself at your mercy, Oh lady, why am I so at a standstill? The reason I do not see you is nothing other than my fear - for this alarms me, lady, that it might cause you harm. But send for me to put it to the test, and I shall be so discreet about it that only my head shall know!

It is not implausible to assume that the two songs are involved in an intertextual dialectic, in Gruber's sense, since Raimbaut xv (and indeed xxn) are both addressed to Joglar, the identification of whom with Azalais still holds.49 The remaining stanza of Azalais's song which, on Sakari's theory, was addressed to Guilhem, says nothing that could not equally be applied to Raimbaut: Amic ai de gran valor que sobre toz seignoreia, e non a cor trichador vas me ... (vv.25-8) I have a lover of immense worth, lord of all, yet he does not have a deceiver's heart towards me ... (Ironic) asseveration of his own supreme worth is omnipresent in Raimbaut's poetry. If seignoreia is understood as meaning 'holds sovereignty' or even 'lords it', the appropriateness to Raimbaut is yet more marked. With Guilhem de Sant Leidier eliminated and Azalais's engagement with the poetry of Raimbaut established, the status of the passage condemning domnas who love a ric ome needs to be rethought. Raimbaut is not only a supporter of the ric ome, he is himself a copper-bottomed exemplar. Is Azalais's condemnation of the lady who loves a ric ome intended to be jocular? The tone of the rest of her song isn't. I think it more likely that this stanza expresses uneasiness. Does 'loving' Raimbaut put her in the wrong? He calls her domna, but is she really one if the men of Velay say otherwise?50 It is certain, in any event, that Azalais is not identifying with the domna she invokes. The quotation of male opinion, more explicit here 106

Gender than in the Comtessa de Dia song discussed above, is associated once more with disaffection and self-doubt. This uncertainty of identification with the domna role is linked, in the cansos of the trobairitz, with a prevailing sense of anxiety. The songs profess fear of committing a moral or social fault, innocence in the face of unspoken accusations, and concern at what people will say: prec li qe m'aia crezenssa, ni horn no.l puosca far crezen q'ieu fassa vas lui faillimen, sol non trob en lui faillensa. (Comtessa de Dia I, vv.29-32)51 Cel que.m blasma vostr' amor ni.m defen non pot en far en re mon cor meillor. (Clara d'Anduza vv.9-10) ... qu'en non vueill puscaz dir qu'eu anc ves vos agues cor de faillir; c'auriaz i qualque razonamen, s'ieu avia ves vos fait faillimen. (Castelloza I, v.14-16)52 I beg him to believe me and that no one should persuade him that I might fail him, provided I find no failing in him. Any man who blames me for loving you, or tries to stop me, cannot in any way improve the disposition of my heart. for I don't want you to be able to say that I ever had a heart to fail you, for then you might have some justification, if I had failed you.

This anxiety is easily explained by the vulnerability of a female speaker vis-a-vis the gender system of male discourse. The 'mixed' gender is the domain of a privileged few; can they claim membership? And what is the alternative? Only Castelloza goes so far as to imply fear that she might be classed with the 'feminine' (ill, vv. 31 - 2 , Mai ag' ieu s'anc cor volatge / vos aid), but it is not implausible to suggest that all the trobairitz were nervous of such a fate. Hence a prevailing desire to conform to public opinion as well as to that of their amic. The Comtessa de Dia, for example, justifies her choice of lover by stressing that other men admire him: Floris, la vostra valenssa saben li pro e li valen. (I, vv. 33-4) Floris, upright and worthy men acknowledge your worth. 107

Gender and status The same song defends her advances with the claim that men of worth do not condemn a domna who loves openly (i, vv.23-5). The first person here appears to be negotiating her distance from the 'feminine' with anxious care. These three interrelated features of women's poetry - uneasiness about identification with the role of domna, fear of transgression and concern about public opinion - find their most extreme expression in the songs of Castelloza. The singer recognizes that her lover deserves a dompna d'ausorparatge (II, 26-7), but that she is not it. The power of her lover's domna is contrasted with her own weakness in the episode of the glove: she stole his glove, but then returned it in case his lady might turn against him (n, vv. 38-45). She is aware that her courtship of the man she loves is likely to be condemned by other women who expect to be wooed by men (in, vv. 21 - 4 ) and also that it flouts male expectations: Eu sai ben qu'a mi esta gen, si ben dison tuig que mout descove que dompna prec ja cavalier de se, ni que.l tenga totz terns tarn lone pressic. (I, vv. 17-20) I know very well that it pleases me, even if people say that it is most unfitting for a lady ever to woo a knight, or address long pleas to him. But the only alternative to speech is death: Mas cil c'o diz non sap gez ben chausir, qu'ieu vueil preiar ennanz que.m lais morir.

(I, vv. 21 - )

But whover says that is unable to perceive that I would rather woo than let myself die. Paden and his collaborators in the edition of Castelloza's songs point to the mention of death in every one, and suggest that this death instinct is the concomitant of a will to power. 'Castelloza feels guilt because she violates the female role... Her love for her amic violates his alliance with another woman as well as her own marriage' (p. 166). They insist that she is masochistic: 'she gains satisfaction because of her suffering and not in spite of it' (ibid.). I see little evidence of satisfaction in these songs.53 As a first-person speaker, Castelloza is marginalized by her disaffection with the male gender system and by her inability to construct an alternative to it. She does not 'violate the female role' so much as arbitrarily constructed gender roles which problematize the subjectivity of historical women. It is not surprising that she represents herself as suffering from an illness which will prove fatal if a man does not restore her: 108

Gender Cab petit de malanansa mor dompna s'om noca.l lansa. (Ill, vv. 38-40) For a lady dies from a little disease if no man ever casts it out.54

The female body is perceived as infected, its desire a disease which only a man can cure, provided she submits to the (male) violence implicit in lansar.55 Subject and object in the cansos of the trobairitz Given women's disadvantaged position in the male-constructed gender system, one would expect them to hesitate, like the Comtessa de Dia, to adopt an active role: Mout mi plai car sai que val mais sel q'ieu plus desir que m'aia, e eel que primiers lo m'atrais Dieu prec que gran ioi l'atraia. (I, vv. 9-12) It pleases me greatly to know that he whom I most desire to possess me should be the best of men, and I pray that God will give great joy to the man who first attracted me to him.

The singer's desire results from a man's intervention and takes the form of wanting to be possessed by the man she loves. At the end of the same song she confirms her object status by wishing to be taken under her lover's protection (I, vv.35-6). Castelloza similarly sees herself as deserted and killed by her amic: Car me juretz e.m pleviz que als jorns de vostra vida non acses dompna mas me. E si d'autra vos perte mi avez mort' e traida. (Ill, vv.4-8) For you swore and pledged to me that never in your life would you have another lady but me, and if you care about another, you have killed and betrayed me.

But this stance is not characteristic of the women's songs. Instead, they expose themselves as agents despite the risk of condemnation (see above). The Comtessa de Dia readily assumes a sexually active role: Ben volria mon cavallier tener un ser e mos bratz nut (IV, vv.9-10) I would indeed like to hold my knight naked in my arms for an evening, 109

Gender and status and sees herself as at risk from rival women: c'una non sai loindana ni vezina si vol amar vas vos non si' aclina. (II, vv.24-5) for I know of no woman, near or far, who, if she were inclined towards love, would not be drawn to you. Perhaps Castelloza attempts, confusedly, to theorize this subject role: Dels cavaliers conosc que.i fan lor dan, car ja preian dompnas plus qu'elas lor, c'autra ricor no.i an ni seignoratge. Que plus domna s'ave d'amar, prejar deu be cavalier, si.n lui ve proess' e vasalatge. (II, vv. 51-9) I know of many knights who suffer as a result of wooing ladies more than the ladies them, since they have no other wealth or lordship. For the more a lady happens to love, then indeed she should court a knight if she sees in him prowess and courage. This farsighted association of gender with other forms of status is marred only by its unclarity. Who is the subject of no.i an in v. 55? Is Castelloza repeating the male topos that men in love are vulnerable because they cannot expect to wield senhoratge over the domna!56 If so, is she speaking ironically? Or could she mean that women are especially likely to exercise power over their lovers, since they are debarred from other forms of authority? There is no great difference between men and women writers in regard to the alternation between the roles of subject and object of desire. Where they do differ is in the quality of the resulting experience. For men, as we saw, it was typically exalting; for women it is more a source of anguish. The tornada of Clara d'Anduza's one surviving song expresses this: Amies, tan ai d'ira e de feunia quar no vos vey, que quant ieu cug chantar, planh e sospir, per qu'ieu non puesc co far ab mas coblas que.l cors complir volria. (vv.25-8) My love, I feel so much distress and violence at not seeing you, that when I imagine I might sing, I sigh and lament because I cannot say with my stanzas what my heart would like to achieve. 110

Status The society into which the men are born confirms the values of masculinity and depreciates the feminine. As poets, they elaborate a culture within which the objects of their desire are given dignity, but at the cost of endowing them with androgynous or masculine qualities. For the few women who tried to express themselves as poets, this 'elevation' is experienced as violence and inhibition. Men see their own gender as based on their sexuality, and find echoes of it in their love object. For women, this gender system is repressive, and inhibits the expression of desire. Their subjectivity, when it is not annexed, is silenced or oppressed. Status

Rank and status Although the concept of rank in the twelfth century is less rigid and clearcut than used to be believed,57 it is one of the constants of the presentation of characters in narrative genres, and of individuals in legal and historical documents. One of the pieces of 'information' which the vidas regularly note, alongside the name and region of origin of the troubadour in question, is the social position from which he emanates. These biographical indications are usually held to be more reliable than those relating to patrons or love object, which are commonly fabrications elaborated on the basis of the songs. What is noteworthy about the known or presumed rank of the (male) troubadours is, however, its variety. The courtly canso attracted authors from royalty to the bourgeoisie, and from a diversity of clerical backgrounds.58 Even the few women troubadours whose rank is known or conjectured seem to represent quite a wide range of social positions, though all within the nobility. The high or low rank of a troubadour may, occasionally, correlate with some aspect of poetic practice. For example, it may be that a poet of high rank can permit himself greater adventurousness, obscurity, or eccentricity than a humbler colleague dependent on patronage.59 Nevertheless it is remarkable how little direct encoding of rank is found in courtly poetry. This is particularly striking in the sirventes of Bertran de Born who writes of himself as a poor knight, whereas in reality he was a baron holding fief directly from the Plantagenets.60 The same discrepancy between real and assumed rank is observable in the canso. The love poet in confident mood may lay claim to social dominance whether or not he possesses it by virtue of his birth; conversely even aristocrats may declare themselves the vassals, servants or serfs of 111

Gender and status their ladies, the motif of the requete d'amour in particular inducing troubadours of any background to act out a pantomime of selfabasement. The first-person subject, therefore, is associated in these texts less with rank than with what I shall call status. Traditional readings of the canso have tended to assume that rank and status coincide. Thus the lyric's characteristic attribution of high status to the domna has been taken as implying that she holds high rank. Likewise, since the status at which the troubadours place themselves as subjects is low relative to the domna, they have been seen as spokesmen for the lower nobility, and even, in popular imagination, as wandering minstrels hawking their wares from castle to castle, singing outside the lady's window but excluded from her court. Such readings are over-literal; rank and status are not simply equivalent, the relation between them is more complex. Rank is (for the most part) mechanically conferred by heredity or marriage whereas status is a cultural construct which admits of negotiation. The distinction between status and rank, therefore, has similarities with that made in the first section of this chapter between gender and sexual difference. Status can correspond with rank in that an individual of high rank will more easily assume high status; it is certainly difficult for any layman below the rank of knight to hold status in courtly society.61 But within the courtly elite, status can also be inversely proportionate to rank, as in the case of those poets who support the claims of the humbler suitor over the ric ome.62 In feudal relationships, status is independent of rank; a man may be the vassal of someone of lower rank than himself, and any member of the nobility, regardless of rank, may hold lordship over some while being the vassal of others.63 The relationship between status and rank is uncertain for women who have the rank of their father until they marry and that of their husband thereafter, but on whom high rank does not necessarily confer enhanced status, because of the widespread tendency to depreciate women and to exclude them from situations where men of corresponding rank would exercise power. The most influential theorist of the first-person subject in troubadour poetry as a reflection of historical, social position is the late Erich Kohler, whose work has already been discussed in relation to the functioning of feudal metaphors in the lyric. According to Kohler, the troubadours are spokesmen of a particular rank, the lower nobility or poor knights, who are seeking to integrate themselves into courtly culture by promoting ethical values (cortesia) common to all the nobility and by reprehending attempts by the truly powerful to exclude them. This, in his view, accounts for their 112

Status celebration of generosity and their anger against the malvatz rics avars; the material property of the higher nobility must be used to reward the less fortunate, not withheld in order to maintain their exclusivity.64 Similarly the troubadours condemn their seniors for jealously guarding their sexual wealth (the domna) who should be placed, like their property, in the public domain, in order that worthy aspirants may serve her and so better themselves.65 Kohler's concern is with rank or class (Gesellschaftschichte) which he sees as predicated on particular economic and social conditions. The lord is the patron of the troubadour qua poet, and the source of all social promotion to him qua vassal. The troubadour's courtship of the lady (who in Kohler's view is the lord's wife) is an expression of his desire for social and economic parity with other members of the nobility.66 Kohler's view of the aspirant class has met with many objections. The basis of his theory is that: la poesie des troubadours nait tres precisement a 1'instant ou l'anoblissement de la chevalerie est de facto accompli, sans qu'il soit encore entre dans les consciences - ni des maitres ni des sujets - comme une donnee evidente dont on ne conteste pas la legitimite. ('Observations' p. 37) Ursula Peters contends that, on the contrary, the integration of knights to the nobility predates the end of the eleventh century; its psychological legitimation is manifested by the ordo literature which distinguished the pugnatores, namely all the lay nobility including knights, as one of the three ordines of society.67 As already observed, the troubadours are drawn from a great diversity of ranks. Why should those of high rank, or those from the bourgeoisie, seek to identify themselves as knights in Kohler's sense? According to Ursula Liebertz-Griin, the claim that the troubadours tried to promote the love of the lesser nobleman rather than that of the ric ome is implausible and not borne out by Kohler's own examples.68 More recent work by Kohler draws extensively on Duby's identification of the juvenes as a significant social group in the North. But Kohler's equation of poor nobility, landless knights, and others of what he calls 'marginalmen' with the juvenes is questionable, since in Duby's account, these are younger sons of the established nobility who, in the North, were not allowed either to inherit property or to marry because of the rights attaching to primogeniture; these rights did not obtain in the South where inheritances were divided between offspring. The juvenes were a social problem in the North, but it is difficult to see how they could have existed as an economic group in the South.69 113

Gender and status The terminology of aspiration on which Kohler grounds his interpretation is feudal; it is read by Kohler as voicing the troubadours' claim to an overlord's material protection and maintenance which would enhance the social prestige of the vassal. We know, however, that this Northern model of feudalism had only a precarious hold on the South, where feudal ties were looser and depended less on a material exchange of service for land, far more on verbal exchanges of fealty.70 The troubadours appeal to feudal institutions less as an urgent political reality than as an element in the cultural imaginary which offers scope for role-play and mystification (see below, pp. 116ff.). Finally, Kohler's picture of the social composition of a medieval court as presided over by one single domna appears to rest on flimsy evidence. Of medieval genres the lyric is alone in representing a society where numerous men (lovers true and false, the lauzengeor and the gilos) are all in competition for the favours of one woman. This is not the way courts are presented in romances and epics, and there are grounds for believing them to be more 'realistic' in this regard.71 The 'unique domna' of the lyric results from the gender system analysed in the first half of this chapter, and bears a less direct relation to historical reality than Kohler's account recognizes. Kohler's thesis is also vulnerable from the point of view of poetic usage. His work, like Duby's, relies heavily on a few troubadours, principally Marcabru, the social and political content of whose corpus is constantly being reconsidered.72 The use of the term cavalier and its cognates in troubadour poetry does not suggest that it had any ideological or 'class' meaning; it seems to mean simply 'courtier'.73 It may also be doubted whether 'feudal' metaphors, in Kohler's sense, really do pervade the corpus of troubadour poetry. The troubadours use a wide range of imagery to invoke low status vis-a-vis the domna, much of it incompatible with nobility of any kind, however low. In Arnaut Daniel's song x the lover compares himself with a bankrupted craftsman; in xm v.22 he wishes to serve his domna as her cook. Raimbaut d'Aurenga presents himself as a serf (xxu v. 57), which may also be the image contained in Farai chansoneta nueva, attributed to Guilhem de Peitieu: Qu'ans mi rent a lieis e.m liure qu'en sa carta.m pot escriure.

(vv. 7-8)

For thus I yield myself to her and deliver myself up so that she may write me down [as a possession] in her charter. 114

Status Even the strictly 'feudal' images used by the troubadours include examples of 'servile homage', which implies a degree of dependency far greater than that of ordinary vassaldom. Such homage could be sworn only to a single overlord, who acquired absolute rights over the person of his 'man'. The translation of this into literary-erotic practice is exemplified by Guillem de Cabestany: Litges per vendre e per donar vos ai estat e, si.us plagues, degra.m ab vos merce trobar.

(IX, vv. 50-2) 74

I have been your liegeman, so that you could sell me or give me away; and if such were your pleasure, I ought to find favour with you. Other 'feudal' imagery volunteers a disinterestedness which can have had little to do with actual social practice: Bona domna, re no. us deman mas que.m prendatz per servidor, qu'e.us servirai com bo senhor, cossi que del gazardo m'an. (Bernart de Ventadorn I, vv. 49-52) Worthy lady, I ask nothing of you except that you take me as your servant, for I will serve you as one does a good overlord, whatever the reward might be. Such resolutely humble postures fall below the social reality of the political group whose aspirations, Kohler holds, they are designed to serve. Is it possible to retain Kohler's strategy of literalizing metaphors, but modify its application in the light of the distinction I have made between rank and status? The first-person subject of the songs could then be placed in relation to historical social conditions, provided that these are understood in terms of status rather than rank. As the earlier part of this chapter has shown, presentation of the masculine subject is bound up with the status ascribed to the domna. She is enjoined not to show favour to the powerful, but to embody power herself in her role of lord. Reading social metaphors as articulating concern with status brings to light connections between personal and gender politics in the love lyric. The lover's desire encompasses the attributes which it projects onto its object: a particular cast of sexuality, the range of androgynous 'courtly' virtues, feudal authority and ricor; and in adopting the position of passive recipient of his lady's merce, he hopes to have these projections of his own desire conferred back upon him. His assumption of low status vis-a-vis the domna is only provisional. His 115

Gender and status humility has no necessary connection with low rank, nor commitment to the belief that his status is genuinely inferior. It could equally as well be a rhetorical device for enhancing the value of the anticipated reward: the more a troubadour may grovel, the greater his lack, the greater, accordingly, his desire, and the higher his ambition. The objects of this ambition, that is, the precise nature of the status coveted, will vary from text to text and from troubadour to troubadour, but they are bound up with the subject's positioning of himself as a lover and poet. Since Kohler's view of the troubadour as class spokesman is most brilliantly defended in his reading of Bernart de Ventadorn's Can vei la lauzeta mover,151 will use a song by the same poet to illustrate my counterformulation that feudal metaphors are a detour taken by poetic language to express desire for enhanced status through courtship of the domna. The opening stanzas of Bernart de Ventadorn's Gent estera que chantes (xxxvn) explain that the lover's separation from his lady, Mo Conort, was caused by fals lauzengers engres in general (vv. 10-11), and in particular by the treachery of a trusted friend (vv. 12-14). For this reason he has been silent, fearing to importune her (vv. 3-9). The present song seeks to re-establish contact: e car me don espaven, vau queren cubert viatge, per on vengues a lairo denan leis, ses mal resso. (vv. 15-18) and because I am afraid, I go in search of a covert route by which I might come secretly into her presence without evil repercussion.

The next stanza praises discretion (celar) as the source of true love and the means to joy (vv.21-2). What follows, then, exemplifies discretion and should guarantee success: Done, s'eu en pren bon uzatge, midons, c'a valor e sen, 25 prec m'esmen dins son ostatge l'afan, can veira sazo, e no i gart dreih ni razo. IV

E si.l plazia, .m tornes al seu onrat paradis, 30 ja no.s cuit qu'eu m'en partis; ans mor can no i son ades! Deus! can aurai vassalatge que denan leis me prezen? Trop m'aten en voupilhatge, 116

Status 35 car no sap, s'ai tort o no, per c'a dreih que.m ochaizo. V

Domna, .1 genzer c'anc nasques e la melher qu'eu anc vis, mas jonchas estau aclis, 40 a genolhos et en pes, el vostre franc senhoratge; encar me detz per prezen franchamen un cortes gatge - mas no. us aus dire cal fo 45 c'adoutz me vostra preizo.

VI

Domna, vos am finamen, franchamen, de bo coratge, e per vostr' om me razo, qui.m demanda de cui so.

Therefore, provided I use [discretion] ably, I beseech my lady, who has worth and sense, to compensate me in her home for my suffering, when she sees the opportunity, and let her have no regard for right or reason. IV. And if it pleased her that I should return to her revered paradise, never let her imagine that I might leave it - on the contrary, I am dying at not being already there! God! When will I find the courage to present myself before her? In my cowardice I hesitate too long, for she does not know whether I am in the wrong or not, and so she is justified in accusing me. V. Lady, the loveliest that was ever born and the best I ever saw, I take up my position with bowed head (or: in your service?), kneeling down and standing up, in your noble lordship. You have even given me generously (nobly? freely?) a courtly pledge - I daren't say what it was - that could sweeten my imprisonment for me. VI. Lady, I love you truly, freely (nobly?), with a good heart, and I style myself your vassal whenever anyone asks me to whom I belong. The revelation of the lover's feudal bond towards his lady, made to every Tom, Dick and Harry at the end of the song, has to be understood as somehow meeting the demands of discretion voiced at the beginning. It is not the key to his aspirations, pace Kohler, but a cubert viatge, a secret path taken by the text. Stanza v's representation of the act of homage is the most complete in Bernart's corpus, but it slides off disconcertingly into the love-as-prison metaphor in the last line. This sorts oddly with the insistence on the feudal relationship as franc (vv.41, 43, 47), a term which still conserves its legal value 'free' in other contexts.76 By juxtaposing two such incompatible metaphors, the text draws attention to its playful mystification, 117

Gender and status its cubert dimension. The gatge (v.43) in usual practice would be a coin or token, but in this context is probably being taken to designate the osculum or kiss used to seal the exchange of oaths which immediately followed the traditio personae suae of the homage ritual proper. This interpretation explains the odd combination of postures in this stanza: Bernart kneels to do homage, then stands up to kiss his 'lord'.77 The feudal metaphor is a veil under cover of which desire can be acted out without detection and without reprisal. Elsewhere in the poem the expectation that metaphor will conduce to a straightforward trade-off between meanings is frustrated. Consider vv.25-7 and 34-6. Literally, these passages are hard to make sense of.78 If the domna is to compensate her lover at law, why should she proceed with no regard for justice? And why, if she is ignorant of the rights and wrongs of the case, is she justified in accusing him? They are a rhetorical smokescreen, designed to illustrate the poet's alleged resolve to be indirect or cubert; they ape metaphor, or play at metaphor, rather than incarnating it. The listener can only abandon the surface reading as nonsense, as a deliberately opaque and troublesome detour, in order to embrace the politicalerotic meaning that the lover must be compensated (vv.25-7), although his domna is justified in reproaching him until he is man enough to approach her (vv. 34-6). The two passages are therefore analogous to vv. 29-31 where the claim that the lover is dying to be in paradise can only, literally understood, be taken as a joke. The 'religious' metaphor, like the 'feudal' one, is ironic and 'unreal', an acknowledgement of a rhetorical convention. The convenience of such rhetoric is brought out at the end of the song. It enables the poet to boast of the 'lord's' favours without actually specifying them (v. 44) and offers a form of words to describe intimacy which does not offend contemporary bienseance (vv.48-9). If Bernart's text cannot be read as a bid for feudal integration, does it express any kind of personal aspiration other than the fulfilment of unspoken desires? The lover presents himself initially as a victim of a double repression: he is exiled from his lady's presence and his poetic voice has been silenced. This dual loss of privilege results from the intervention of the lauzengeor, rivals or enemies who have thus secured a temporary victory over him (w. 10-14). The end of the song stages a triumphant return of the lover who is able to enjoy his lady's favour and publicly proclaim his intimacy with her without fear of reprisal, because he can exploit metaphor simultaneously to conceal and vaunt his love. The skill of the poet is allied with the fervour of the 118

Status lover in this conclusion: both secure his return to centrality within the court. The opposition between exclusion and inclusion relates the poetlover as much to other men (the lauzengeors) as to the domna, and this is reflected in the appeal to 'masculine' values in the opposition voupilhatge-vassalatge (vv.32-4). The exiled and trembling lover can be accused of cowardice; the means of his promotion is his personal courage which entitles him to the domna's recognition. His feudal submission is initially presented as a form of humility (aclis / a genolhos, vv. 39-40), but is instantly transformed into imagery of possession and independence (gatge v. 43 ,franchamen v. 47). The domna's status is the means whereby his merits will be properly rewarded as well as his desires gratified. The song therefore offers a prospect of the subject's enhanced prestige in the triple capacities, discerned in the discussion of metaphor in Chapter 1, of lover, poet and hero. These are brought together in the tornada where love and merit are both flaunted and concealed through the poet's fiction of being his domna's om. The reading advocated here has two major consequences for our understanding of the first-person subject. (1) It no longer represents a collective consciousness in the sense understood by Kohler (namely class consciousness), except to the degree that anyone might want to be more highly regarded than he feels he is. (2) It is no longer determined by economic and social factors, in the straightforward way that Kohler argues for. This second point requires qualification, however. I shall now look more closely at how the troubadours understand status, in order to show how this relates to social and economic conditions of a different order from those invoked by Kohler. The concept of status The troubadours who contrast rank and status seem to offer two distinct ways of understanding the worth which, in a just society, would ensure the latter. The first conception sees worth as an inherent quality deserving of recognition: Ben volgra agessem un senior ab tan de poder e d'albir qu'al avol tolgues la richor e no.il laisses terra tenir e dones l'eritatge a tal qi fos pros e preisaz, 119

Gender and status q'aissi fo.l segles comenchaz, e no.i gardes linage, e mudes horn los rics malvac si com fai priors et abaz. (Falquet de Romans VII, vv. 31 -4) I heartily wish we had a lord with enough might and judgement to strip the unworthy of their wealth and stop them from holding lands, and give their inheritance to the deserving and the reputable, for so it was when the world began, when there was no regard for lineage and the evil rich were deposed just as one does with priors and abbots. The second notion of worth presents it less as a value in se and more as a term in an exchange. Power should not simply descend from on high upon those who are somehow recognized as pros e prezatz; it should be exchanged against the efforts and achievements of those who devote their energies to win it: C'oi ses esperonalh no s'esmera barnatz e, si.l pair fo lauzatz e.lh filhs se fai malvatz, sembla.m tortz e pechatz c'aia las eretatz. qu'eu ere que fos enans oltra mil ans c'onors e senhoratges davon pretz e coratges e costas e trebalh, e.l filhs, si.l melhs trassalh, non es done forlinhatz? (Giraut de Bornelh XLII, vv. 29-34, 41-7) For today, without use of the spurs, a baron's mettle is not improved, and if the father was laudable but the son proves a coward it seems unjust and immoral that he should get the inheritance ... For I believe that previously, more than a thousand years ago, merit and courage and expenditure and effort were what conferred fiefs (honours) and lordship; so how it is that the son, if he dodges what is best, is not disowned by his lineage? The troubadours might not be conscious of these two accounts and certainly do not always keep them distinct in practice. Nevertheless it is easy to find fairly 'pure' examples of each in the love lyric. The first view, that the claim to status is founded on inherent value, is exemplified by Bernart de Ventadorn's Gent estera que chantes, 120

Status in the reading offered above, where the lover's reward is predicated on his vassal-like qualities, love and poetic ability.79 The second, that worth should be assessed against the value of services rendered, is also standard in the canso, where both feudal and financial imagery may be used to represent the process of exchange: Mas er m'agr' ops bos vers o tals chanssos c'azautes lieis cui faz lig' homenatge et a.m tengut depuois son pretz auzic que ren no.n ai mas sol lo bon esper que, sivals res si la pogues vezer, ab sol l'esgart mi pogr' ill faire ric. (Guilhem de Sant Leidier VIII, vv. 3-8) But now I need a good vers or a canso to please her to whom I do liege homage and who has retained me ever since she first heard me sing her praises,80 although I have had nothing from her except the hope that if only I might see her, just by looking at me she would make me wealthy. Amars, onrars e charteners, umiliars et obezirs, loncs merceiars e loncs grazirs, long' atendens' e loncs espers me degron far viur' ad onor, s'eu fos astrucs de bo senhor Car ma semblans' e mos parers e mos cudars e mos albirs m'an dich totztems c'altr' enriquirs ni altr' onors ni altr' avers no.m podon dar tan de ricor com cilh que.m fai viur' ab langor c'on plus languisc e dezengrais, cut et aten c'a me s'abais. (Giraut de Bornelh VI, vv. 1-6, 41-8) Loving, honouring, cherishing, being submissive and obedient, gracious and well-disposed over a long period, long awaiting and long hope, ought by rights to bring me to a life of honour, if only I had the luck to have a good lord; ... For my impressions, and my belief and judgement have always told me that no other enrichment, honour (estate) or property could confer on me so much wealth (power) as she who makes me languish, for the more I pine away and lose weight the more I believe and expect that she will condescend towards me. 121

Gender and status The juxtaposition of the feudal and the financial in these examples suggests their compatibility, their equivalence even; an impression which is confirmed by the polysemy of the term pretz, meaning both 'merit', '(social) worth or reptuation' and 'monetary value', 'price'.81 It is noteworthy, however, that the characteristic sequence is, as here, feudal - financial, as though the second were taken as underwriting or glossing the first. The same sequence is often used to express disappointment that what was envisaged as a fair exchange has proved to be a bad bargain, and in such cases the greater weight accorded to the financial image is particularly clear. Here is an example from Folquet de Marselha: 10 Quar en vostra mantenensa me mis, Amors, franchamen, e fora.i mortz veramen si no fos ma conoissensa Mas ieu avia plivensa, tant quant amiei follamen, 30 en aisso qu'om vai dizen: be fenis qui mal comensa; don ieu avi' entendensa que, per proar mon talen, 35 m'acsetz mal comensamen; mas ar conosc a presenza que tostems m'agr' atenensa. E si.m degratz dar guirensa! quar mielhs gazanh' e plus gen qui dona qu'aicel qui pren, 40 si pretz n'a ni benvolensa; mas voutz es en viltenensa vostr' afars et en nien, qu'om vos sol dar, ar vos ven. (XIII, vv. 10-14, 28-43) For I placed myself utterly in your dependency, Love, and would really have died there if it had not been for my discernment ... But so long as I was foolishly in love I put my faith in what people say: what starts badly finishes well; by which I understood that in order to put my desire to the test you had imposed this difficult beginning on me; but now I know that I would always have had to wait. And yet you ought to give me relief! For the person who gives deserves better, and more nobly, than the one who receives, provided the recipient shows

122

Status merit and goodwill; but your dealings have degenerated into villainy and worthlessness, for you used to be given but now you are up for sale. Emphasizing his low status with respect to Love (vv. 10-14), in what can now be recognized as a bid for his deserts to be recognized, Folquet stresses his service, suffering and dedication which represent the purchasing power behind this bid. Finding himself nevertheless unrewarded, he briefly alludes to the biblical 'it is more blessed to give than to receive' (vv. 38-9) as though unaware that he thereby casts himself in the unworthy role of recipient! His text resolves only that Love stands condemned, and compounds that condemnation by removing Love from the world of Christian or courtly largesse into one of venality: love which should be 'given' is now 'sold' (v.43). The song therefore works through three images of exchange: feudal in the narrow sense (vv. 10-11, 28); largesse (38-40); 82 and commerce (vv.41-4). In all of them, and with increasing bitterness, Folquet finds his exchangeable assets devalued to the point where he can no longer obtain what he wants. It is not, or not merely, Folquet's bourgeois background which prompts this imagery; feudal transactions are similarly reinterpreted as exploitatively mercantile by poets from a more 'courtly' background, such as Bernart de Ventadorn and Raimon de Miraval. The canso is not voicing here the interest of any particular 'class'; the view of worth, and the status to which it is entitled, are related to economic conditions which are common to all levels of Occitan society in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. This period sees the transition between what R. H. Bloch, basing himself on Marc Bloch, has called a 'realist' and a 'nominalist' view of money.83 The realist model 'implies that the essence of early medieval money is that it contained its own value. This is especially true of goods exchanged and even used for money, e.g. arms, jewelry, serving platters, cloth, food, liturgical objects'. 84 With the development of economic nominalism, by contrast, 'money as a sign becomes detached from fixed universal value' and there is 'an increasingly loose relation between the face value and the metallic value of coins'. The value of money as a medium of exchange is thus constantly open to renegotiation, and indeed 'the thirteenth century inaugurates the era of monetary mutation - devaluation and revaluation'.85 These two views of the nature of wealth correspond to the two ways of estimating personal worth I have just outlined, the notion that personal value is somehow inherent matching the 'realist' model, and the expectation of having to negotiate 123

Gender and status exchanges in an uncertain world belonging with the * nominalist' one. The principal factor giving rise to economic 'nominalism' is the increasing need for money towards the end of the twelfth century, a factor linked in Occitania, as elsewhere, with the growth of towns and the spread of trade.86 This is the period when the first poets of known bourgeois origin, such as Peire Vidal and Folquet de Marselha, flourish.87 And it is in the writings of their immediate predecessor Giraut de Bornelh and their contemporaries (Arnaut Daniel, Raimon de Miraval, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras) that financial imagery becomes a prominent feature of the love lyric. (Its use in satirical and moralizing verse goes back to Marcabru.) Anxiety about value, and hence about status, among these troubadours of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, can be seen as reflecting the transition from a stable 'realist' economic model to a more fluctuating 'nominalist' one. Whether or not this particular aspect of self-perception is 'caused' by these changing conditions (a question which it would be difficult to answer), it certainly presents a striking parallel with them. Bernart de Ventadorn's Gent estera que chantes was analysed above as promoting ambitions grounded in 'realist' values of inherent worth (vassalatge), true love (bo coratge) and poetic wit. I now offer a complementary reading of Raimon de Miraval's Cel cuijois taing ni chantar sap as predicated on a 'nominalist' view of first-person status.88 Like Gent estera, Cel cuijois aims to induce the domna to reward her lover. In Gent estera, however, Mo Conort figured as the undisputed centre of the courtly world, her value fixed and assured. Raimons's domna, by contrast, possesses relative rather than absolute value since service of her can be compared with rewards from her inferiors (vv. 9-16). The lover professes himself satisfied with the joy such service brings (vv. 17-19), disclaiming any intention of wrangling over her favours (vv. 20-1). But this is the merest eyewash, for in the next following lines courtship is explicitly recognized as a transaction: Mas qui.ls dreitz d'amor seguia, ben sai que razos seria, s'ieu la tenc car, q'ella no.m tengues vil. (w.22-4) But I know very well that it would be reasonable, as is the case for anyone who follows the laws of love, that if I hold her dear she ought not to hold me cheap. The car of v. 24 is not, of itself, a monetary image, but in juxtaposition with v/7, 'cheap', it immediately becomes one. The lover's attribution 124

Status of value to the domna enjoins the return of that value upon himself; fair exchange is no robbery, that is how you stay on the right side of the 'law' of love. The bargaining continues in the next stanza where again a financial image is both evoked and disavowed: Menar mi pot ab un prim fil e.l sieu meteus tort car vendre, q'ieu no.m vuoill a lieis defendre, si tot m'en era poderos. Que tant sui sieus per q'es razos que s'ella en ren faillia, qe.il colpa deu esser mia, et es ben dreitz qe.m torne sus el cap. (vv.25-32) She can lead me by a thin string and sell dearly her own wrong, because I do not wish to defend myself against her, although I could. For I am so much hers it is reasonable that the blame should be mine, if she does something wrong, and it is right that it should be on my own head. In this splendid example of having your cake and eating it, the speaker assumes responsibility for his lady's shortcomings while actually reproaching her severely. Her fault, of 'selling dearly her own wrong' (v.26) presumably consists in exacting excessive payment (in suffering) from the lover as a result of her own debt (of favours) towards him, and is an offence against the 'law of love' he has just invoked (cf. razos, dreitz, vv.29, 32). That this is a less than fair account of their dealings emerges in the next stanza, where the offer to do his lady homage superficially recalls the feudal scenario at the end of Gent estera (indeed, in it forms the final stanza of Cel cuijois in a large group of MSS). 89 Its character is altered, however, by its juxtaposition with two further images: those of theft and gift-giving: S'ieu de midonz aic ren d'arap, no.il voill tort ni dreich contendre, c'adobatz li soi del rendre, mas jointas e de genoillos; pero s'il plagues que fos dos, mout feira gran cortesia, es'a lieis non platz, estia, q'ie.n sui batutz plus fort c'ab un vergil.

(vv.33-40)

If I have taken anything by force from my lady, I do not wish to debate the justice or injustice of it, for I am ready to yield it back to her with joined hands and on my knees; however, if she were disposed to regard it as a gift, that would be very courtly of her, and if not, then let it pass, 125

Gender and status for I am beaten for it (or: by her) more strongly than I would be with a stick. I think that the key to this stanza is suppressed, in order to disguise the outrageousness of the lover's gambit with respect to both gender and status politics. The item which he has snatched, and would like retrospectively to be made into a gift, is probably a kiss, although it could be some other form of physical embrace. When he offers to do homage in order to cede it back to his domna, he is in fact proposing a repetition of the original 'theft', but in a context decently veiled by feudal ceremonial: that is, like Bernart de Ventadorn in Gent estera, he is interested in the homage ritual as affording a moment of physical intimacy between 'lord' and vassal, and exploits it as an otherwise empty metaphor. (Raimon's lack of commitment here to feudal law is confirmed by his reluctance to discuss the justice of his case in v. 34.) The stanza therefore offers the domna two euphemisms for his importuning her, of which the first would involve his doing it again. The second, whereby the 'theft' becomes a 'gift', would engage her consent. The domna's favours are seen as a commodity over which she and her lover must bargain. If she holds out on him, she is 'selling too dear' (v. 26); if he helps himself, she should decide it was a 'gift'. Although the lady may be the 'lord', such rates of exchange make it clear where status lies in this text.90 At the end of the song, the lover's superior status is confirmed. The lady should think herself lucky that he has chosen to devote himself to her rather than another (w. 41 -2), and she will be censured by the rest of the world if she does not treat him better (vv.43-6). The first tornada is positively exultant, as Raimon, entering his text through the reference to his fief of Miraval, compares himself favourably with the king of Aragon and the viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne:91 Dompna, Bezers ni Aragos ad ops d'amar no.us valria tant cum Miravals faria si franchamen tenetz guarnit lo cap.

(vv.49-52)

Lady, neither Beziers nor Aragon would be worth so much to you in regard to love as Miraval would, if you freely (nobly? generously?) hold its head equipped.

The first three lines of this tornada are a restatement of the claims to superiority in love of the poor nobleman over the ric ome. But what is the meaning of the last line? Switten refers the reader to Topsfield 126

Status who translates 'si vous teniez sa tour franchement en votre possession' (p.244).92 This is in conformity with his understanding of the previous lines as referring to territories rather than to the men who rule them; he translates simply, 'Madame, ni Beziers ni Aragon ne vous vaudraient en amour autant que ferait Miraval.' If we take the point of the comparison as being between men rather than places, however, then Topsfield's translation of v.52 needs to be supplemented, in such a way that cap guarnit signifies an aspect of Miraval the man. The obvious meaning 'armed head' makes sufficiently little sense for an alternative to be sought out. Since caput has the wellattested meaning 'glans', this last line should probably be read as an erotic innuendo. Guarnit might still have the abstract sense 'sous votre protection' proposed by Topsfield, but it might also mean 'wellequipped' (large?) or more likely 'ready' (erect?).93 Whatever the precise sexual reference, Raimon is boasting in these lines of prowess superior to that of his feudal seniors. Gender and status politics, earlier associated in the feudal metaphor of vv.33-40, once more converge in this celebration of his own virility, which gives him greater 'purchasing power' than men apparently richer than himself, and assures his domna of the 'worth' (cf. v. 50) of his performance. Money imagery coupled with a sense of the subject's status as a bargaining point gives the troubadour control over the exchange rates of his text and its world, and the means of buying his way to success. Bernart de Ventadorn's Gent estera que chantes and Raimon de Miraval's Cel cuijois taing ni chantar sap present the lover's claim to status and sexual enjoyment in ways which we can recognize as reflecting distinct underlying theories of value whose correspondence with contemporary social and economic change offers, I propose, a truer account of the subject's relation to historical circumstance than Kohler's anchoring of it in class movement. Status in the trobairitz I argued above that competition for status meant that the first person in the male-authored canso was no longer, as in Kohler's analysis, a synecdoche for the social group. It remains collective, however, in the sense that is a maculine construct. The women poets give no impression of confidence either in their inherent worth or in their ability to bargain for it. Feudal and financial imagery is largely absent from their songs. The closest any comes to claiming qualities that should enhance her status is the Comtessa de Dia in A chantar m'er which was discussed earlier. The enumeration of her own attractions 127

Gender and status is so undermined by her lover's failure of response that they appear, as it were, in quotation marks; as belonging to a masculine poetic discourse which has no correspondence in the Comtessa's experience. Castelloza represents kissing her lover as a form of enrichment (in vv.28-30, iv vv.41-6) but both songs record that her only actual gain, in the process of amorous exchange, has been her suffering (in vv.41 - 4 , iv w. 31 -2). The conclusion of ill is particularly poignant: Tot lo maltrag e.l dampnatge que per vos m'es escaritz vos fai grasir mos lignage e sobre totz mos maritz. (vv.41-4) All the suffering and loss which have been my lot because of you, my family is grateful for, and especially my husband. Various attempts have been made to rationalize the bitterness of these words,94 which, taken at face value, show to what an extent Castelloza is marginal to the masculine system of exchange. The minimal gratification of (ironically?) returning thanks for her own unhappiness has been pre-empted by her family and especially her husband, who seem to her to gloat over her loss. Her exclusion from even her own emotions can be taken here as the index of her lack of status in a male-dominated society. Conclusions: Gender and status The analysis of allegorical configurations in the previous chapter encourages expectation of tension or incoherence within the poetic subject: something to correspond to the image of psychomachia, and to the fragmentation of the self which it expresses. One of the strengths of Kohler's view of the subject in history is precisely that he is able to point out paradoxes and inconsistencies, and explain their origin in historical dialectic. For example, in the relatively late study of jealousy, he shows how troubadours as lovers reprobate jealousy in the husband because its effect is to make him regard the domna as his exclusive property, and this in turn frustrates their aspiration to accede through their love to the position which he occupies. On the other hand, since they themselves aspire to integration with the wealthy class, they have an emergent sense of property personal to themselves, and this is translated into a different form of jealousy, dislike of the figure of the rival (the lauzengeor). The (male) troubadours, on this account, both are, and are not, jealous.95 128

Conclusions: Gender and status The conclusions to this chapter likewise constitute a set of paradoxes which it would be useful now to resume and comment on. In the discussion of gender I showed that male troubadours view sexual activity with women as dangerous and guilty, yet promote a form of love which they describe as morally exalting and emotionally exhilarating. The effort at separating the two is not always successful: within a single song they may both desire, and be repelled by, what they claim to love; they alternate between positioning themselves as subject, and as object, of courtship. The only desirable representation of 'woman' is so imbued with masculine traits as to problematize desire precisely as it seeks to justify it. Conversely, the poetry of some women troubadours displays tension between arrogating, and disclaiming, the position of love object assigned to them by the men. In the second half of the chapter, I suggested that male troubadours both attribute, and deny, status and authority to the domna, and that they both disavow, and claim status for themselves; the women, meanwhile, find it difficult to situate themselves anywhere within the masculine conceptualization of status. Finally, it emerges from the chapter as a whole that although women are not allowed to 'sell' their love, men are allowed to buy it. They are allowed to work for soudada, and be soudadier whereas the woman who is a soudadiera is condemned. Such contradictions are not acknowledged in the canso. Folquet de Marselha juxtaposes 'pride' and 'humility' without, apparently, recognizing how close he comes to formulating the paradox associated with status: Per Dieu, Amors, ben sabetz veramen qu'on plus deissen plus poi' Humilitatz et Orguoills chai on plus aut es poiatz. (XII, vv. 1-3) By God, Love, you know very well that Humility is raised up the more it is laid low, and that the higher Pride climbs, the further it falls.

He presumably means that his own humility will be rewarded and his domna's pride brought low, but his words sketch a wheel like Fortune's on which he and she might well revolve for ever. Similarly, Marcabru places the soudadier, with a positive value, only three lines away from the soudadiera, whom he reprobates, with no apparent acknowledgement of incongruity: Soudadier, per cui es Jovens mantengutz e Jois eisamens, entendetz los mals argumens de la falsas putas ardens. (XLIV, vv. 1 -4) 129

Gender and status Young men for hire, through whom Youth is maintained and Joy too, listen to the evil arguments of the false burning whores. The women troubadours likewise betray little sign of appreciating the inconsistencies which the role of domna imposes upon them. It is obvious that my account of such contradictions differs from Kohler's chiefly because of the importance which I assign to sexual politics. Kohler's theorization is political, but remains entirely in the domain of the masculine, looking exclusively to class dynamics for its diagnosis and explanation. The analysis advanced here, by contrast, though taking account of historical change (such as the changing conception of value), is not uniquely reliant on it. Rather, it accords centrality to the complexity of the (male) construction of gender, in association with the dynamics of (male) desire. Male troubadours desire both sex and status, but their texts take ceremonious ('courtly') detours away from admitting it. Their principal subterfuge is the differentiation of women into two groups, the 'feminine' and the 'mixed' genders. This allows for the displacement onto the 'mixed' domna of all that they desire of sex and status, and for the concomitant assignation to the 'feminine' of anything guilty or disagreeable that could be associated with their desire. Thus they can have both sexual desire and moral exaltation, and act out routines of submission while aspiring to greater recognition of their worth: the 'mixed' domna will not contaminate them; her discernment and sense of justice should, on the contrary, raise them up. Because the male poets make their own gender parallel to their sexuality, their sense of themselves as gendered subjects is reinforced by their historical identity. Similarly, because they conceive of status in terms of the (predominantly) male domains of feudalism, giftgiving and money, the status to which they lay claim is, in some sense, already theirs; it does not belong in everyday reality to many women, who are left to fend for themselves as best they can in the sea of metaphors on which the men launch their bids. I propose, therefore, a different account from Kohler's of the troubadours' paradoxical attitude to jealousy. It is one of very few 'masculine' failures within the canso; i.e. it is a fault attributed by men to other men rather than to the 'feminine'. And jealousy, understood as resentment at an (actual or threatened) illicit amorous appropriation, is a point where love, property and the law all intersect. Since love, property and the law are all assigned by male troubadours to the 'masculine', it is scarcely surprising that jealousy is a prerogative of males. It is attributed principally to the gilos, who might block the 130

Conclusions: Gender and status merited reward which the domna's 'status' should confer on the lover; but as Kohler rightly saw, it is also latent in the troubadour's attitude towards the lauzengeor, who are his rivals. 'Courtliness' inhibits explicitness about inter-male competition for sex and status, so this second form of jealousy is disguised: anything reprehensible about such ambition is attributed to the lauzengeor (e.g. their ruthless and dishonorable tactics), who thus, like the 'feminine', fulfil the role of scapegoat. Success in the rarefied discourse of 'courtliness' therefore empowers the troubadour to attribute jealousy to other men and brand them as doomed to failure, whilst at the same time underwriting the common interest of all men as subjects in a male-dominated economy.

131

4 PERFORMANCE

So far the songs discussed have been regarded as 'texts', the troubadours as 'poets'. The purpose of this chapter is to reconsider this approach. Troubadour songs were not intended for reading as we read them now; in the context of live performance the song is less a text than an act that associates the performer with his audience. The role of the performer, and that of the listeners, are in large measure created by the songs, but they also possess an extra-textual reality. The domna may well be a rhetorical fiction, but named patrons and other members of the audience are often identifiable historical figures, whose political circumstances may be explicitly alluded to. Similarly, the performer, by his physical presence, and through the activity of singing, coupled possibly with gestures and mime,1 provides a visible and social presence that serves to anchor the song to the actual, at least for the duration of performance. The present chapter considers how this bodily presence, and this interaction, contribute to the 'subjectivity' of the songs. How does the first-person position relate to the gesturing, singing body of the performer? How does it engage with the experience and expectations of the audience? Writing, orality, and witness

Recent scholarly interest in oral and written cultures suggests the different investment, in the two media, of subjectivity. Laura Kendrick has argued that the troubadours expoited the emergence of writing in order to deconstruct its stabilizing and 'centralizing' implications (The Game of Love, pp. 15ff.). In her view they play with the semi-phonetic character of orthography to license multiple meanings; this irony was translated into performance by the troubadours' guying their own compositions (pp. 157ff.). Her study thus emphasizes differance, irony, and the manipulation of comic personae in the songs, at the expense of subjectivity. The purpose of this section is to voice disagreement with that emphasis. The attitudes adopted by 132

Writing, orality, and witness the Occitan lyric towards different media privilege oral over written communication precisely because of the subjective value invested in orality as presence, and in para- or non-linguistic manifestations of presence. The performer acts as a witness to the emotions alleged by his song, and the audience witness him doing so. The categories of orality and writing are neither stable nor discrete. Zumthor (La Poesie orale? p. 32) distinguishes five phases in literary activity any of which might be either oral or written: composition, transmission, reception, conservation, repetition. It is possible that, from the earliest period, some troubadours made use of writing for composition and conservation, even if they were themselves unable to write and depended on the services of an amanuensis.3 But the value of 'the written' can itself fluctuate. As Brian Stock puts it, 'From [one vantage point], writing represents literacy; oral transactions in themselves have no legitimate status. From the other, writing is used chiefly to record; it is ancillary to a reality conceived in physical, personal, and verbal [ = oral] terms' (The Implications of Literacy, P. 59). Of Zumthor's five phases, the second two, transmission and reception, when effected orally, constitute oral performance. There is very little to suggest that this was not the norm for the troubadours. The infrequent allusions to written transmission suggest that it is additional to, and merely confirmatory of, oral communication. The song may be both sung and 'displayed', the written text being held up as corroboration of what has been heard (Kendrick, The Game of Love pp. 37ff.). But writing remains subordinate to orality and the visible presence of the singer-witness. The most widely quoted exception to this generalization does, in fact, confirm it: Bernart de Ventadorn's En cossirier et en esmai (XL).4 The last stanza of this song presents the poet resorting to writing, but only after a lengthy review of the alternatives. Shall the lover himself tell his lady of his suffering (vv. 17-18)? He cannot. He rejects out of hand the possibility of engaging a friend or relatives on his behalf (vv. 27-9). Is it possible she could divine his feelings without the need for words (vv.35-6)? His tongue-tied behaviour in her presence should be sufficient evidence of his passion (vv. 37-40). If only the joy of her company might be more prolonged, he might be able to make a formal declaration, swearing he has no joy except from her (vv.45-7); but the moment of separation from her finds him still consumed with unverbalized desire (v. 48). Writing appears at the end of the song as the only available option because it relieves the poet of the emotions imposed by presence: 133

Performance ela sap letras et enten, et agrada.m qu'eu escria los motz, es'a leis plazia, legis los al meu sauvamen. (vv. 53-6) she knows how to read, and it is pleasurable for me to write the words, and, if it pleased her, she might read them and bring about my salvation. Writing is thus an attenuated form of courtship, offering pleasure to both parties when more direct communication is thwarted by the strength of desire. Speech is still seen as primary; writing is only a substitute to be resorted to in extremis. The confusion underlying the idea that writing is a form of 'supplement' to speech has been exposed by Derrida. 5 The possibility that 'writing' constitutes the primary form of linguistic code, and that, even when not written, verbal communication belongs to what Derrida calls an 'archi-ecriture', can be supported from the rhetoric of troubadour poetry, but only rarely. An example is found in Guillem de Cabestany vn (Mout m'alegra douza vos per boscaje). As in Bernart de Ventadorn XL, the poet reviews the difficulties of communication with his absent lady, and finding that words fail him he sends a sigh as messenger (vv.25-32). This makes him reflect that the whole world is a text expressive of his lady's merit. Anyone who praises her is speaking the truth, and if anyone desires to hear her name: ja non trobares alas de colom o no.l trovez escrig senes falenza; mais an lezer en monstre cognoscenza.

(vv. 38-40)

there are no wings of any dove on which you will not find it written without fail; and I can display knowledge of it at leisure (in reading?).6 Compare also the final stanza of Bernart de Ventadorn xxv, Era.m cosselhatz senhor: De Taiga que dels olhs plor, escriu salutz mais de cen. (vv. 49-50) With the tears that fall from my eyes I write more than a hundred greetings. This song had begun as (oral) disputation (which of two courses of action should the lover adopt?), but it ends as if it were a letter 'written' in the lover's tears of anguish at his dilemma. 7 The society of the South of France in this period manifested what Zumthor calls 'une oralite mixte' where written and oral functions co-existed; the details of this co-existence in contemporary England 134

Writing, orality, and witness are charted in detail by Michael Clanchy.8 It is not surprising that the troubadours occasionally invoke written models. But their songs are chiefly calqued on oral ones: prayer, entreaty, preaching, confession (from the religious domain); disputation, debate (from schools practice); oath-swearing, deposition, accusation (from legal procedure). These are all speech acts of which orality, physical presence, and subjective commitment are necessary consituents, Zumthor speaks of the 'moral effect' of oral declaration as: rimpression, sur Pauditeur, d'une loyaute moins contestable que dans la communication ecrite ou differee, d'une veracite plus probable et plus persuasive. C'est pourquoi sans doute le temoignage judiciaire, l'absolution, la condamnation se prononcent de vive voix. Plus que toute autre forme de contact, la parole rend manifeste, dans les individus qu'elle confronte, leur realite de sujets. (La Poesie orale pp. 31 -2) Much medieval legal practice consisted of declarations sworn in person before witnesses, written documentation being at best of secondary value.9 The troubadours show a constant awareness of the similarity between their songs and contemporary legal procedure. They attest the faithfulness of their declarations: eu li juraria per leis et per ma fe que.l bes que.m faria no fos saubutz per me. (Bernart de Ventadorn XXXVIII, vv.53-6) Quar, si Dieus me gar lieys de cuy suy servire - e no puesc jurar plus fort per vertat dire non pogran durar may un jorn li sospire qu'ieu de plan talan no moris deziran. (Gaucelm Faidit XXXIV, vv. 14-21) I would swear to her by herself and by my faith that the good she did me would not be made known by me. For, so God preserve for me her whom I serve - I cannot devise a stronger oath to attest to the truth - my sighs wil not be able to continue further without my dying from the fullness of my desire. When dissatisfied with the course of their courtship, not only do they resort to legal metaphors of reprobation, they enact a ritual of accusation and trial: 135

Performance S'ieu fos en cort on horn tengues dreitura, de ma dona, sitot s'es bon' e bella, me clamera, qu'a tan gran tort me mena que no m'atent plevi ni covinensa. E done per que.m promet so que no.m dona?10 No tern pec hat, ni sap que s'es vergonha? (Peire Vidal XLI, vv. 1-6) A totz me clam, senhor, de midons e d'Amor. (Bernart de Ventadorn XVII, vv. 9-10) If I were in a court where justice was dispensed, I would lodge complaint against my lady, even though she is virtuous and beautiful, for she does not keep her pledge or agreement with me. So why does she promise that which she doesn't deliver? Has she no fear of reproof, and no sense of shame? My lords, I appeal to everyone against my lady and Love. The feudal metaphors discussed in Chapter 3 also exploit the forms of legal declarations. As R. H. Bloch has demonstrated, T h e canso [is] an implicit appeal to a lady-judge made in the context of contradictory rival claims' (Literature and Law p. 176). Far more commonly invoked 'supplements' to speech than writing are various non-verbal forms of communication. The effect of these is to destabilize the 'text' as a linguistic entity, and pull it into closer relation with para- or non-linguistic media. (I return later to the idea that the text is merely an adjunct to performance, and that 'true' communication is posited as lying elsewhere.) The combining of words and music in song is the most obvious instance of the text being only one component of performance. The tune may be conceived as expressive (as in Arnaut Daniel x, En cest sonet coind' e leri, 'to this graceful and joyous little tune') and the manner of its performance may be seen as important to the song's success (as in the tenso between Giraut de Bornelh and Raimbaut d'Aurenga). 11 Page shows that the music of the 'high style' canso conferred dignty and status as an individual on the singer, as well as enhancing the verbal content of the song.12 Other frequently alleged para-linguistic forms of vocal behaviour are sighing and weeping. The sending of a sigh as messenger was illustrated in Guillem de Cabestany's song, above; in Guilhelm de Sant Leidier sighs take the place of the homage vow, and (allegedly) of the song too: Cansson non die, dompna, mas endreich vos a cui non aus trametr' autre messatge mas los sospirs q'ieu fatz de genoillos, mas mans jointas, lai on sai vostr' estatge. (VIII, vv. 25 -28) 136

Writing, orality, and witness I don't compose a song, my lady, except for you to whom I dare send no messenger other than my sighs which I utter, kneeling with my hands joined, towards where I know you are. The physical presence of the performer makes his sighs and tears 'visible' to his audience; he does not just sing of his love, he 'shows' it to them. Other 'visible' expressions of love are swooning, supplicating, trembling: Mon cor e mi e mas bonas chanssos e tot qant sai d'avinen dir e far, conosc q'ieu teing, bona dompna, de vos, a cui non aus descobrir ni mostrar l'amor q'ie.us ai, don languisc e sospire; e pois Pamor no.us aus mostrar ni dir ... c'aissi.m pasmei, qan vos vi dels huoills rire, d'una doussor d'amor qe.m venc ferir al cor, qe.m fetz si tremblar e fremir, c'a pauc denan no.n mori de desire. (Gaucelm Faidit XVII, vv. 1-6, 13-16) I know that I hold my heart, myself, and my good songs from you, lady, to whom I dare not reveal or show my love for you, which makes me languish and sigh, and since I dare not show or tell my love ... for I swooned, when I saw the smile in your eyes, with the sweetness of the love which struck me through the heart and made me so tremble and shake that I almost die of desire in front of you. Raimbaut d'Aurenga's burlesque of such 'demonstrations' of passion in xv (Entre gel e vent efanc) stanza iv, shows to what extent they had become commonplace. The great emphasis which the troubadours place on the visual is also apparent in their imagery, chiefly that of nature, but also, most strikingly, in the metaphor of the mirror. (This is not to deny that there is also a strong intertextual element in such imagery.) Song is a form of witness in which visual evidence and verbal testimony are often scarcely distinguishable. The analogy with legal and liturgical practices which combined words with symbolic ritual is obvious. 13 Here, for example, is Folquet de Marselha appealing to his lady for merce: ai! car vostr' uelh no vezon mo martire? qu'adoncs n'agraz merce, si doncs no men lo douz esgartz que.m fai merce parven. (IX, 26-28) Oh why is it that your eyes do not perceive my suffering? For then you would have pity on me, if your sweet look, which makes pity visible to me, keeps its word. 137

Performance The 'look which does not break its word' incorporates vision into speech in a way far more characteristic of troubadour song than the occasional displacement of speech into writing. Presence, 'persona', and 'characterization'

Given the physical presence of performers and their exploitation of oral models implying personal commitment, their songs stand in some relation to them as historical subjects and could be understood as in some sense 'characterizing' them. The 'self constructed by allegory (Chapter 2), gendered and endowed with social ambition (Chapter 3), is associated, by performance, with a physical body that enacts a series of visible, social roles: those of poet and lover as well as performer and entertainer. It is traditional in troubadour scholarship to use the termpersona to designate the first-person speaker of a text.14 The motivation for this is to avoid confusing this speaker with the historical author. In a way that distinction is so obvious that it scarcely needs making. In another, however, it is deeply unsatisfactory. It reifies the 'author' as a fixed entity separate from the text and thus evades the problem of the relationship between 'author' and 'speaker' by deciding that relationship to be non-existent. I shall argue in the next section of this chapter that the performer of a text was often, in the first instance, its author. The context of performance would thus tend to confuse 'speaker' and 'author'. It may of course often have been the case that a troubadour acted out a role in performance that was quite sharply differentiated from his social identity as known to his audience in other contexts.15 The choice of a stage name or sobriquet may have served to signal such a divergence, in the case of Marcabru or Cercamon for example.16 The term persona, with its implication of dramatic artifice, may well be appropriate to designate such a carefully elaborated stage role. It is useful, too, for designating the disjunction between first person and implied or historical author in parodic songs. In the traditional canso, however, this disjunction is largely effaced by the rhetoric of the songs themselves, regardless of whether the performer was also the troubadour known to have composed them. As Chapter 1 showed, the rhetoric of the canso fosters ambiguity and metaphorical depth rather than clearcut distinctions. It is not surprising to find similar polyvalence in the first-person voice in performance, as it adopts the roles, simultaneously, of performer and composer, entertainer and lover, historical and implied author. Since this deliberate syncretism blurs the distinctions on which the term 138

Presence, 'persona', and 'characterization* persona rests, I shall speak instead of 'character' (in the sense of personnage, not 'psychological entity'). 'Character' is the assumption, by the first-person voice, of a series of overlapping roles. These roles, and their combination, are not immune to the hyperbole and irony whose importance was likewise stressed in Chapter 1. The singer may enact as 'character' the excess which was seen in Chapter 1 as qualifying the subject position, and the audience may very likely suspend belief in the truth-value of his song. 'Character' is constructed by some of the commonest motifs of troubadour songs, such as the claim to sing sincerely, which apparently originates in the poetry of Bernart de Ventadorn. The effect of the 'sincerity topos' is to urge the identity between the song and the feeling which it expresses, thus asserting the identity between the roles of lover and poet; and to give an account of the song's genesis, thus uniting the functions of author and performer: Pel doutz chan que.l rossinhols fai, la noih can me sui adormitz, revelh de joi totz esbaitz, 4 d'amor pensius e cossirans; c'aisso es mos melher mesters, que tosterns ai joi volunters, et ab joi comensa mos chans. 8 Qui sabia lo joi qu'eu ai, que jois fos vezutz ni auzitz, totz autre jois fora petitz vas qu'eu tenc, que.l meus jois es grans. 12 Tals se fai cohndes e parlers, que.n cuid' esser rics e sobrers de fin' amor, qu'eu n'ai dos tans! (Bernart de Ventadorn X, vv. 1-14) Because of the sweet song which the nightingale sings at night when I have fallen asleep, I awake distraught with joy, absorbed in longing thoughts of love; for this is my best profession, that I am always ready for joy, and with joy my song begins. If anyone knew of the joy I feel, if such joy could be seen or heard, all other joy would seem small beside mine, for my joy is great. There are some who style themselves elegant and eloquent, and fancy they are rich and supreme in true love, when I feel twice as much!

The repetition ofjoi asserts that the song (v. 7) is the direct expression of the emotion which, as a lover, the singer epitomizes, surpassing in intensity the joi of others who mouth inferior sentiments (w. 13 -14). 139

Performance Their verbalizations, though elegant and rhetorical (cohndes eparlers, v. 12), are merely empty artifice (cf. sefai, v. 12) beside the 'natural' song of the nightingale, from which the singer takes his cue. The 'beginning' (v. 7) of song is invoked in such a way as to obfuscate any distinction between the moment of beginning composition, and that of beginning performance; the impression is one of instantaneous inspiration and improvisation: the lover-performer wakes up and immediately bursts into song! This equation of lover and singer is extended and theorized later in the century by Giraut de Bornelh. In his Be for* oimais drechs (L), an indignant attack on the failure of love in his own experience and in the world around him, the first-person voice wonders how anyone can sing without the joy of love, and what role reasoning and intellect play in composition: Je ses joi be no chantarai; 28 qu'enquera no cut c'om chantes ses amor qu'el cor no.lh mostres so que pois forses sen ab jai. Pero 'trobar' e 'trobador' 32 sonon de diversa color, que tals cud' esser ben apres que no sap ges com egals chauzimens conve 36 vas desmezur' e vas merce. IV

Car ges segon lo chauzimen trobars no leva ni dechai, mas als franc coratges s'atrai 40 lo drechs sens e.l bos dichs apres; car qui per mo bo dir m'ames, tot distra.lh que dich non aurai. Cades a la bona sabor 44 serf la leng' al cor e l'acor e ren dels bes bonas merces e des mal pres mals gratz tot aissi com l'ave; 48 que si.m fer' eu vos e vos me. (vv. 27-48)

I shall never be able to sing well without joy; for I still do not believe that anyone can sing without love which shows him, in his heart, what would then constrain his reason with joy. Yet 'composing' and 'poets' are terms which sound with various colour, for there are some who imagine that they are well informed and yet who fail to recognize that the same degree of perception is necessary whether one sings [to denounce] immoderateness or [to implore] mercy. 140

Presence, "persona", and

'characterization'

IV. For it is not perception in itself which causes poetry to rise or to degenerate, but proper understanding is drawn to noble hearts, and fine speech follows after; and if anyone were to love me for my fine composition, it would have communicated to him at once what I shall not in fact have said [i.e. the meaning of a song exceeds what the mere words of it say]. For the tongue, with its fine savour, is always subordinate to the heart, assists it and returns thanks for good favours and records its dissatisfaction with harm received, according to what occurs; and so I shall deal with you and you with me. The direct address to an audience (v. 48) identifies the performer with the composer who earlier meditated on how poetry is produced (vv.28ff.). This is where problems of interpretation arise. 17 1 understand vv. 37-40 as defining a hierarchy of functions relative to composition: the heart is pre-eminent, reason {chauzimen and sen) are subordinate to the heart and language follows in third place. Since the noble heart can react to many circumstances, including unfavourable ones (vv. 36,46-7), the range of themes that can be treated in true ('sincere') song can include emotions other than joy, which was initially (and conventionally) accepted as the only legitimate theme (vv. 27-30). The reactions of the noble heart, informed by reason, will find proper expression because the tongue is the servant of the heart: the hierarchy drawn up in vv. 37-40 is therefore confirmed (vv.43-4). But although language is a good servant, empathy between poet-performer and audience is still more important, since the latter are attracted by his 'meaning' as much as by his words (vv. 39-42). They can communicate at a higher point on the hierarchy than that of mere language. In this account, composition and performance unite to establish the superior 'character' of the poetsinger to his equally noble listeners. Another rhetorical device for urging the identity of singer and lover, or performer and composer, is the admission that the song cannot fully express the intensity of the lover's feelings (the 'ineffability topos'). The cansos of Arnaut Daniel exploit this implicit paradox, that the song, while it seeks to be a communicative act to a live audience, remains inherently solipsistic because language is inadequate to the expression of passion. Arnaut's song xv, Sols sui que sai lo sobrafan qe.m sortz, uses the framework of cobas doblas to set the inner world of the lover-performer apart from the outer reality of his courtly audience. The repeated rhyme word sortz which links the first pair of stanzas is a rime equivoque whereby the rising up of excessive anguish {lo sobraffan qe.m sortz) is not only inexpressible by the singer but also makes him deaf {sortz, v. 8) to others. Overwhelmed and isolated, the singer turns in the next pair of 141

Performance stanzas to the public world of courts (cortz, v. 15), whose values are best manifested as internalized by his lady, the epitome of cortesia (v. 19). Only the pleasures which come to him from her are found not to be short-lived (cortz, v. 22), a further punning rhyme which unites the stanzas but at the same time exposes the instability or insufficiency of the public world by contrast with the inner worth of the love object. The equivocal rhymes of these four opening stanzas resonate with two alliterative series, one in so- corresponding to sortz and one in cocorresponding to cortz. The so- series evokes isolation, excess, and suffering; the co- series combines cortz and cortesia with repeated mention of the singer's heart (cor) and perhaps, in some cases, his body (cors), or that of his lady: Sols sui qui sai lo sobrafan qe.m sortz al cor, d'amor sofren per sobramar ...

(w. 1 -2)

D'autras vezer sui sees e d'auzir sortz, q'en sola lieis vei et aug et esgar; e ies d'aisso no.ill sui fals plazentiers que mais la vol non ditz la boca.l cors; q'ieu no vau tant chams, vautz ni plan ni puois q'en un 50/ cors trob aissi bos aips totz. (w. 8-13) I alone know the excess of misery that rises in my heart, suffering from an excess of love ... But I am blind to the sight of other ladies, and deaf to hear them, for her alone do I see and hear and consider; and I am not speaking falsely or idly, for my heart (body?) desires her more than my mouth admits, for however many fields, valleys, plains and hills I were to travel, I cannot find so many good qualities united in one person (body).

Through these interlacing echoes, the 'court' finds its validation only within the 'heart', and the pubic loses its meaning to the private; but the private becomes inexpressible, as the song resolves itself into patterns of sound that are the acoustic image of the ineffability of the inner world. The impossibility of communication is expressed in the 'impossible' metaphor at the end of stanza iv: Nuills gauzimens no.m fora breus ni cortz de lieis, cui prec q'o vuoilla devinar, qe ia per mi non o sabra estiers si.l cors ses digz no.s presenta de fors; que ies Rozers, per aiga qe l'engrois, non a tal briu c'al cor plus larga dotz no.m fassa estanc d'amor, qan la remire. (vv.22-8) 142

Presence, 'persona', and

'characterization9

No pleasure which came to me from her would be cursory or short-lived, and I beg her to divine it, for she will never know it otherwise from me, unless my heart, without words, can show itself outwardly; for the Rhone, however swollen, does not make so much noise as the wider stream of love makes a lake in my heart, when I look at her. The paradox that the singer's heart must speak without words (v. 25) leads to an elusive comparison between the noise made by the waters of the Rhone and the silent welling of the singer's heart, fed by the stream of his love. The torrents, however tumultuous, of the 'public' river are less expressive than the 'private' still waters of sentiment; silence is louder than noise, and motionlessness more passionate than movement. In the two final stanzas, the desire to perform the most eloquent, and therefore least communicative, of songs produces further equivocal rhymes, whereby bortz ('bastard' v.29, 'joust' v.36) suggests the moral worthlessness of conventional social play, and eagerness not to offend the lady {enois, tire vv. 40,42) leads to indifference to the response of the wider audience (cui queplass' o que tire v. 45). The alliterative series in so-, which at the beginning of the song invoked solitude and excess, is now assimilated to pleasure and to the song itself: Iois e solatz d'autra.m par fals e bortz ... qe.l sieus solatz es dels autres sobriers. ... q'a mi sol so.s tresors. Die trop? Eu non, sol lieis non si' enois. Ma chanssos prec que no.us sia enois, car si voletz grazir lo son e.ls motz ... (w.29, 31, 39-40,43-4) Joy and solace from another seems false and illegitimate ... for her solace is supreme. For to me it alone is a treasure. Do I say too much? No, provided it doesn't annoy her. I beg you that my song should not annoy you, for if you were to find pleasure in the tune and the (rhyme) words ... The song functions in performance, as much by its tune as by its words, to establish empathy with the unique love object. Again, the 'text' is a matter of secondary concern; its meaning emerges more from patterns of sound (analogous, thereby, to the tune) than from considered exposition. The roles of lover and poet are identified with that of the performer, whose principal theme is the impossibility 143

Performance of communicating passion - except to one who understands it already. The problematization of performance as a communicative act is attested in a third topos: that of the lauzengeor. The threat which these figures are represented as embodying imposes the tempering of 'confession' with discretion and serves, like invocations of sincerity and ineffability, to identify lover and performer, author and entertainer. The lauzengeor are simultaneously misusers of language and dissemblers in love. They are thus the anti-subjects of the canso, the negative image of the lover-poet-singer, and a desirable foil for his 'courtliness', as the conclusion to Chapter 3 proposed. Peire Vidal's Baron, de mon dan covit (xxiv), although inveighing against the lauzengeor, actually admits that their activities are a prerequisite to the success of true lovers: Plus que non pot ses aigua viure.l peis, non pot esser ses lauzengiers domneis, per qu'amador compron trop car lur joe. (vv. 55-7) No more than fish can live without water can you have courtship without the lauzengeor, who make lovers pay so very dearly for their fun. Guilhem de Sant Leidier's Ben chantera si m 'estes ben d'Amor (in) differentiates bon trobador (v.3), who sing inspired by love, from joglar (v. 52) who don't; and amador (v. 9), who cannot be too loyal, from inconstant galiador (v. 11). The singer ranges himself on the right side of these contrasts by claiming to be faithful despite the lack of response from his domna (vv. 13-29), and by proposing to give up singing since he lacks the necessary inspiration of joy in love (vv. 49-52). The song is thus based on an opposition between the deserving lover-poet-singer and his negative (and reinforcing) image, the deceiver-false \o\ex-joglar. Such an opposition is self-evidently unstable: every poet-lover can be perceived, by everyone else, as falling into the opposing category (cf. my remarks on the lauzengeor at the end of Chapter 3). But this instability is most striking when the songs are viewed as 'texts' rather than 'acts'. The development of Ben chantera shows Guilhem de Sant Leidier manipulating the implied audience (in this case the domna) to ensure that the values he distinguishes are correctly assigned. From stanza v, the focus shifts to the necessity for her to show good judgement; failure to do so will class her with the trichairitz (v.45) who, like the trichador, pursue venal self-interest with no regard for merit. The domna is thus constrained to weigh the oppositions as the singer dictates; otherwise she will end up on the wrong side of them herself. Performance 144

Signature, patronage, and 'autobiography' provides - temporarily at least - a fixed perspective on the world. Exploiting that perspective to brand the lauzengeor as 'other' is, for the performer, an effective device for underwriting the meritorious 'character' of his own 'self. The three devices considered here enable the first-person position voiced by the performer to construct a 'character' for him. Clearly, they are all affected by irony and hyperbole. One need not believe in the 'sincerity' of the singer,18 the 'ineffability' of his feelings, or his 'essential' difference from the lauzengeor; no one can effectively place the supreme worth of the 'characters' thus constructed. Suspension of belief in the 'truth' of the performer's protestations is complicated by two further factors which the two remaining sections of this chapter will explore. The first, below, concerns the relation of the performer to the poet as a historical figure, and the skilful confusion of historical reality with erotic desire in the songs. The concluding one concerns audience complicity in the construction of the performer's subjectivity. In it, I return to these three techniques, to show how responsibility for irony and excess is shared, in performance, between a performer and his audience both (at least in part) overdetermined by poetic tradition. Signature, patronage, and 'autobiography'

The first-person position of the singer invites the audience to identify it with a complex of cultural roles which make up a 'character' enacted by the performer. In what relation does this 'character' stand to the known extra-textual figure of a particular troubadour? In what sense, then (to return to the argument of my Introduction) can the songs be considered 'autobiographical'? The traditional view of the performance of troubadour song draws a firm distinction between the troubadour as author and the jongleur as performer. I have argued elsewhere,19 however, that there is a substantial amount of evidence to undermine this distinction. Most of the troubadours were also performers, and although it is likely that their songs, once admired, were performed by others, or by jongleurs acting on the troubadour's instructions, there seems little indication, at least in the twelfth century, that troubadour songs became severed from the reality, or at any rate from the name and reputation, of their author, or that they entered the repertoire of professional performers of genres other than the canso.20 (It seems that women poets, already marginalized 145

Performance discursively, were further disadvantaged by the expectation that they would not perform their songs in person but entrust them to someone else.)21 Such information as we possess about court life in the Midi suggests that courts were characteristically small-scale and intimate.22 Initially, there were relatively few which patronized troubadour song (Meneghetti, Pubblico pp. 60ff.). The troubadour, or his designated substitute, would be known personally to his audience, and that audience could be expected to possess some familiarity with his other compositions. The frequent reference made by the troubadours to their expectations about reception, at least from the more discerning members of their audience, shows that they regarded performance as a mutually fruitful exchange (Gruber, Dialektik pp.62ff.). Troubadour lyrics are often linked to the historical figure of their authors by the simple expedient of signature.23 Originating in the poetry of Marcabru and Cercamon, this declaration of identity is used sparingly by Bernart de Ventadorn, sporadically by other troubadours, and insistently by Arnaut Daniel and Raimon de Miraval.24 Poets who do not cite their own names may find other means of including them: contributors to the various dialogue genres are usually addressed by name by their interlocutors. It is common for such poetic exchanges to refer beyond the immediate context of debate to other compositions by one or both of the participants, and so, by inference, to apply a signature to absent songs as well as to the debate poem itself. Such reference may take the form of citation (including parodic citation), or of contrafactum. Both are found in the coblas exchanged between Marquis Lanza, and Peire Vidal (XLiv). The Marquis opens the exchange with vituperation of Peire's social and poetic pretensions; but the fact that the metre chosen for this attack is that of one of Peire's apparently best-known songs (Quant horn honratz torna en gran paubreira, XLII) undercuts its show of hostility and transforms it instead into a poetic tribute, which is reinforced by citation, in v.2, of v.37 of its model.25 It has also been suggested that the use of a characteristic senhal can constitute a form of signature.26 The designation of an addressee may serve as 'signature by description' of the troubadour himself as 'he who composes for' the person named. The more singular the senhal the better. Bels Cavalliers and Engles are 'signatures by description' of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras; Mon Auvergnat of Bernart de Ventadorn; Mon Castiat of Peire Vidal, Tostemps of Folquet de Marselha, etc. The choice of the same senhal to refer to different love objects has, 146

Signature, patronage, and 'autobiography9 of course, little particularizing value, serving rather to mark the assimilation of the love service, and of the cansos which are its expression, to tradition.27 Reciprocal senhals, however, mark the existence of a kind of poetic compagnonnatge analogous to that of the warrior elite.28 They 'sign' not an individual but a significant social bond linking (usually) two men. The troubadours who use reciprocal senhals confirm the calquing of poetic subjectivity on the heroic model (cf. Chapter 1), and its embracing of masculinity and masculine ideas of status (cf. Chapter 3). The large number of tornadas preserved by the MSS of many songs, each figuring a different dedicatee,29 shows that their authors/performers regarded them as adaptable to a variety of audiences, and suggests a lack of specificity about successive performances. On the other hand, songs in which a single patron figures prominently can convey the impression of a unique and complex relationship which reflects as much as the troubadour as on his addressee. An example is provided by Giraut de Bornelh's Ab semblan (Kolsen xxxi), dedicated (v. 61) to the king of Aragon and (v. 73) to a certain count. The probable historical context of composition is 1179-81, when Alphonso II of Aragon was reinforcing his claim to the county of Provence, and secured successes over Raymond V's supporters.30 A contemporary audience would be likely to see in these references historical coordinates for the song's author. Whether or not they knew him as 'Giraut de Bornelh', they would apprehend the song as having a purchase on historical reality. The truth-value of the political content might incline them to accept the song's erotic professions as more 'true' and the troubadour, qua lover, as more 'real'. The invocation of a patron thus serves a similar function to the topos of sincerity, uniting the roles of poet and lover; it combines this with the value of signature by making both poet and lover identifiable with 'the king of Aragon's protege'; and it lends to the resulting package an air of autobiography. The importance accorded to Alphonso goes beyond the stanza addressed to him. The song sketches a series of parallels and contrasts - between Giraut and the king, between his patrons and his lady which all serve, directly or indirectly, to flesh out the 'signature'. (According to Giraut's vida, he did not himself perform his works, but instead was present while his songs were sung by his jongleurs: an example of the jongleur in the role of delegated substitute, singing as the mouthpiece of the author and acting (for) him.) The roles of composer and lover are assimilated to each other by the similarities 147

Performance between his patrons and the lady, both of whom occupy a position of lordship over the poet: Senher reis d'Arago (v. 61) Ab joi t'en vai, chansos, en lai vas Mo-Senhor (w. 77-79) My lord king of Aragon Go joyfully over there, song, to My-Lord. The lady and the count likewise share the courtly quality of pretz (vv.73-5, 79-80). Lover and poet are animated by the same principles, which are predicated of both lady and patrons. There is no distinguishing a 'professional' from an 'amorous' first-person subject. The subservience of the patron's protege is increased by the contrast between his failure in courtship, and Alphonso's successes against his enemies, a contrast pointed by the transition between stanzas v and vi: Tan can viurai

si tot no.m voletz, be.us volrai si tot no.m valia. Senher reis d'Arago, temer vos deven vostre malvolen, car fach lor avetz a prezen totztems peitz lor afaire. (58-64) As long as I live, even if you do not wish for me, I shall wish you well, even if that were to do me no good. My lord king of Aragon, those who wish you ill should fear you, for you have weakened their position for ever in sight of all.

Whereas the poet is unable to prevail over the illwill of his domna, Alphonso has triumphed over the hostility of his adversaries. The reasons for their discrepant achievements are implied by the opening stanzas. The domain of love appears here as a mirror-world, reflecting, but with distortion and deception, the world of masculine polity: Ab semblan me fai dechazer Amors e.m dona marimen; car semblan m'es del joi c'aten 4 que ja.l cor no n'esclaire, car en trop ric repaire bels semblan me guida 148

Signature, patronage, and 'autobiography' que.m ditz que jauzida n'aurai ses falhia. Mas so.m dechai don fort m'esmai. car I'us semblans m'abriva lai 12 e I'altre.m desvia. 8

Ab bel semblan me fai voler midons so que plus me defen; ab art et ab fals genh me pren 16 com s'eu l'era trichaire. Per leis pert mo veiaire ... With its similitude (deceptive appearance) love brings me low and makes me sad; for it appears as though the joy I long for will never brighten my heart; for a fair appearance which assures me of love without fail draws me to too august a place. But it brings me low, to my great sorrow, that one appearance leads me there and the other takes me away from it. With her likeness (fair appearance/deceptive appearance) my lady makes me desire that which she most denies me; she tackles me with artifice and false cunning, as though I were a deceiver. Because of her I lose my judgement...

Appearance and similitude are both impled by semblan; the ideal domna should be like a lord (midons, v. 14), and the lover's response to her should be like her reception of him. But the first-person voice only becomes aware of likeness at the moment when it merges with its opposite, a false appearance or resemblance, which is why the opening line conjoins so strikingly the terms semblan and deschazer (degeneration). The semblan of the lover's expectations (v. 3), which should be a reflection of the domna's availability, is revealed as a false image because her belssemblan (v. 6) turns out to be deceptive. Lover and lady are therefore inhabitants of a discordant and fallen world. The lady ensnares him in false traps (v. 15) as though he were deceiving - which of course he is not; but having been unable to win her by an answering of positive semblan (vv. 11-12),31 he is now out of harmony with her deceitful one. The shortcomings of this courtship are emphasized by the corresponding moral virtues of Alphonso, as well as by his political success. His affairs are conducted openly, before all the world (63, 65-6); it is his enemies who go astray (desvai v.69, cf. desvia v. 12). The 'count' also enjoys an unquestioned reputation which 'does not take a false route' (vv.75-6). Alphonso's career is one of political unification, and this contrasts with the disunity of the lovers. The song as a whole is reminiscent of Marcabru with its offsetting of deceitful illusion, deviance, fragmentation, and sexuality 149

Performance on the one hand, against a masculine world of witness to a whole truth on the other. The inscription of the patron therefore does more than anchor the song in a semblance of historical reality. It also contributes to a discussion of what 'semblance' and 'reality' mean. The fact that the poet seems to conclude that they belong securely only in the political domain of his patrons means that his love affair occupies an ambiguous position between history and illusion. Although the disposition of material in the song presents the love interest as primary, the servicing of the 'professional' relationship between poet and patrons as secondary, the ideological weight of the dedicatory passages relegates the 'love' theme to the status of image en creux of masculine concerns. By conviction, the autobiographical subject is allied with the masculine values of his addressees; but by inclination (not reason, cf. v. 26), he is bound up with the distorted values of the mirroring world of love to which he remains committed despite his uncertainty of success (vv. 33ff.). The patrons thus come to represent an 'objective' view of how dealings ought to be conducted, while the 'subjective' one is caught in the 'false traps' of heterosexual emotion, experiencing them as 'real' and desirable despite the knowledge that they are delusory, disruptive and degenerate. Raimbaut de Vaqueiras's song xxn, No m'agrad* iverns ni pascors, also marks dichotomy between the experiences of love, and the masculine values shared by poet and patron (Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat).32 Composed on the Fourth Crusade (in June-July 1205, according to Linskill), the song opens with nostalgia for past love affairs, in comparison with which the crusaders' territorial advances seem empty of value: Doncs, qe.m val conquistz ni ricors? qu'eu ja.m tenia per plus rics quand er' amatz e fis amics. (vv. 37-9) So what price conquests and wealth? I thought myself wealthier when I was loved and a true lover.

Memory of his Bels Cavalliers (whom we know from Raimbaut's other songs to be associated with Boniface's court at Montferrat) reminds the singer of how both he and Boniface (n'Engles, v.40) used to feast on love. Mention of his patron serves, in Linskill's edition, as a turning point. In the next stanza the singer resolves that personal suffering must not weaken him in the face of the enemy: 150

Signature, patronage, and 'autobiography' Pero no.m comanda valors, si be.m sui iratz ni enics, q'ieu don gaug a mos enemies tan q'en per da pretz ni lauzors, q'ancar puosc dan e pro tener, e sai d'irat joios parer sai entre.ls Latins e.ls Grezeis. (w. 49-55) But even though I am wretched and distressed, worth does not insist that I should give joy to my enemies to the extent of losing reputation and esteem, for I can sustain both harm and gain, and from being wretched, appear joyful here among the Latins and Greeks.

The song becomes a panegyric of Boniface as a crusading hero of epic status (vv.74-9) and concludes with a tornada designating him as audience and as new love object: Belhs dous Engles, francx et arditz, cortes, essenhatz, essernitz, vos etz de totz mos gaugz conortz, e quar viu ses vos, fatz esfortz. (vv.93-6) Handsome, gentle Engles, generous and bold, courtly, well bred, distinguished, you are the consolation of all my joys, and it is a miracle if I can live without you. This address identifies composer and performer in a fragment of autobiography in which the first-person voice of Raimbaut on crusade assesses his commitment, successively, to heterosexual, homosocial and finally homoerotic ties. Linskill's stanza order has the support of other scholars, but not of the MS tradition.33 The versions with tornados (and some without) do not practise the uncomplicated division into an erotic and a crusading section. Except for S, they place the erotically oriented stanza in, or iv, or both, after Linskill's stanza v where Raimbaut dedicates all his energies to war (see vv.49-55, cited above, which open this stanza). This means that some versions where the audience is not invoked compartmentalize 'erotic love' and 'history' (as Linskill's text does), whereas the versions explicitly addressing a historically contextualized audience are more inclined to efface the boundary between the two. The resulting tensions may best be examined in M, the only complete MS.34 Stanza I presents an inverted world in which all joy has turned to sorrow now that Raimbaut is an exile from love. Stanza II regrets the 'flower, fruit, seed and ear' of love, and presents the singer as cast down from the position of privilege which he used to occupy. 151

Performance At the end of this stanza he struggles against personal eclipse by wretchedness: anc flama tan tost non esteis q'ieu for' esteins e delinquitz e perdutz en fatz et en digz le iornz qe.m venc lo desconors qe non merma, com qe.m esfors.

(vv.20-4)

Never did a flame burn out more rapidly, for I would have been dead and depraved, condemned in words and action, if the misery which does not diminish whatever my efforts were to overcome me. This passage leads on to the next stanza (v in Linskill) in which the singer resolves not to give his enemies the satisfaction of defeating him. Amors replaces the valors in v. 49 of Linskill's text, marking the imbrication of love and warinM(cf. Linskill w . 49-55, cited above): Pero no.m comanda amors, si ben sui iratz ni enics ... But love does not command, even though I am wretched and distressed ... The crusade thus becomes an arena where the singer clings to his identity as a lover regardless of his misery. In fact the inner struggle is harnessed to the crusading one: e anc pos le mons fon bastitz non fe nulla gen tant d'esfors con nos, cui Dieus n'a gent estors. (vv. 58-60) and never since the world was made did any people fight so hard as we do, whom God has graciously delivered. The next two stanzas in M (= in and IV in Linskill) record the singer's disillusion with the crusading effort, because its territorial advances seem to him worthless compared with the value of the love he has lost. In the second of them, the singer recalls his association in love with n'Engles and his joy from Bels Cavalliers, the irrecoverability of which intensifies his grief regardless of his growing wealth from the war (vv.43-8). This is followed by the two stanzas praising Boniface's heroic achievements. Towards the end of the first of them, Raimbaut identifies with the crusading force when he hopes that God will send them reinforcements (v. 71). The second, with a profusion of epic allusion, confirms the singer's assimilation to the epic collectivity by the repeated use of first person plurals (vv.79, 81). This identification continues in the first tornada (per nos er Domas envazitz ..., v.85). The second tornada in M (the last in Linskill) 152

Signature, patronage, and 'autobiography' is the admiring address to Boniface. The song in M concludes with a tornada reprobating deserters and those who give them hospitality. This version of the song makes for a more problematic first-person subject than Linskill's text. As in Giraut de Bornelh's Ab semblan, the invocation of a specific audience creates individuality and more or less precise historical coordinates for the composition and performance of the song, assigning to it, thereby, an 'autobiographical' dimension. As in Giraut's song, too, the 'reality' of the historical setting affects, by contagion, the interleaving erotic stanzas, which are not merely relegated to nostalgia as in LinskiU's text, but instead co-exist with the political ones in relations of parallel and contrast. Raimbaut's love is 'like' crusade because it shares with it a vocabulary of joy and distress, draws on imagery of wealth and territory, and because thesenhalBels Cavalliers 'likens' his domna to the crusading knights; but it is 'unlike' in that it possesses independent, and for the majority of the song, superior value to that of crusading success. By its reversions from one domain to the other, however, the song undoes the firm demarcation between inner (erotic) and outer (political) experience which characterizes LinskiU's edition. In Giraut, 'love' is inferior to 'history' and in Raimbaut it is superior, but in both it is, above all, other to history, absent from the reality which it mirrors. The fact that this song exists with a diversity of stanza orders shows that performance (and indeed editing) is a process which constructs the singer's 'autobiography' differently according to the options taken by the performer (or editor). The 'meaning' attributed to the designated audience also varies with the different ordering of material. The fact that performance is a process which can affect those involved differently on different occasions is relevant to the discussion that follows. Female patronage and the ambiguity of performance The troubadour who addresses a male patron can compare him both to the love object and to himself. Songs addressed to female patrons usually compare them only with the poet's lady. The vidas and razos tend, indeed, to conflate the two; modern editors are more cautious.35 In general, troubadours who dedicated their songs to women seem to have exploited this potential for confusion between the named patron and the nameless domna. The professional relationship between troubadour and designated audience is thus blurred with the erotic one between lover and lady. Peire Rogier is the earliest troubadour to have dedicated a large 153

Performance proportion of his corpus to a woman, Ermengarda of Narbonne,36 to whom he give the senhal Tort-n'avetz. This acts reflexively as a kind of signature: songs I and II are signed in his own name, songs in-vi are linked by the senhal, and this leaves only vn, of the cansos positively attributed to him, unsigned. Peire's playful approach to language and dialogue, and in particular to the instability of such concepts as 'self and * other', was discussed in Chapter 2; it helps to account for the apparently antiphrastic character of the senhal ('Youare-in-the-wrong') as well as for the disconcerting overlap of patron and lady.37 The song which best illustrates this overlap is in, Per far esbaudir mos vezisy which uses the commonplace device of the professional 'frame' (opening with a statement of the grounds for singing and closing with a dedication to a specific audience) but also undermines its apparent independence from the remainder of the song. Stanza I opens the frame by introducing the performer, singing for his 'neighbours' who have been unhappy at his silence, and especially for Tort-n'avetz whose domain of joy and worth consoles him in the face of the decline he observes around him. Tort-n'avetz is thus a kind of alibi for composition, and even an alias for the poet himself (as the concept of 'reflexive signature' implies). The final tornada closes the frame by sending the song via the unflatteringly named Bastart to Tort-n'avetz with a message for 'the lad Aimeric', apparently a reference to Ermengarda's nephew, who was being groomed for the succession of Narbonne between 1168 and 1177 since Ermengarda herself was childless (see Nicholson's note to v. 64). The second stanza appears to open the song 'proper' with the first reference to midons, object of the singer's devoted but secret attachment, on which he expatiates in the remaining stanzas and in the first tornada: leu mai que mai, ma donn', ieu sai que vos mi donatz joy e pretz; e vuelh mais morir ad estros ia.l sapcha negus horn mas vos. (vv. 56-60) I, most of all, my lady, know that you give me joy and merit, and henceforth I am willing to die immediately, although let no one but you know it.

The midons body of the poem thus seems separate from the Tortn'avetz frame, with the double dedication at the end constructing two distinct audiences for performance: the lady by direct address (w. 50, 57), Tort-n'avetz via the jongleur. As Peire's editor (Introduction p. 11) points out, however, the distinction between the two audiences 154

Signature, patronage, and 'autobiography' is not clearcut. He cites two grounds for confusion. Firstly, the refrain rhyme joy e pretz (in line nine of each stanza) attributes these qualities to both Tort-n'avetz and midons (see vv.9 and 58) - and indeed to the singer, as a result of his love (vv.20, 31, 42, 53). Secondly, the spatial coordinates sai and lai (vv.8, 9, 29, 33 and 62) locate the singer 'here' and both midons and Tort-n'avetz 'there'. It is also possible that the last lines of stanza v, in the midons part of the song, could be interpreted as 'explaining' the bizarre senhal: de vos m'es totz mals bes, dans pros, foldatz sens, tortz dregs e razos. (vv. 54-5) from you all ill is good, loss profit, folly sense, wrong justice and right. The 'wrong' (tortz) which is 'right' might justify praise of 'her who is in the wrong'. In fact in the second tornada the name Tort-n'avetz appears in the place which should be occupied by the refrain joy et pretz, as though they were equivalent, and the 'wrong' therefore synonymous with the 'right' of the rest of the song. This obfuscation of the relationship between patron and lady is discernible in other poets who address themselves to women patrons. The professional interests of the troubadour are served by gratifying his patron twice over, through the dedication of the song, and through the implication that she, whether she is or not the actual object of love, is in some sense its model because her qualities coincide so exactly with those of his lady. As with male patrons, the historical reality of the female patron provides a point d'attache between the observable presence of the performer and his claims to composing and loving, conferring on them a degree of density and plausibility. Peire Rogier's Per far esbaudir mos vezis provides further material of interest, because of the light it throws on the ontological status of the lady and the 'love plot', and thus on the 'autobiographical' stance of the song. The playful reversal of value under the influence of 'love' represented by the paradoxical equivalence of tort and dregz is only one element in this song's jocularity. Composed, as the incipit asserts, in order to amuse, it contains echoes of Guilhem de Peitieu's vers de dreit nien both in its metre (a combination of eight- and four-syllable lines) and in its profession of an imaginary and nonsensical courtship. The echoes are particularly perceptible in stanza iv: 155

Performance Anc ieu ni autre no.lh o dis, ni elha non saup mon talan, mas a celat Tarn atretan fe qu'ieu li dey cum s'agues fait son drut de mey; re no.m qual, que ia Tarn eis setz. Doncs amarai so qu'ieu non ai? Oc, qu'eyssamen n'ai joy e pretz e son alegres e joyos, quant res non es, cum si vers fos. (vv. 34-44) I never told it to her, and nor did anyone else, and nor does she know of my desire, but secretly I love her - by the faith I owe her - as much as if she had made me her lover; I don't care, even if I were the sixth. - So am I to love that which I don't have? - Yes, for in that way I have joy and merit and am glad and joyful, even if there is no truth in it, as much as I would if it were true. The deliberate flattening here of standard topoi - 'I have never told my love' to 'and nor has anyone else'; 'I am as content as if I were her lover' to 'or as if I were one of six'; 'I am joyful with non-possession' to 'and with unreality' - links Peire's song with the manner of his model, as vv. 37, 39, 41 and 4 2 - 4 of his text mimic the wording of vv.26,28,25-6 and 33 of Guilhem's. Guilhem's song was probably already playing with literary antecedents; and so Peire's adds a further layer of play, which perhaps links him with his other known patron Raimbaut d'Aurenga, also an imitator of Guilhem IX.38 What consequences does this have for the relationship between Tort-n'avetz and the poet's lady? The second tornada reminds listeners of the political circumstances of Ermengarda's rule, and this might lead them to expect that the lady who is quasi-identified with her is also 'real'. On the other hand, the ostentatious intertextual play, and the implication that love is a fantasy, reflect back on the ludic choice of senhal to remind them that the singer invents his love affair, and that his rhetoric is what constitutes them as an audience. By situating itself both in history and in verbal fantasy, the song alludes to political reality chiefly in order to invite reflection on that which is other to it: the literary fabulation of desire. Most of the poetry addressed to women harnesses the process of performance to create a play of attraction between a beloved domna and the patron. A notable exception is the series of nine 39 songs dedicated by Gaucelm Faidit to Maria, Viscountess of Ventadorn. The two songs Si anc nuills horn (XLI) and Lo gens cors honratz 156

Signature, patronage, and 'autobiography* (XLII), cited in Chapter 3 as examples of vilification of the 'feminine', both figure in this collection, and of the remainder, xxxvn and XL are 'narratives of two women', while xxxvm, xxxix, XLIII, XLIV and XLVI are songs of complaint against his domna's cruel treatment. Mouzat's somewhat flimsy attempt to narrativize these songs by suggesting that in the 'early' ones Gaucelm is rejecting another lady in favour of Maria (see his commentary pp. 308 and 333) before 'later' rejecting Maria in her turn (p. 378) is rendered more problematic by his decision to interpret some of Gaucelm's criticisms as addressed to Maria (XLVI p. 378, perhaps also xxxix p. 325), but others as stigmatizing less worthy domnas (XLI, p. 342; XLII, p. 350). (The recriminations of XLIV are not glossed by Mouzat.) His comments take no account of the ambiguity of the songs, nor of the questions raised by the series as a whole. Why did Gaucelm succeed with a female patron when his songs are so critical of some women? What kind of interaction can be envisaged in performance between the singer and the women in his audience? Is Gaucelm's technique here analogous to the invocation of lauzengeor - figures who are necessarily excluded from the elite part of the audience — and thus an extension to performance of the three-term gender system discussed in Chapter 3? If so, 'Maria' and other women present might consider themselves immune to his attacks, taking them as referring only to inferior and absent women. Or were they expected to take the singer's criticisms as relating to themselves? To what extent is an autobiographical subject created, in performance, by Gaucelm's songs to the Viscountess? Two of the most ambiguous songs are XLIV and XLVI, in both of which the flattering tornada, addressed to Maria, contrasts markedly with the preceding bitter tone. I shall concentrate on XLVI, Mout a poignat Amors en mi delir, because it was apparently more successful (fourteen MS attestations as opposed to two), and contains a longer dedicatory tornada: Chanssos, a lieis per q'es prezatz mos chans, a Ventadorn vuoill teignas e t'enans, qu'il a en se tant de bon' aventura qe tota gens te volra, al partir, per lieis honrar, aprendre et auzir! (w.61-5) Song, I wish you to direct yourself and go up to Ventadorn, to her on whose account my singing is valued, for she is blessed with so many happy qualities that, at this departure, in order to honour her, everyone will wish to learn and hear you. 157

Performance The reputation not only of this, but tf//Gaucelm's songs, stems from the prestige of their addressee. Can she be the same as the dompna of w. 32-3 who is indifferent to his love, and indeed to his life? There is a series of echoes between the dedicatory tornada and the rest of the song which creates uncertainty on this point. Maria possesses bon' aventura (v.63), but through his lady the singer has lost monjoi e m'aventura (v.5); through Maria his songs arepresatz (v.61), and his lady is bell' e prezans (v.32), but the domna does not wish to retener ... mi ni mos chans (v.42); he wishes his song to rise up to Ventadorn (enansar, v. 62), but his lady wishes him not to pursue his aspiration any further (enansar, v. 36).^ The verbal parallels tread a careful path of ambiguity which could suggest either identification of the domna with Maria or their differentiation, with the domna appearing in a largely negative, Maria in a uniquely positive light. This ambiguity is fostered by the singer's complaints. In the first three stanzas, he blames the caprice of Amors for his suffering; through stanzas iv and v he blames himself; and this mitigates his criticisms of the domna, which amount only to sadly recording her discouraging commands to leave her (which he wishes to obey but cannot, vv. 37-8), and complaints at her unresponsiveness towards one who would be satisfied with little (a fair word, for example, v. 52). If the lady he is leaving is to be identified with Maria, the singer is taking care to avoid giving offence to a powerful patron who can still influence the success of his songs. Among the criticisms which could have been addressed to the lady but are in fact levelled at Amors there is an interesting passage in which the singer admits to the instability and misleading qualities of language: D'amor fora mesura, ses faillir, que no.i reignes malesa ni engans, anz covengra, pois lo noms es tant grans c'Amor a nom, c'Amors fos ses falsura; mas en dreich mi es tant mal' e tant dura car li soi fis, humils e mercejans, qe.l nom d'Amor a perdut, a mos dans, (vv.21-7) The fitting measure in love would undoubtedly be that neither malice nor trickery should reign there. Instead it would be seemly, since its name (reputation) is so great that it is called Love, that Love should be without falsehood. But it is so evil and harsh towards me, because I am faithful, submissive and suppliant towards it, that, to my downfall, it has lost the name of Love. 158

Signature, patronage, and 'autobiography* On one hand the singer is in love; but on the other he is not, because the sufferings that love brings to him are so incompatible with its noble name that the term 'love' is no longer appropriate. If his love is not Love, and if names have no guaranteed connection with the entities they are taken as designating, then the singer has an alibi for all manner of obfuscations and ambiguities. His audience can have no assurance that domna and patron have any more stable existence than the emotion alleged as pretext for the song. The referential value of language is also undermined by irony in the singer's exposition of the rights and wrongs of his predicament: Forsatz sofri, car no m'en puosc partir, ni non fora razos que fis amans fos bas d'amor mentre n'es malanans, mas Amors vol so per c'amans pejura; per que es dreitz c'om no.i sega drechura, e dreitz qe.l sen apodere.l talans; mas ieu no sui al sieu dreig contrastans, q'en autr' afar semblera grans tortura, que cil q'ieu am pogues a dreich m'aucir et ieu ames cella qe.m fai languir. (vv. 11 -20) I suffer under duress, for I am unable to leave, and it would not be reasonable that a true lover should be rejected by love while he is wretched, and yet Love is eager to worsen his plight, and that makes it right not to do that which is right, and right that desire should overcome reason. But I do not resist the rights of Love, which, in another sphere, would look more like great cruelty, according to which she whom I love might be able rightly to kill me, and I should love her who causes me suffering. The wordplay in this stanza on dreitz and drechura divorces right from just conduct in the domain of love (v. 15) and then attributes to Amors a system of inverted justice to which the true lover continues to submit (v. 17) even though it is contrary to reason (vv. 12,16) and prejudicial to his interests (w. 14,18-20). In the world of Love, then, the public vocabulary of right and justice loses its habitual associations; the audience is being warned that it cannot expect a ready purchase on the song because the experiences that underlie it belong in a private world of paradox, which only makes sense from the perspective of (subjective) desire (talans, v. 16). The singer exploits this opacity to obfuscate the reasons for his departure. Unable to leave the sufferings of love (vv. 11, 31), or to obey his lady's injunctions to desist from courting her (v.38), he nonetheless reveals (v. 57) that he is going to the court of Boniface of Montferrat, designated here by the senhal mon Thesaur. This 159

Performance somewhat surprising announcement is again surrounded by wordplay. A single favour from his lady would make him: ric e manen de so don ai frachura! E pois d'aisso m'es escars' e tirans, greu mi volra complir majors demans de mon Thesaur, seignor del Pon de Stura, qui fai son pretz per tota gen grazir non ere q'en vis tant greu a convertir! (vv. 55-60) rich and wealthy in that which I lack. And since in this she is niggardly and overbearing, I shall resolve, reluctantly, to fulfil more urgent requests from my Treasure House, the lord of Pontestura, whose worth (value) is admired by all the world - I don't believe I ever saw so difficult a change to make! Unable to cash in with his lady, the singer is off to fill his pockets at the 'treasure house' of Montferrat! This might seem like a standard play on the abstract (erotic) and concrete (financial) connotations of 'wealth' were it not for the possibility that the lady is to be identified with the patron. If she is, then the accusation of 'niggardliness' has a double thrust, economic and erotic, and the contrast with Boniface becomes more pointed. There is a disconcerting similarity between

the praise of Boniface qui fai son pretz per tota gen grazir and that of Maria in the tornada at whose court tota gens te [ = mos chans] volra ... per lieis honrar. The wordplay dazzles but does not illuminate: the audience cannot know what kind of 'wealth' the singer has in mind, nor whom he blames for his lack of it. All that is certain is his resolve to depart. Gaucelm Faidit's Mout a poignat Amors en mi delir is thus a slippery song which places both praise and blame in circulation but without clearly attributing either, enabling the singer to hedge his bets with his female patron and the wider female audience. The possibility that his domna is distinct from Maria means that she never has to be envisaged as present in performance; like the lauzengeor, she may be an absent prop licensing (and increasing) others' enjoyment of the song.41 Above all, Gaucelm exploits a variant on the 'ineffability topos* to undermine audience purchase on the referential value of language. In consequence, the song both commits itself to an audience and refuses them understanding, offering skill and rhetorical display as a substitute. Its self-cancelling wordplay devalues its own vocabulary of 'love', 'right' and 'reward', leaving as residue the singer's suffering and departure. It is excluding of all women, though not overtly offensively; its chief beneficiary is in fact the future male patron.42 160

Convention, complicity, and 'novelty' The songs addressed to female patrons present the first-person singer as composer and lover, anchoring both roles in the historically real. But their ambiguity also releases the 'love plot' into playfulness, fantasy, or linguistic solipsism. Both object and subject (qua lover) belong in the domain of rhetoric and tradition as much as of historical reality. Convention, complicity, and 'novelty'

The discussion so far has offered points of purchase on the lyric as 'autobiography': signature identifies the song with a known troubadour and his literary reputation; naming a patron establishes a moment of interaction in a historical context. But it has also qualified the meaning of 'autobiographical'. Lyric 'autobiography' need not be individualizing: on the contrary, senhals may categorize rather than particularize, multiple dedications may suggest a lack of individuation about the interactions that could be generated by a song, and intertextual play may disclose its debt to predecessors. It need not be fixed: variation in stanza order may restructure self-presentation on different occasions. And it need not lay claim to truth: belief in the historicity of the 'love plot', and its female addressee, may to a greater or lesser extent be undermined within the song. The last section of this chapter addresses the interaction, in performance, of the typical, the interactive and the fictive. As Zumthor (Poesie orale p. 40) observes, oral transmission characteristically involves a group, written transmission an individual audience. The naming of a patron specifies an exemplary part of the audience, but does not describe that audience exhaustively. Indeed, multiple dedications make explicit the expectation that performances must be capable of engaging with an ever-widening public. The troubadour cannot himself perform to them all. The frequent delegation of the song to a jongleur admits this, while at the same time retaining an authorizing control over future performances. The subject position of the song thus assumes the potential for collectivity in both performers and audiences. As a result, troubadour poetry, like all oral literature, privileges the phatic (Zumthor, Poesie orale p. 160). To the desire of the singer to sing and to be heard corresponds an answering desire to respond on the part of the audience. Reliance on convention appeals to the audience's sense of tradition,43 as well as to their willingness to make it the material for play. When discussing the so-called persona of the canso three features tending to identify signer, lover and performer were considered: 161

Performance 'sincerity', 'ineffability', and the lauzengeor. The very strategies that serve, in performance, to flesh out the first-person subject as a 'character' are also those which best illustrate dependence on collective participation in the construction of meaning. To illustrate this, I briefly reconsider these features, taking them in reverse order. Invocation of the lauzengeor divides the audience between the elite and the unworthy. The unworthy are excluded from understanding, but the elite are invited to appreciate the performer's discretion by sharing his desire to maintain the exclusivity of refined feeling. The singer thus sketches two schemes of characterization: a contrastive one, opposing himself and the discerning to the unworthy; and a comparative one, likening himself to the elite who appreciate him. His complicity with the latter is enshrined in the often-repeated idea that the discerning audience will be the worthier for having heard/understood {entendre has both meanings) the song. The divisive effects of poetic diction are frequently aired in the trobar clus/trobar leu controversy. Giraut de Bornelh links the debate over style with the necessary exclusion of certain members of his audience in his song xxvi; or rather, adopting Paterson's commentary, 'Giraut does not say he wants to exclude certain listeners ... they are left behind.' (Troubadours and Eloquence p. 94). Although the lauzengeor are not mentioned, the unfortunates who have no access to the song are simultaneously bad listeners and false lovers. Bad listeners make unreasonable demands on the singer, expecting only the stereotyped theme of joy in love, but the true lover/singer knows that joy, like meaning, is difficult of access (vv. 31 -40). Similarly false lovers, allied with bad listeners in their outcry against the singer (v.91), expect quick results from courtship (v.93). Giraut defends himself against them in these terms: 18

22

26

M a s era diran que, si m'esforses com levet chantes, melhs m'ester' assatz. E n o n es vertatz; q u e sens e chartatz 4 4 adui pretz e.l d o n a si com l'ochaizona nosens eslaissatz; mas be ere

162

Convention, complicity, and 'novelty' que ges chans ancse no val al comensamen 30 tan com pois, can om l'enten. Car s'eu j o n h ni latz menutz motz serratz, pois en sui lauzatz, can ma razos bona 40 par ni s'abandona; c'om ben ensenhatz, si be.i ve ni m o drech chapte, 44 n o vol al meu escien c'a totz chan comunalmen. 36

(vv. 1 8 - 3 0 , 3 6 - 4 5 )

But now people will say that if I made an effort t o sing accessibly it would be much better for me. Yet that is not true: for meaning and value bring worth (praise/merit) a n d confer it, just as a surge of nonsense is a reproach to it. However, I a m convinced that no song can be worth as much at the beginning as it is later, when it has been heard (understood)... For if I join and bind together finely locked words, then I a m praised when my good meaning appears and yields itself u p ; for the well-bred man, if he is discerning and champions my right, certainly does not wish me to sing to all without distinction.

Understanding is the responsibility as much of those who hear as of the one who sings, and it is simultaneously a moral and an intellectual experience: performer and audience are repaid for their attention by an increase in the value of the song (vv. 29-30), since the preciousness of the meaning (chartatz, v. 23) contributes to the merit (pretz, v. 24) of the singer, and serves as a touchstone to identify the worth of the (good) listener (w. 23 ff., 40 - 5). As in Befor' oimais, Giraut envisages his song as the property of an elite community for whom value, whether in love or meaning, is difficult of access. To such a community, bad listeners and false lovers can have no right of entry. Although the choice of clus or leu styles depends largely on the anticipated size of audience, all courtly composition requires collaboration by its worthy receptors. A reciprocal relationship is created between song and community: the community is founded on appreciation of the song, and the song's meaning is defined by that community. Thus while it is true that the song constructs its audience, it is also constructed by it. Awareness of this is shown even - or perhaps rather especially - by the songs which lay claim to the ineffability of their inspiration. 163

Performance After Arnaut Daniel, Arnaut de Maruelh is probably the troubadour who most repeatedly claims to be unable to express his love. The numerous MS attestations of songs which lodge this claim suggest considerable appreciation of his reticence.45 Despite the deficiencies of its transmission,46 I concentrate here on xx, En mon cor ai un novellet chantar, because it best illustrates the relation between 'inability to speak' and the involvement of convention and community. The first-person subject is, literally, subject to the authority of Amors, and it is from this subjection that the paradox arises whereby inexpressibility is the root of intelligibility. The 'new song', about joy and composed by a singer ofjoy, will appeal to all those qu 'enjoy volon estariy. 3) 'who wish to abide in joy', that is, who are members of the same community of emotion as the singer. Love both teaches the singer to sing, and prevents him from saying anything. But Love further resolves this paradox by her omnipotence (Amors vens eforssa tota gen, v.7, 'Love conquers all'), since she makes the singer's meaning apparent even as she deprives him of the words to express it: e fin' amors ensenha Tom a faire, quez a de mi e de midons poder. Bona domna, be degratz esguardar lor cor qu'ieu ai, mas ges no lo.us puesc dir; mais be.l podetz conoisser al pensar e als dezirs que.m fan tan greu mal traire, que, quan vos cug dire tot mon afaire, Amors m'o tolh, que.m fai aitan temer. (vv. 5-6, 9-14) And true love, which has power over myself and my lady, teaches one to do so (i.e. sing of joy) ... Good lady, you ought to see into my heart, though I cannot tell it you; yet you can discern it from my melancholy and the desires which cause my suffering, for when I wish to tell you my concerns, Love prevents me, making me so timid. Those in the audience who relish joy, and the domna who is also in Amors's power, are all co-subjects of the song since they are all equally subject to Amors; so meaning can circulate between them without the need to have recourse to language. The act of performance to a sympathetic audience is what counts; the text, here again, is a mere adjunct. (Arnaut Daniel's Sols sui is likewise offered up to a community, but that community has only one member besides himself - the lady.) 164

Convention, complicity, and 'novelty9 The claim to sing with sincerity likewise implicates the audience in the construction of meaning, making them co-subjects with the singer. Meneghetti has argued that the topos canto per amore ('I sing because I am in love') becomes a metaphor for the double confrontation of the individual singer with his poetic code, and with (the elite members) of society (Pubblico p. 169). Her study is based on the songs of the early troubadours. A later example would be Peire Bremon Ricas Novas's song vn, Be volgra de totz chantadors. Peire establishes a hyperbolic space between himself and his lady, whose grans valors es tan per drech sobr' autiva c'ab lieis no.s pot lauzors engar. (vv. 14-16) great worth is rightfully so supremely elevated that no praise can measure up to it. She is placed at the furthest point of an imagined scale of excellence; and his love for her is an answering example of excess: con am mielhs e [sui] plus temens de totz los autres amadors. (vv. 3-4) As I love the best and am more fearful than all other lovers. The song thus weaves together a tissue of superlatives, which it also aspires to incarnate since the best lover of the best lady must also compose the best song: Be volgra de totz chantadors fos tan sobriers majers mos sens ... breu fera plus adomniva chanso, onran e tenen car vos, que m'es de ric pretz ses par, dona plazen senhoriva; que far la degra mielhs de be, car aten tan auta merce. (vv. 1-2, 5-10) I wish that my wit were so supremely greater than that of all other singers ... [that] I could quickly compose the most excellent song, honouring and cherishing you, who are unequalled in your rich worth, outstanding and pleasing lady; for I should compose it better than well, since I await favour from such an elevated source. Peire Bremon's song exemplifies the indeterminacy of hyperbole, since it creates a limitless space at the furthest (but unimaginable) point of which alone its claims to precellence might be upheld. But by drawing his listeners into the same space, it engages their complicity: 165

Performance for the song is allegedly composed under a triple influence of love, the lady's merit, and her praise on his listeners' lips: Aisso.m fai dir, dona, Amors e Tonratz pretz sobre-valens que.us fai grazir a totas gens; per que une dossa legors es de mon ferm cor aiziva, totas vetz que n'auja parlar; c'usquecx vos cuja mielhs lauzar, car vostre laus vers aviva lurs lauzors, car aisi.s cove, (vv.21-9) Love makes me say this, lady, and the honoured, superlatively fine merit which makes you appreciated by all; for which reason a sweet passivity takes its ease in my steadfast heart, every time I hear her spoken of; for everyone imagines they excel in praising you, for praise of you animates their eulogy, as is fitting. Responsibility for the poet's praise is here passed on to his listeners, who precede him in discerning and expressing his lady's qualities. Their animation {aviva, v. 28) relieves him of effort, permitting him to enjoy the relaxation {legors, v. 24) of passive assent. The circumstances of performance are temporarily inverted: the singer assumes the role of listener, his listeners that of originating the matiere of his song. The performance becomes one moment in a dialogue, where the performer emerges as the spokesman of a pre-established community of praise. All right-thinking listeners become collaborators in the song's 'sincerity'. In an earlier passage, not only praise of the lady, but all other instances of amorous discourse, are hijacked by the singer, and appropriated to underwrite the hyperboles of his song. His domna is such that false and empty eulogies addressed to other love objects, were they only redirected towards her, would instantly become true. The song thus becomes a summa of all previous or future encomia, their conventions being authenticated, their hyperboles transformed into true appraisal, by application to his lady: E qui per dir sobre-lauzors de sa dona fon anc mentens, don las vos et [er] ver dizens, dona; car vostre grans valors es tan per drech sobr' autiva, c'ab lieis no.s pot lauzors engar; per que deu tot laus averar vostre valors esforsiva ... (w. 11-18) 166

Convention, complicity, and 'novelty' And whoever told lies as a result of excessively praising his lady, let him praise you, and then he will speak the truth, lady; for your great worth is so rightfully supremely elevated that no praise can equal it; for this reason, your pressing merit ought to make all praise true ... These lines form the bulk of the second stanza, immediately following the promotion of 'sincerity' in the opening one. 'Sincerity' unites singer, poet and lover in one bodily presence; the song is alleged as the product of supreme feeling; but the hyperboles adduced to instantiate supremacy attain authenticity only through collaboration with the wider audience and application to the one privileged listener, the lady. Performance thereby unites the presence of the singer with the consensus of the audience and the pre-existence of tradition. Zumthor's concept of 'la circularite du chant' (see Introduction) could therefore be reformulated as a social 'circularity' which allows the public to become co-subjects with the singer, both in producing the song, and in being subject to antecedent conventions of discourse. Such cases of complicity involve manifest reliance on audience expectation, and hence on commonplace. Yet the thera£X)f 'novelty' is present in large numbers of songs; Arnaut de Maruelh's novel let chantar, for example. How does this concern with the 'new' square with such obvious dependence on previous discourse? If the subject is subject to pre-existing meanings, why posit its productions as 'new'? The claim to novelty is in itself a conventional topos'41 as such, it carries with it its own irony, and is often used to signal not innovation but return. The first troubadour to insist on novelty is Peire d'Alvernha. In his song iv, Chantaraipus vey qu 'afar m 'er, he protests the desire to sing in a way which will resemble no other song, but then, in the second stanza, produces a near quotation from Bernart de Ventadorn's famous lark exordium.48 A similar instance of novelty as return is provided by Peire Vidal's song xxvn, Atressico.l perilhans, announced as a novella chanso in v. 10 but insistently reworking material from Bernart de Ventadorn's Tant ai mo cor pie dejoya.49 Peire d'Alvernha's much more difficult song xi opens with a curious assimilation of 'old' and 'new': Sobre.l vieill trobar e.l novel vueill mostrar mon sen als sabens, qu'entendon be aquels c'a venir so c'anc tro per me no fo faitz vers entiers. (vv. 1 -4) Following on from (surpassing?) the old and new styles of writing I wish to display my wit to the knowledgeable, so that they will properly understand the writers of the future, for 'entire' verse was never composed before me. 167

Performance My translation differs from previous one in accepting aquels in v. 3 of both MSS as an oblique, not a nominative plural. Paterson, for example, renders 'so that those who are yet to come may fully realize that a truly whole song was never composed until by me' (Troubadours andEloquencep.61). Taking the MSS on trust results in a more complex but interesting interplay of the 'old' and 'new'. Peire is alleging that this song reacts simultaneously to 'new' and 'old', and also, although 'new' (the first example of 'entire' verse), will immediately become 'old' by entering the tradition and modifying the expectations of future audiences. The idea that as soon as words are sung they become a model, in function of which later song can be assessed, is made explicit in the next stanza: Qu'ieu tenc l'us e.l pan e.l coutel de que.m platz apanar las gens que d'est mester s'an levat un pairon, ses acordier que no.s rompa.l semdiers; qu'ieu die que nier (MSS: ner) si mostr'els faitz non niers, (MSS: ver) c'a fol parlier ten horn lui el sermon, (vv. 6-12) For I hold the tradition and the bread and the knife with which it pleases me to feed/fool people who have raised up a single model for themselves, not conceding that the path continues; for I assert that he who is obscure shows himself not to be obscure/true in his acts, when in his talk he is regarded as a foolish speaker. Quotations from Guilhem de Peitieu and Marcabru are used here simultaneously to 'feed' and to 'fool' (v. 7) those who adopt a static notion of tradition or the poetic 'model' (v. 8). 50 Instead, the song asserts, the 'path does not break', that is to say, poetry is a continuous unfolding of tradition in which the old becomes the new. Vv. 11-12 are problematic. The MSS read ner at the internal rhyme and ver at the rhyme. Editors emend to nier ... niers for the sake of rhyme. If the MSS readings are allowed to stand, then Peire means that 'one shows oneself to be dark (unintelligible) in acts which are not true' and agrees with those who condemn such a person's words as foolish. That is, he recognizes that you cannot have 'truth' without 'intelligibility', and that 'intelligibility' arises only in the context of tradition, when the new is in some sense the old. If the emendations to nier... niers are accepted, then he means that that which is 'dark' (unintelligible) is, at the same time, shown to be 'intelligible', since it contributes to tradition and becomes the source of its own enlightenment. In that case, Peire condemns those who regard his words as 168

Convention, complicity, and

'novelty'

foolish, identifying them with the gens of vv. 8 - 9 who can only react in function of a static model. Much of the rest of the song is obscure, but the idea that poetry is the process by which the old is re-presented as the new is perhaps formulated in v.22: 'qu'ieu soi raitz e die que soi premiers', 'I am the root (the traditional origin) yet I say I am the first'. This song seems to be reformulating philosophically the point which is made satirically in Chantaraipus vey que far m 'en the new cannot escape the old, it is only intelligible in function of the old, and becomes old as soon as it is pronounced. 51 A later song to take up Peire's insight and so confirm it is Guilhem de Montanhagol's Non an tan dig liprimier trobador (vm). However much the first troubadours may have said - i.e. even though everything may have been said before - there is still room for the 'new': Non an tan dig li primier trobador ni fag d'amor lai el temps qu'era guays, qu'enquera nos no fassam apres lor chans de valor, nous, plazens e verais. (vv. 1 -6) The early troubadours have not said or composed so much on the subject of love, in the gay old days, that we cannot yet, after them, compose songs of worth that are new, pleasing and true. The weight of tradition lies more heavily on the thirteenth-century poet than on his early twelfth-century predecessor. Yet there is still scope for saying 'what may never have been said before' (so qu 'estat dig no sia, v.7). This novelty, insisted on in the last lines of this opening stanza (nous ... noels ... nova, vv.9-10), is never unproblematic for Guilhem: Mas en chantan dizo.l comensador tant en amor que.l nous dirs torn' a fays. Pero nou es, quan dizo li doctor so que alhor chantan no dis horn mais, e nou, qui ditz so qu'auzit non avia, e nou, qu'ieu die razo qu'om mais no dis, qu'amors m'a dat saber, qu'aissi.m noyris, que s'om trobat non agues, trobaria. (vv. 11-20) But beginners in their songs say so much in singing of love that the new speech becomes burdensome. What is new, is when learned men say that which no 169

Performance one any longer says; what is new is to say what has not been heard; what is new is that I pronounce themes that no one else pronounces, for love, which has reared me, has granted me knowledge, and even if it had not been said in poetic form before, I would still say it. Novice innovators are inevitably a failure. To innovate, you have to be learned at it: you can only be 'new' if you have studied the 'old'. His learning enables Guilhem to sing as though there were no other songs; but if he did not know those other songs, he would not be able to innovate. Now he has become such an expert that he would be able to compose in poetic form, even if it hadn't been done before! For Guilhem, as for Peire d'Alvernha, new and old are inextricably bound up together.52 The performer therefore represents the traditional to the audience just as he represents the audience to itself. If the tradition did not exist to inform the audience (or rather, its elite members), the audience would not exist, the song would not be intelligible, and the singer could not sing. In this sense, singer and audience are all subject(s) - to one another and to antecedent songs. But the performer also intervenes with his audience and their common tradition. The 'old' becomes 'new' as he sings it, makes it present, and bears witness to it.53 The 'newness' of song marks the importance of performance as process and interaction between the singer and his audience, and between the poet and his literary inheritance. This chapter is the last to study the elaboration of a first-person subject position in the lyric. Studying performance suggests that this subject is constructed by its complex links with the historical circumstances of medieval authors and by the elaborate rhetoric that engages audience response. The notion of 'autobiography', which was left deliberately vague at the end of the Introduction, emerges here in clearer, but still problematic form, since the troubadours' use of irony and evasion always leaves in doubt what degree of belief their texts can command. In particular, the 'love' plot seems to float uneasily between historical anchorage points and literary play. But the body of the performer, enacting the 'character' of a troubadour, offers a possible visible correlative of the first-person voice, and connects it, at least temporarily, with social experience. The next, and final, chapter considers the ways in which this 'character' is appropriated to the social arena, and love plots, of romances.

170

5 ROMANCE APPROPRIATIONS

This chapter examines the reception by three romances, two of them Northern French and the third Occitan, of the subject position created by the troubadour lyric. All three could be seen as exemplifying many of the contentions of the last three chapters, but it is clearer and simpler to adopt a narrower focus in the treatment of each. The Roman de la Rose attributed to Guillaume de Lords will therefore be considered in connection with the discussion of allegory in Chapter 2, Jean Renart's Guillaume de Dole with that of gender and status in Chapter 3, and Flamenca with that of performance in Chapter 4. When the lyric subject is adopted by romance, its narrative construction as a 'self or a 'character' confirms tendencies perceived in the cansos, while the lyric background can illuminate the preoccupations of the romance writers who draw on it. The Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lords The author named by Jean de Meun as Guillaume de Lords composed an apparently unfinished 4000-line text at some time in the period between 1220 and 1245.l Although the work can be read on the literal level as a romance, on the allegorical level it is an extended lyrical exposition of the mysteries and tensions of the love experience.2 Guillaume's debt to the lyric tradition in general, and to the troubadours in particular, has indeed been documented from many points of view.3 It is clearly manifested by his use of allegory. Guillaume has a mania for naming. Images on the wall, 'characters' in the garden, the Fontainne d'Amors, Love's arsenal of arrows, are all identified by name, and to a large degree identified with their names.4 His spatial metaphors - the garden, the dance, the fountain, rose bed, and siege - are likewise traditional sites for the deployment of allegorical figures. Together, figures and loci acknowledge a consensus about the structure of the love experience. Naming is so powerful that it can call a personification into existence 171

Romance appropriations in an instant (Ami, w.3107-11), or else gradually, as with the progressive allegorization of Esperance (vv.2613-31). There is a significant division in Guillaume's poem between the named and the nameless. The speaking subject5 and the object of his desire, the rose, are neither of them named. The prologue invites identification of both with autobiographical referents: the speaker is the author as dreamer and as lover, the rose of his dream is to be identified with the petitionary addressee of his poem: cele por qui je l'ai empris: c'est cele qui tant a de pris et tant est digne d'estre amee qu'el doit estre rose clamee. (vv. 41 -4) she for whom I have undertaken it: she who is so meritorious and lovable that she should be called a rose. These nameless poles of the action apparently provide a core of autobiography to which the traditional vocabulary of allegory can be applied. The Roman de la Rose can therefore be read as a testing out of subjective experience against and through a known framework of love doctrine, which, since it subsists in naming, also offers a means of exploring the subject's relation to language. Individual, universal, and exemplary As in the lyric, the nameless first person in the Rose associates with a series of allegorized abstractions which are presented as being on the same ontological level as himself. The incongruity of this association is, if anything, more marked in the romance than in lyric because the subject is more readily identifiable as an autobiographical voice; and because the allegorical figures receive far more sustained description in the romance than they do in the lyric, so that they too appear as 'individuals'. How does Guillaume's allegory positon itself with respect to this notion of the 'individual'? Does it retain the universalizing function which it had in early poems (such as those of Marcabru), constituting the dreamer and his rose as representatives of a generalized psychology, so that the 'individual' love experience merges with, and illustrates, the general? Or does assimilation to the universal meet with resistance, and if so, what is the status of the allegory? Alongside its claims to autobiography, the prologue affirms that the text which follows is a universal Art of Love. The rose may be identifiable with the dedicatee, but it is also only one flower among 172

The Roman de la Rose many in the garden of Amors, and his commandments are designed for the conduct of lovers in general, just as his account of love-sick behaviour characterizes lovers as a group. In undergoing this prolonged initiation to socialized eroticism, the dreamer is necessarily a representative figure who is taught to conform to cultural expectation.6 Thus however 'autobiographical' the poem, the personal is assimilated to the public and the individual to the collective. The mere fact of choosing to use allegory implies this, at least in part. By the mid-thirteenth century, the language which Guillaume uses was well established. The names of his protagonists represent, with few exceptions, the traditional diction of 'courtliness'. Motifs such as the opposition between Raison and Amors had become classic.7 'Autobiography' is thereby released from the narrowly 'individualizing'. On the other hand, the dreamer and the rose resist integration to generality. Among the sources of resistance are the pervasive sensuality of the poem, which locates experience in the body rather than in language; and the idiosyncracies of the allegory, such as the placing of Papelardie on the wall, or the presentation of Verite as though 'truth' meant 'living like a lord'.8 The major factor, however, is the status of the allegorical figures themselves. Several of the inhabitants of the garden are 'real' individuals from other romances. Two others seem to be representative figures, rather than personifications: the old woman (une vielle, v.3920), and the dreamer's friend (Ami). The remainder seem to be traditional personifications, who might therefore carry with them the implication of generality. But this distinction between 'personification' and 'representative figures', though logically useful, is difficult to maintain for many of the 'characters', who seem to float between the abstract and the exemplary. Oiseuse, the first figure to appear to the dreamer, is a case in point. Is she Leisure personified or exemplified? The Old French oiseuse could be either a substantive, or an adjective in the feminine.9 If it is the former, then her gender is probably grammatically conditioned,10 but if it is the latter, and she is an example of a particularly leisurely person, does that imply that women are more characteristically 'leisurely' than men? What is the relation between Oiseuse and her beauty? Is it that Leisure (personified) is a beautiful experience or that a leisurely person (exemplary) has plenty of opportunity to look after herself? What should we make of her relationship with Deduit? Is leisure (in the abstract) akin to pleasure, or is the leisurely person one whose life is pleasurable? The 'fictional excess' in the descriptions of the personifications makes them difficult to gloss, or to distinguish from 'exemplary' figures such as Narcissus.11 173

Romance

appropriations

The more the personifications are fictionalized into exemplary roles, the less amenable they are to characterizing the subject (or object) on either an individual or a universal level. Guillaume de Lorris's very desire to elaborate subjective allegory by lengthy depiction of his personifications diminishes its interpretability as allegory. The world of abstractions, each behaving in some ways like an individual, blurs the idea of the individual at the same time as it apparently analyses it. Subject and object, self and other The problem of how the first-person voice relates to an 'individual' self is also posed by the complex relationship between subject and object in the poem. Both are fragmented and elusive. The firstperson verbs sustain an illusion of identity between three logically distinct but frequently indistinguishable figures - the author, dreamer and lover, the chronological relations between whom are mystified in the prologue: Ou vintieme an de mon aage ou point qu'Amors prent le paage des jones gens, couichez estoie une nuit, si cum je souloie, et me dormoie mout forment; lor vi un songe en mon dorment ... Avis m'estoit qu'il estoit maiz, il a ja bien cinq ans ou maiz; en may estions, si songoie ou temps amorous plain de joie. (vv.21 - 6 , 45-8) In my twentieth year of life, the point where Love takes its toll of young people, I was lying in bed, as was my habit, fast asleep, and as I slept I saw in a dream ... It seemed to me that it was May, about five years ago or more; we were in the month of May, and I was dreaming of the joyful season of love. As others have pointed out, 12 it is uncertain whether the author is now twenty-five and recalling a dream from when he was twenty, or whether he writes at twenty of dreaming at fifteen; it is unclear whether May is the season in the dream, or outside it, or both; and the prophetic nature of the dream is in collision with the retrospective account of its fulfilment to an extent which has led Hult (Self-fulfilling Prophecies p. 173 and passim) to deny that the dream is any more than a petitionary fiction. 'Author', 'dreamer', and 'lover' would thus be brought back into one single voice, as indeed 174

The Roman de la Rose they appear to be at the end of the surviving text, where present tense narrative subsumes the dream to the 'present' sufferings of the lover-author. Successive descriptions of the rose show it undergoing change, figured metaphorically as growth from a tight, scented, scarlet bud (vv. 1655ff.) to a more open flower (vv.3357ff.) and then to the healing perfume which washes over the dreamer when he kisses 'it' (w. 3478ff.). Although the accounts of its stalk and leaves may suggest ethical qualities such as simplicity and rectitude, the love object belongs above all in the domain of Nature (cf. vv. 1661, 1663) and cannot be wrested from it: Vous m'averries bien assote se le bouton a vies oste de son rosier; n'est pas droiture que Ten l'oste de sa nature, (vv.2911-14) You would really have made a fool of me if you had taken the bud from its bush. Taking it from its natural place is an affront to what is right. In the garden the subject finds many figures whose apparent humanity replicates his own, whilst the rose remains other to his 'self. The love object is thus portrayed as an object from outside the human domain, but also as resuming the 'natural' world of the garden within which humanity is contained. The poem, then, opposes a 'self in flux with an 'other' in process. To a considerable extent the allegory is enjoined to reinforce and comment on the ontological gap between the two. Guillaume has innovated by making Amors a masculine deity who interacts with the lover and explicates the ideology of masculine desire.13 Amors's speech (vv. 2077-2764), by far the longest in the poem, is, as Hult (Self-fulfilling Prophecies p. 177) has shown, a mise en abyme of its action, translated out of allegory by the allegorical figure himself! This amusing inversion of text and gloss highlights the reduplication of function between Amors and the author who elsewhere promises to explain what it all means. A further doublet of the lover and theorist of masculine erotic strategy is Ami. The parallel between the masculine lover and Amors/Ami is matched by that between the rose and Venus. Just as the rose is a physical object, so Venus appears as a sensual force, realized not via language (she scarcely speaks), but by fire: Elle tint un brandon flamant en sa main dextre, dont la flame a eschaufee mainte dame. (vv. 3424-7) 175

Romance appropriations She held a blazing torch in her right hand, whose flame has heated many ladies. Venus is locked in antagonism to Chastity (Chastae) who does not call on Raison, but on the services of her daughter Honte (whose name includes the meanings 'shame' and 'public disgrace'). Amors, on the other hand, is placed in conflict with Raison, so that masculine desire is intellectualized as a debate about the nature of folly, memory, loyalty and upright behaviour: to be addressed by Raison is to have reasoning faculties, even if they are not heeded. Thus whereas Amors and Raison contribute to the anchoring of the (masculine) subject in language and reflection, the (feminine) object is conceived primarily in terms of physical response, and secondarily in terms of response to social pressures. The subject-object opposition is thus generalized in terms of sexual difference. While maximizing this disjunction between subject and object, the poem also destabilizes it. The arrows from Amors's bow which strike the lover's body are his perceptions of a lady's qualities, her Biaute, Simplece, Cortoisie, Compaignie and Biau Semblant. When 'Love' wounds him, he thus reveals his own vulnerability. The allegorical figures surrounding the rose are readily - too readily? - categorizable as positive or negative from the lover's perspective. Bel Acuel is the favourable response to his desire, Dangier that desire rebuffed. Pitie and Franchise act to further his interests, Malebouche, Honte, Poor and Jalousie to thwart them. In a sense, then, the love object, though alien, is subsumed to the perceptions of the subject. This internalization by the subject of the object is acknowledged following the kiss episode: Encor ai je ou cuer enclose la tres gant doctor de la rose. (vv. 3777-8) I still have the very great sweetness of the rose enclosed within my heart. Furthermore, the increasing importance of Bel Acuel as a 'character' means that the lover transacts with the necessarily silent rose via a figure who closely resembles himself. A young and handsome valet (v. 2790), Bel Acuel becomes linked to the lover by ties of love, companionship and service, three mainstays of masculine interaction (vv. 3380-3), and is addressed as though he were the love object in the concluding lines of the romance: Ha! Bel Acuel, biaus dous amis, se vous estes en prison mis, gardes moi au mains vostre cuer, 176

The Roman de la Rose e ne soffres a nes un fuer que Jalousie la sauvage mete vostre cuer en servage aussi cum el a fait le cors; et s'el vous chastie dehors, aies dedens cuer d'aimant encontre son chastiement. Se li cors en prison remaint, gardes au mains que li cuers m'aint.

(w. 4003-14)

Oh Bel Acuel, lovely friend, even though you are in prison, keep your heart for me and never for a moment allow wild Jalousie to subdue your heart as she has your body; and if she punishes you without, preserve within a heart of adamant in the face of her chastisement. If your body remains confined, make sure at least that your heart loves me. This passage is very similar to Bernart de Ventadorn's song xxiv, addressed to the domna: Domna, si no. us vezon mei olh, be sapchatz que mos cors vos ve; e no. us dolhatz plus qu'eu me dolh, qu'eu sai c'om vos destrenh per me. Mas, si.l gelos vos bat' defor, gardatz qu'el no vos bat' al cor. Si.us fai enoi, e vos lui atretal, e ja ab vos no gazanh be per mal! (vv. 41-8) Lady, although my eyes cannot see you, be sure that my heart does, and don't suffer more than I suffer, for I know that you are placed under constraint on my account. But even if the jealous one beats you on the outside, see that he doesn't beat your heart. If he causes grief to you, pay him back, and let him not do well with you by doing ill. At the end of the text, then, the subject has in some sense invaded the love object, and turned it into a final alter ego in the series which began with Amors and Ami. The lover, Love, his adviser and his beloved, are all of one cloth; the subject is fragmented, and the boundary between self and other has been thoroughly confused. The genealogical ties linking the allegorical figures also serve to bridge the space between self and other, and confuse it. Bel Acuel is the son of Courtoisie (v. 2793), who is initially associated with the lover; Amors, who belongs with the lover, is, conversely, the son of Venus (v. 3422); and Honte, protector of the rose, is the daughter of Raison, who admonishes the lover (v.2844). The fountain scene where the lover first sees the rose suggests the 177

Romance appropriations dangerous complexities of the love relationship. In retelling, from Ovid, the story of Narcissus, it stresses the suffering which befell both Echo and Narcissus as a result of their failure to find reciprocal love. Echo dies of grief from Narcissus' rebuff (w. 1453 - 6 ) and Narcissus, falling under her curse, loves his own reflection, goes mad with grief (v. 1502), and dies a deserved death for having spurned her (vv. 1503-6). The concluding moral, with its unexpected attack on women who spurn their lovers, has excited much comment: Dames, cest exemple aprenes, qui vers vos amis mesprenes; car si vous les lessies morir, Diex le vous saura bien merir. (vv. 1507-10) Ladies, learn this exemplum, you who maltreat your lovers; for if you let them die, God will know how to reward you. Why, when the story has stressed the responsibility of Narcissus, should the exemplum conclude in this apparently tangential way? The natural properties of mirrors are central to this tale: the fountain, like the rose, is in the domain of Nature (v. 1433). The vocabulary of Echo's sufferings is mirrored in those of Narcissus, and her death causes his as its inevitable reflection. Her curse is thus 'naturalized', explained as the 'natural' property of an image to replicate itself. But their careers, although parallel, are not equipollent. The story illustrates the complexity of the subject-object relation in love, and relates it to sexual difference. Echo loves Narcissus in vain: she is unable to induce him to conform to her desire. His 'punishment' is to love an object which is formed - literally - in his own image. His reflection in the water is the 'natural' result of gazing in it, but this 'natural' object of his love is entirely produced by himself as subject, and is incapable of response. Narcissus is unable either to be the object of Echo's love, or to be an adequate object of his own. Thus although both characters end tragically they do so for opposite reasons. In Echo's case the disjunction of subject and object is an insuperable obstacle; in that of Narcissus it is their conjunction which is the problem. 'Feminine' error resides in the choice of an object which is resistant to feminine desire, i.e. feminine error is the decision to initiate love; 'masculine' error results from excessive selfidentification with the love object. The moral points the duty of women to comply with this imperative of sexual difference. They must accommodate themselves to masculine desire, since failure to do so will destroy not only men, but themselves as well. The moral thus glosses the tendency of the poem as 178

The Roman de la Rose a whole to present masculine subjectivity as primary and privileged, and to construe the love object both as a natural, autonomous and distant object of desire, and as shaped by that desire. The lover avoids the mistake of Echo - which as a man is easy - and he also avoids that of Narcissus, since he strikes a more successful balance between self and other in his love for the rose. The moral of the exemplum thus also reinforces the poem's petitionary stance - to induce the addressee to identify with the rose of the dream, and comply with the dreamer's desire. When the dreamer looks into the water he too is caught up in the play of mirrors, as the two crystals, each reflecting half of the garden, duplicate the already mirroring surface of the water. Like the first person and the rose, the crystals are unnamed and unglossed. Their enigmatic status outside the system of naming renders mysterious the moment when subject and object are first brought into contact: for it is in them that the dreamer first sees the rose. To ask, as successive critics have done,14 whether they represent the lover's eyes or those of the lady is thus to miss the point. They are neither 'his' eyes nor 'her eyes' but a moment of perception, mediated by the mirror, in which subject and object, self and other, are fused and Narcissus's solipsism avoided. Language, space, and time The Rose, then, both presents and problematizes the subject and object of the poem as distinct 'individuals'. What is the relationship between them and the other 'characters'? Are they 'inside' the 'self of the first-person subject (or that of the object), further characterizing them? Or do they represent external forces acting on those selves? The Rose embodies these questions and enacts them to such an extent that it is difficult to gloss the allegory without begging them. An attempt at an 'internalizing' reading would go as follows. The first-person voice is that of a young man who, by passing through the little gate into the garden, indicates that he is free from the defects depicted on its outer wall. Oiseuse's welcome shows that he is a person of lesiure, and his admission to Deduit's dance signals that the attributes found there form part of his psychological makeup. In this garden he falls in love with what is desirable about the rose (the arrows), and pursues it fortified with the gifts which Amors gives him (Esperance, Dous Pensers, Dous Parlers, Dous Regars) by creating conflict between those attributes of the love object favorable to his suit 179

Romance appropriations and those opposed to it. Eventually the latter triumph and the lover is left in despair. Several problems are incurred by this reading. The Vielle can scarcely be seen as an attribute: although Bel Acuel is entrusted to the old woman, 'he' (as an aspect of the rose) is not himself 'old'. And although Bel Acuel, Dangier, Honte and Paor may be attributes of the love object, it is difficult to gloss Malebouche and Jalousie except as social phenomena operating on 'individuals' from without. Thus for example Malebouche is announced as hostile to all lovers: Malebouche, qui le couvine de mains amans set et devine et tout le mal qu'il set retrait... Car Malebouche est coustumiers de raconter fauces noveles de vales et de damoiseles. (vv. 3511-13, 3574-6) Malebouche, who knows or divines the dealings of many lovers and reports all the ill he knows... For Malebouche is forever retailing false rumours about young men and women. Similarly Jalousie zealously protects all the roses from Lecherie and Luxure (vv. 3602-22), neither of which is a 'characteristic' of the protagonists. Conversely, however, not all the personifications can be read as external to the 'selves' of dreamer and beloved. While leisure, courtliness and pleasure may all be social realities that 'influence' a person, and while Jalousie, Malebouche and Honte may be forms of social control, some of the personifications make no sense unless they are seen as internal to the protagonists. The slippages in the allegory which arise out of the complex interaction between Dangier and Bel Acuel (each tending to 'merge' into the other in a way which was discussed in Chapter 2, pp. 58-62) seem to reflect changing moods within a single individual. The dreamer's service to Amors, culminating in the locking of his heart with the key, must mean that the dreamer is in love, i.e. that the love is, at least in some sense, in his heart. The conflict between Amors and Raison is unlikely to affect his behaviour unless it is understood as his reason arguing against his affections. (Not that such pyschological events may not be universally experienced; see pp. 172-4 above.) When the romance places on the same level of plot the two protagonists and the various personifications, we therefore need to understand that the relations between them are in fact much more complex. The rose is both inside and outside the subject, and the 180

The Roman de la Rose personifications are either (or both) inside or (and) outside the protagonists. Inability to construe these relations more clearly makes the reader question the outcome of the play between naming versus namelessness which underwrites Guillaume's use of allegory. The unnamed subject does not, in the end, establish a clear relationship with the traditional discourse from which the allegorical figure derive. The question of what is 'inside' the 'self of the protagonist and what 'outside' it is acutely raised by the spatial metaphors which organize the narrative. The wall of the garden divides the images without from the figures within, the narrow gateway being guarded by Oiseuse. If, when the dreamer enters the garden, he enters an elite society, then the literal level of the spatial metaphor is also its figurative level, he is inside the 'garden'. But if, by leaving behind the images on the wall, he marks his freedom from their taint and demonstrates that Oiseuse and all the figures in Deduit's dance inhere in him, then the figurative meaning of the wall is the reverse of its literal meaning, and the 'garden' is inside him. The stability of the 'garden' as a metaphorical space is undermined when Raison appears from her tower (vv.2973ff.). Her appearance suggests a paradisal origin (v. 2986), and the garden had previously been identified as a paradise, yet not only does she come from outside it, she also implies that the lover is not in it (does not contain it?) either: Mar t'alas one esbanoier ou vergier dont Oiseuse porte la clef, dont el t'ovri la porte ... Amors ne t'eiist ja seii s'Oiseuse ne t'eiist conduit ou biau vergier qui est Deduit. (vv. 3002-4, 3008-10) You will be sorry you ever went to enjoy yourself in the garden to which Oiseuse holds the key, with which she opened the door to you ... Amors would never have followed you if Oiseuse had not led you into the lovely garden which belongs to Deduit. The siting of the Fontainne d'Amors raises problems too. The lordship enjoyed by Deduit over the 'garden' seems to have been forgotten; Amors's presence by his fountain guarantees that it is his. And yet the rose bushes that surround it are under a different lordship again, that of Dangiers (vv. 2827-8), who, as a vilain, has a very questionable right to such power in a world from which Vilonnie (v. 156) is explicitly excluded. The play of inside and outside is actually foregrounded in this scene, since the rose garden can be seen both inside the fountain and outside it. A further example of a spatial 181

Romance appropriations metaphor whose figurative meaning may be the reverse of the literal one has been discerned by Hult (Self-fulfilling Prophecies pp. 217-20). The dreamer stands outside Jalousie's castle, in which Bel Acuel has been imprisoned, but is himself 'imprisoned' by his own jalousie or zealous desire. Like the lyric poets before him, therefore, Guillaume de Lorris makes it difficult to grasp what the limits of the self are, what is 'inside' and what 'outside' it. His poem advances through a series of spatial metaphors each of which is susceptible of divergent readings and is destabilized by those which follow it. Each space belongs to a different 'authority': Oiseuse presides over the wall, Deduit over the dance, Amors over the fountain, Raison over her tower, Dangier over the rose bushes and Jalousie over her castle. But although these figures are assigned a space, we do not know what these spaces represent, how they relate to one another, or how they relate to the subject. Because it is a narrative, the Rose is able to extend this indeterminacy to the treatment of time. The dreamer sees a bewildering number of roses - in chaplets, or on Amors's clothing - before (?) he sees his rose. He 'falls in love' on looking into the fountain; on seeing the rose; on being struck by Amors's arrows;15 at his encounter with Amors; when Amors locks his heart with a key. His dream prefigures events which have taken place - or which will take place - in reality. Obsessive reworking of material is more in evidence in this text than temporal progression. The subject's relationship to time is as difficult to chart as his position in space. The Roman de la Rose offers a fascinating commentary on subjectivity as it is allegorized in the lyric tradition. On one hand it acknowledges the importance of traditional language, and its implications for the generalizability of experience. It allows itself to be read up to a point as showing how universal features inhere in individuals. On the other, it also resists this reading. It tends to rewrite the universal as exemplary, and thus return it to a domain closer to that of individuality. That 'individuality' is asymmetric as a result of sexual difference. The masculine subject, fragmented between author, dreamer and lover, and dispersed through replication (Amors, Ami, Bel Acuel), has its superior status confirmed by Amors and Raison, and its right to success upheld by the moral of the exemplum. The feminine object, consigned to 'otherness', is ideologically and ontologically distinct from the subject, and yet shaped by his desire for it, so that although the distance between them is emphasized, the boundaries between them are blurred. As in the lyric, therefore, 182

Guillaume de Dole the opposition between self and other is both instituted and problematized. By aligning the love object with the dedicatee, Guillaume exploits the historicizing treatment of love discerned, in the lyric, in relation to patronage (see Chapter 4), and inflects the allegorical world of his poem in order to constrain the addressee to grant his desire.16 The relation of the subject to language, and its confines in space and time, are left unclear. The Roman de la Rose thus acknowledges a series of tensions - between fragmentation and boundaries, private and public, individual and collective, sayable and unsayable ... - which cannot be resolved. Le Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole by Jean Renart Entitled Roman de la Rose in its prologue and explicit, Jean Renart's romance is roughly contemporary with that of Guillaume de Lorris, and may indeed have been composed in reaction to it.17 The spurious title Guillaume de Dole is used here merely for convenience. The romance inaugurates the fashion for lyric insertion, containing gallicized excerpts from three Occitan cansos alongside thirteen from Northern French grands chants courtois, and numerous songs of other genres.18 All these songs are performed by characters, usually to an audience of others, and this oral 'performative' function of the lyric insertions might lend the romance to comparison with the findings of Chapter 4. But as Huot {From Song to Book pp. 108-16) has argued, written composition transforms these moments of performance into an anthology or compilation, in which the narrative, in its double function of 'story' and commentary, counters the static, unfulfilled love of the courtly lyric passages and redirects it towards marriage and the perpetuation of lineage. On Huot's reading, the lyric model risks trapping the male protagonists in passivity and exposing them to danger from the felon lausengier, dangers which must be neutralized by the fecundity and female ingenuity related by the story and alluded to by the various excerpts from chansons de femme.19 In my view, this reading takes insufficient account of the critique, by the narrative parts of the romance, of the lyric representation of sexuality and 'honour'. For this reason, Guillaume de Dole will be examined here in relation not to performance but to the ideas on gender and status advanced in Chapter 3.

183

Romance appropriations Engin and critical discourse in Guillaume de Dole Critics first saw the lyric insertions as merely decorative, then as more functional, and most recently, as the object of critical reflection by the narrative.20 In pursuing this latest approach, I draw on the work of R. W. Hanning, who has identified the importance to romance aesthetics of engin, the use of strategy, artifice or cunning not only as a device of plot, but as a means of foregrounding the artfulness, or artificiality, of romance subject matter itself.21 Guillaume de Dole is a romance in which engin (the seneschal's ruse and L'ienor's counterruse) dominates the narrative, and interacts with the lyric performances by which the narrative is punctuated. In particular, engin addresses the pervasive euphemism of courtly language in such a way as to unmask its suppositions about gender and status. The 'engineers' - the seneschal, L'ienor - thus offer a critical reading of the subject position adopted by the lyric performers - the emperor Conrad, L'ienor's brother Guillaume de Dole, and other members of Conrad's court, all of them men. It is well known that Guillaume de Dole belongs to a group of stories in which one male character wagers with another about the chastity of the latter's intended or actual wife (the so-called 'Cycle de la Gageure').22 When the wager is explicit, two men conspire to test feminine value, and the slander of the deceiving male is eventually disproved, and punished, by the one he had deceived. The wager evokes the danger that women pose to men, since if they are unfaithful they compromise 'honour' and endanger lineage.23 It thus appeals to the misogynistic model of women as malign and sexually threatening subjects. The eventual restoration of reputation to the wife or bride is achieved by her adopting the life of passivity and virtue which constitutes her desirability, and she is reassimilated to the object role when the slander which made her into a wilful subject is revealed as false. In their canonical form, then, these romances take an exemplary female character, deprive her of status because her sexuality seems a threat to the status of men, and then, having confirmed that the threat does not exist because her sexuality is passive and controlled, reinsert her. In Guillaume deDole the wager motif is suppressed. The seneschal is motivated by his chance overhearing of Conrad's declaration, to Guillaume, that he intends to make L'ienor his wife. His jealous and deceitful nature, appropriate to a ministerial, prompts him to undertake to 'prove' her unworthiness by verbal trickery. His slander is 'disproved' by Lienor devising a verbal counter to it. Thus, 184

Guillaume de Dole whereas the romances containing an explicit wager debate the status and sexuality of 'actual' (i.e. fictive) men and women, Guillaume de Dole proposes a succession of readings of verbal representations of status and sexuality: the seneschal's engin 'reads' the courtly language of Conrad, Guillaume, and the court; and Lienor's engin 'reads' the seneschal's representation of that language. As Zink (Roman rose pp. 66-7) has put it, 'le sujet meme du conte de la gageure fait que les mots s'y substituent aux choses, et le roman de Jean Renart rencherit dans ce sens ... Le sujet meme du roman ... consiste en un jeu sur les formes litteraires et... confirme ainsi que ce roman est un roman sur les mots.' Sexuality and gender The courtly cansos in Guillaume de Dole are all sung by the male, courtly characters, mostly by Conrad himself, or else in his presence. His identification with the subject position of the lyric is confirmed when he apparently improvises in the genre himself;24 Que qu'il sont amdui acoste as fenestres vers un vergier ou il oient apres mengier des oisillons les chans divers, l'emperere en fist lues cez vers. (vv. 3175-9) While [Conrad and Guillaume] were side by side at the window looking out onto the garden where they heard the birds singing their various songs after dinner, the emperor at once composed/sang this song.

This is the song which, overheard by the seneschal, prompts his realization that Conrad's friendship for Guillaume is not motivated by chevalerie but by desire for his sister (vv. 3200-3). The narrator comments on the misfortune which these stanzas will bring to Conrad and Guillaume, thus underlining the connection between the seneschal's role in the plot and the motif of the lauzengeor in the song:25 Ja fine amors ne sera sanz torment que losengier en ont corrouz et ire ... Je soufferrai les faus diz de la gent qui n'ont pooir, sanz plus, fors de mesdire de bone amor ... (vv. 3188-9, 3192-4) True love will never be free from torment, because it provokes bitter anger in the lauzengeor. I shall endure the lies of those who are powerless except to slander good love ... 185

Romance appropriations The canso imposes the subjective vision of the good, male lover threatened by the truancy of his inferiors on the remainder of the narrative. As in the songs discussed in Chapter 3, the inset lyrics in Guillaume de Dole promote masculine consensus among the 'noble' characters. The first Occitan song cited, Jaufre Rudel's Lanquan lijorn son lone en mai (vv. 13Olff.), is in fact sung by Guillaume and Conrad's messenger Nicole, but, like the lyric cited above, it functions proleptically to confirm the importance of amor de lonh, an emotion which 'belongs' to Conrad but equally affects Guillaume's fortunes. The two men's identity of interest is shown in the scene following Conrad's revelation to Guillaume of the seneschal's denunciation of L'ienor. First Conrad sings a song lamenting that love brings him nothing but sorrow. The narrative comments on Conrad's grief, but then merges it imperceptibly with Guillaume's: qu'encor Ten tient soz la mamele [// = Conrad] li maus qui nel let rehetier, et le doel dou bon chevalier [viz. Guillaume] qui se debat et fiert ses mains: 'Ha! la mort que ne me prist ains,' fet il, 'que ce fust avenu!' (vv. 3764-9) for the suffering which allows him no cheer grips him beneath his breast, and the grief of the good knight who is lamenting and beating himself with his hands: 'Oh why didn't death seize me,' he is saying, 'before this came about!' The unclarity of the construction // maus... etle doel is compounded by uncertainty as to who pronounces the final words. Jean Renart plays on this in the next lines where si compegnon ...etsa granz mesnie run up to comfort... whom? The expectation that the 'great household' will be Conrad's is supported by identification of the comforters as ses genz d'Alemaigne (v. 3782); yet the lamenter's words de haut si bas (v. 3776) would be more applicable to Guillaume. As 'his German courtiers' sympathetically exclaim at the way the afflicted man has his mouth gaping open like a madman (!) (vv. 3784-5), 'his' nephew arrives. It is not until v.3819 that it becomes clear that the 'nephew' is Guillaume's, and that Guillaume was therefore presumably the object of sympathy earlier. (Since Guillaume's mother is later said to be the new arrival's aunt, v. 3934, nies in fact means 'cousin' here.)26 The idea that the sufferings of love are equally shared between Conrad and Guillaume is confirmed when this cousin diagnoses the cause of grief as deriving d'ami ou d'amie (v.3799). 186

Guillaume de Dole He is right: it is both. Guillaume grieves as an ami for Conrad's loss of his amie. The shared subjectivity of the 'noble' male characters is also brought out shortly afterwards when the cousin bitterly reflects to Guillaume: Or fet ele bien qui se proeve come vils et come rais: ses sornons par est bien sievis que g'en ai grant honte dou dire! (vv. 3850-3) Now she is really acting her part well, showing herself to be cheap and a ?27 Her surname has been truly followed, so much so that I am ashamed to mention it!

In the glossary to his edition (s.v. sievis), Foulet suggests that the cousin is punning on L'ienor's surname (Dole) and the idea of grief (duel/doloir). A few lines later Conrad too reflects on this surname: Un jor li sovint de la bele qui porte le sornon de Dole, que il looit tant par parole; onqes ne la virent si oeil. (vv. 3874-7) One day he was reminded of the beautiful woman with the surname de Dole whom (which?) he praised so highly; he had never set eyes on her. This coincidence of phraseology between Guillaume's cousin and the emperor, who elsewhere thinks exclusively of Lienor's first name, shows the capacity of the noble male characters to think as one. They think alike amongst themselves and they think (and sing) the same sentiments as the male trouveres and troubadours they cite. Only one canso is sung for Lienor (w. 4646ff.), but, finding herself on the wrong side of the seneschal's trick, she fails to appreciate it. Masculine subjectivity (the seneschal aside) resides in a common diction, and a shared perception of women which the seneschal exploits. As we saw in Chapter 3, the rhetoric of the canso is used to construct a three-gender system in which 'women' are either 'elevated' to a mixed gender or relegated to the 'feminine', in which case 'courtly' discourse gives way to misogynistic topoi. One of the Occitan songs performed at the denouement of the romance is Bernart de Ventadorn's Can vei la lauzeta in which the distinction between domna and femna is drawn to the disadvantage of his own lady (though this stanza is not recorded in the MS of Guillaume deDole). Although Lienor, as a young girl, cannot be a domna in the sense usually celebrated by the troubadours, she is at first perceived as 187

Romance

appropriations

uncontaminated by * feminine' sexuality. Conrad loves her for her virginity, i.e. her absence of sexual activity (see vv. 2992, 3014), and for her name, which connotes her physical absence (w. 794,921,1421, 2997, 3746-7, 4189).28 He likes to speak of her beauty, and hear it spoken of; to have it controlled by (masculine) discourse, not autonomously controlling or bestowing itself: 'Certes,' fet rempereres frans, 4 1'amor en est lors plus plesans quant il en oit autrui parler'. (vv. 2999-3001) 'Indeed,' said the noble emperor, 'love is most pleasing when one hears someone else speak of it.' The cansos sung by or for him offer, precisely, a discourse about

amor.

Et por ce chant, que nel puis oublier, la bon' amor dont Dex joie me doigne (vv. 850-1) Et quant me sui partiz de la, menbre mi d'une amor de lone ...

(vv. 1303-4)

Loial amor qui en fin cuer s'est mise ... (v. 1456) Por quel forfet ne por quel ochoison m'avez, Amors, si de vos esloignie? (vv. 3751-2) And I sing because I cannot forget the good love, which I pray that God will give me joy of And when I have left there, I remember a distant love ... A loyal love which has established itself in a true heart... For what crime, or on what pretext, have you estranged me from you, Love? The object of love is displaced by the emotion is inspires. Elsewhere in the inset lyrics the object is identified With joi (v.4658), with ses fins cuers (v.4139), or placed in a framework of legal language (vv. 3751-9, 3890, 3896-9), all techniques for removing the domna from the sphere of the 'feminine' which tally with the findings of Chapter 3. The precariousness of this removal is admitted in a stanza cited from Gace Brule: Je di que e'est granz folie d'encerchier ne d'esprover ne sa moullier ne s'amie tant com Ten la veut amer, 188

Guillaume de Dole ainz s'en doit on bien garder d'encerchier par jalousie ce qu' en n' i voudroit trover. (vv. 3625 - 31) I declare it folly to put one's wife or loved one to the test, and inquire into her, so long as one intends to go on loving her; instead one should beware of jealously looking for that which one would prefer not to find.

These lines admit that the elevation of the love object is conditional upon the attitude of the lover; that the object is produced by desire, and must be protected by a courtly abstention from 'jealousy' if that desire is to continue. As indicated above, the plots of wager romances rely on uncertainty whether to assign a particular woman to the 'feminine' gender or to admit her privileged and exceptional status. The rapidity with which the characters in Guillaume deDole believe Lienor 'guilty' (i.e. sexually active) shows that they readily assimilate her to the paradigm of the 'feminine'. The seneschal's engin exposes the precariousness of the three-gender system, and causes 'courtly' perceptions to collapse into the misogyny which underlies them. The realization that subjective desire controls perception is best manifested by the ambivalence of the rose from which the romance derives its medieval title. In this respect, Guillaume de Dole closely resembles the romance of Guillaume de Lorris. The 'rose' motif is first introduced by Conrad'syortgfewr, Jouglet, in his description of the heroine of a fictive love story: a flor de rose, a flor de Us samble la face de color, car la rougeur o la blanchor i fu mout soutilment assise. (vv. 697-700) her complexion resembles the flower of a rose and a lily, for red and white were so subtly placed in it. This banal, 'courtly' description is then transferred to Lienor, 'who was straighter than a grafted tree and fresher than a rose' (vv. 1290-1). She is an improvement on the original fiction, as Jouglet himself admits (vv. 744ff.), not least because the fictive heroine had a fictive lover, whereas the 'real-world' Lienor has no lover, but a brother: a companion for Conrad, not a rival. Wooing the sister via her brother, Conrad can experience a gratifying homosocial intimacy with the added advantage that, having no other lover, Lienor's innocence is guaranteed. As Jouglet proposes in a comic revision of the standard cuers-cors motif, Guillaume has Conrad's 'body' and Lienor his heart (vv. 825-8). Since he is not bold enough to ask about 189

Romance appropriations his sister, Conrad invites Guillaume to sit on his bed and talk about himself (vv. 1754-63); he showers gifts and affection on Guillaume, because // // remenbre de s'amie (v.2022), 'Guillaume reminds him of his beloved'. As in the lyrics, so in the narrative the rose-like object is removed from the domain of the 'feminine', emptied of sexuality and perceived through a controlling, 'noble' masculine consensus. The seneschal's engin, whereby he claims to have had sexual relations with L'ienor and cites as proof his knowledge of the roseshaped, rose-coloured birth-mark on her thigh, offers a drastic rereading of this 'courtly' scenario. Aiming to displace Guillaume from Conrad's affections, he proposes himself not as companion but as rival, and forces a re-evaluation of the rose not as innocence but as sexual availability. The seneschal's 'seduction' is entirely verbal and symbolic: he cannot see L'ienor herself, since the family sequestrates her body from masculine eyes except under the supervision of her brother, but he achieves discursive control over her by 'purchasing' information from her mother with the gift of a valuable ring: Uns beaus dons a mout grant mecine, qu'il fet maint mal plet dire et fere. Si li a conte tot l'afaire de la rose desor la cuisse. (vv. 3358-61) A handsome present is potent medicine, which can induce people to undertake any amount of evil business in word or deed. And so [the mother] told him the whole matter of the rose on her thigh.

In travelling from face to thigh the rose's sexual connotation changes from 'innocence' to 'guilt'; and as the seneschal puts the newly charged word 'rose' into circulation, no one doubts that he has possessed that of which he speaks. The metonymic identification of the rose with Lienor's sex is confirmed with each new discursive appropriation of it. Thus the seneschal declares to Conrad: qu'il a eii son pucelage; et por ce que croire Tan puisse, de la rose desor la cuisse li a dit mout veraie ensaigne. (vv. 3586-9) that he has had her virginity, and in order to be believed he told him the very true sign of the rose on the thigh. Conrad quells Guillaume's disbelief: Savez qui fet la chose aperte? qu'el a sor la cuisse la rose, 190

Guillaume de Dole n'onques nule si bele chose ne fu en rosier n'en escu. (vv. 3724-7) Do you know what makes it beyond dispute? That she has the rose on her thigh, and such a lovely thing was never seen on rose bush or shield. Guillaume passes the word on to his cousin, accusing Lienor of being a whore (vv. 3807, 3809), and the cousin carries the accusation to Dole (vv.3921-3): trop par est seiie la chose as entresaignes de la rose qu'el a devers la destre hanche desor la cuisse grasse et blanche, que male flambe puisse ardoir! (vv. 3985-9) the matter is known absolutely through the indication of the rose which she has by her right hip, on her plump white thigh - may an evil flame sear it! Conrad's comparison between Lienor's sex and a shield blazon is a last-ditch attempt to recuperate it from the 'feminine'; his own rhyme of rose with chose, later adopted by Guillaume (vv. 3827-8) and his cousin (vv.3985-6) marks the success of the seneschal's engirt, the phrase underpinning the rhyme, but never pronounced, being faire la chose, 'to have sexual intercourse'. The seneschal's engin, therefore, is a critique of 'courtly' attitudes as expressed in the lyrics and espoused by Conrad. He proposes a model of rivalry in place of the companionship which had permitted Conrad to see Lienor as the amorous extension of her brother. This transformation is simultaneous with the revised reading of the 'rose' from courtly decorousness to illicit sexual activity. The artificiality and precariousness of 'courtly' discourse is exposed by the readiness with which all the noble male characters ditch it and espouse the seneschal's ascription of Lienor to the 'feminine'. The subject position of the 'courtly lyric lover' is seen as using rhetoric in such a way as to safeguard its own desire from knowledge of a 'reality' ('feminine' depravity) which would terminate it, while at the same time integrating that 'reality' as its conceptual base. Wealth and status The lengthy prologue shows Conrad conspicuously consuming money and pleasure, both of which exist in such excess that the only thing lacking to him is lack itself. The romance must construct lacks for him, first the absent L'ienor whom he loves (thanks to Jouglet), 191

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then her absent virtue which means he should no longer love her (thanks to the seneschal). Guillaume outdoes Conrad: with no resources at all he lives a life of splendour and largesse. Both men behave as though money were completely unreal, a purely symbolic value the circulation of which confers prestige and guarantees 'courtliness'. 29 Lienor's name assimilates her to value because it evokes or, 'gold'. Conrad's messenger reports back on his visit to Dole: 'Aussi passe, ce m'est avis, de beaute bele Lienors totes les autres, com li ors toz les autres metails dou monde.' 'Ne fet pas a son biau non honte, a ce que voi,' fet l'emperere. (vv. 1417-22) 'I think that lovely Lienor surpasses all other women in beauty just as gold does all the other metals in the world.' 'She does not disgrace her lovely name, from what I see,' says the emperor. The pun is repeated by juxtaposition or rhyme in w . 919-20,1002-3, 1786-7. When Guillaume shows his sister to the messenger he produces a variant on it: 'Si vos moustrerai mon tresor.' Sa mere et bele Lienor le maine en la chambre veoir. (vv. 1115-17) 'I shall show you my treasure.' He takes him to see his mother and lovely Lienor in the apartment. The name Lienor which fascinates Conrad is, precisely, // en or 'she of gold'. The virtuous virgin is a metaphorical 'treasure', a 'golden girl' whose value Guillaume can put in circulation by promising her to Conrad. The effect of the seneschal's engin is to draw attention to the material reality which underlies, and therefore negates, this 'courtly' conception of wealth as abstract. When he seduces Lienor's mother with a valuable ring, he convinces her that this is a 'courtly' gesture: Tor vostre amor, que ge desir a avoir tant com ge vivrai, dame douce, si vos lerai cest mien anel par driierie.' La dame nel refusa mie, qu'il Ten tenist a mainz cortoise. (vv. 3342-5) 192

Guillaume de Dole Tor the sake of your love, which I desire to have as long as I live, sweet lady, I leave this ring of mine as a token.' The l^dy didn't refuse it, for he might think her uncourtly.

Courtly or uncourtly, the mother's thoughts dwell on the ring's material value: the gold alone is worth five bezants, and the stone is very precious (vv. 3348-52). In selling her daughter's sex to the seneschal for the ring,30 the mother re-enacts Guillaume's promise of her to Conrad for the advancement of his family interest, and draws attention to the fact that an exchange mediated by gold, even allegedly metaphorical gold such as // en or, is a sale. The paradox, that by selling her daughter she makes her valueless, corresponds with what we found in Chapter 3: men are allowed to buy, but women are not permitted to sell. The alleged loss of Lienor'spucelage is rhymed with domage, 'material loss, harm' in vv. 3613 -14. The seneschal's engin demystifies 'wealth' as a courtly metaphor because he buys what he can represent as real sex with real money. In Chapter 3 it was observed that imagery of money is often used as a disparaging gloss on imagery evoking 'nobler' forms of exchange. Conrad is a ric ome who cannot expect advancement in rank through love but who is nonetheless preoccupied with his status. Onor is most frequently rhymed with empereor to mark the identification between the man, his empire (onor in the sense of territory) and his 'honour'.31 Another reason for his loving L'ienor's name may be the proximity between it and // enor, a common variant of onor. Although the final (close) vowel of onor is not the same as the open one in Lienor, they are close together in the phonological system. Moreover, onor is frequently rhymed with seror,32 a common periphrasis for Lienor, and thus an alternative way of associating her person with 'honour'. When Conrad announces his projected marriage to the seneschal, he defends his choice by equating his bride's merits with metaphorical landed wealth: Bien prent terre et avoir li horn qui la prent bone et sage et bele et de bon lignage et pucele. (vv. 3520-2) A man who takes [a wife] virtuous, wise, lovely, of good family and a virgin, is gaining land and wealth. The fact that Conrad abandons all thoughts of the match (w. 3904-7) after the seneschal's 'revelation' that Lienor has lost her virginity shows that it was the 'territory' uppermost in his mind. The marriage 193

Romance appropriations would have brought her onor (both 'honour' and wealth) in making her empress (vv. 3094-5), but she forfeits it through loss of her own onor, her sexual territory and its reputation for integrity. When Guillaume accuses her to his cousin of being a prostitute, he says that shes'est treted'onorarriere (v.3810), which Foulet translates '[elle] s'est eloignee [de la voie] de l'honneur'. The 'noble' male characters follow the troubadours and trouveres in subscribing to a symbolic code of wealth and honour. Conrad finds in L'ienor, or rather in her name, a meeting point of both. The seneschal's engin, by deconstructing the distinction between literal and metaphorical on which the noble characters rely for their selfimage as 'courtly', shows to what extent the euphemisms of courtly language derive from, and disguise, concern with sexuality, money, and status. Lienor's engin and the counter-reading L'ienor's reaction to the seneschal's slander is to outmanoeuvre him on his own ground of verbal deceit and so regain Conrad's favour. Her ruse is therefore determined by the discourses both of courtliness (Conrad and Guillaume whom she wishes to appease) and of misogyny (the seneschal whom she wants to rebut). It consists in framing the seneschal. She sends him a messenger, purportedly from the Chastelaine de Dijon whom she knows he has been courting, bearing gifts which he is instructed to conceal beneath his clothing. When she then appears in court to accuse him of having raped and robbed her, these objects are taken as confirmation of his guilt. In successfully undertaking the ordeal by water the seneschal demonstrates not only his innocence but hers as well: if he did not have sex with her, then neither did she with him, and the impediment to the marriage with Conrad is removed. But whereas her engin reestablishes her reputation, it ruins the seneschal's by convicting him of slander. The ingeniousness of her denunciation is that it is simultaneously true and false: Ice demant au seneschal: et m'onor et mon pucelage et de mes joiaus le domage. (w.4788-90) I hereby lay claim against the seneschal for my onor, virginity, and the loss of my jewels. The seneschal may not have raped and robbed her physically, but discursively he has done so: he has bared her 'rose' in public, and 194

Guillaume de Dole robbed her name of the wealth and honour it evokes, thereby 'stealing' her expected rise in fortune. In particular, Lienor's accusation of robbery, though false, draws attention to the importance of material wealth in the seneschal's engirt. When he accepts the jewels which he believes to come from the chastelaine, he is impressed by their material value (v.4418), just as was Lienor's mother by his gift of that other jewel, the ring. Part of Lienor's project, then, is to reappropriate the metaphorical ground the seneschal has deprived her of. When, following the ordeal, she declares to the court je sui la pucele a la rose (v. 5040), 'I am the virgin of the rose', the collocation of pucele and rose has the shock of an oxymoron. By pronouncing the emblem of her shame, the rose, in the same breath as pucele, L'ienor reinvests it with innocence, reassigns it to virginity. In the next breath, she reclaims the onor - and Conrad's - which she had lost: je sui la pucele a la rose, la suer a mon segnor Guillaume qui l'onor de vostre roiaume m'avoit quise par sa proesce. (vv. 5040-3) I am the virgin of the rose and my lord Guillaume's sister who, by his worth, had sought the honour of your realm for me. In her invocation of her brother's role, L'ienor returns herself to the homosocial discourses which presided over Conrad's courtship. The terms onor, onorer are repeated by her throughout this scene in a litany of reappropriation. 33 This does not mean, however, that Lienor's engin is uncritical of courtly rhetoric. The seneschal's trick has shown that Conrad, though singing songs about Amors from which women are absent, and although living as though money were a fiction of lyric imagery, is in fact deeply concerned with sexual and material territory. Lienor's words confirm this perception. She does not deny that the rose is her sex, but insists that it is known only to her intimate family: ... il degut ma bone mere, qui la dit tot coment il ere de la rose desor ma cuisse. Biau sire Dex, aussi en puisse ge en cest jor venir au deseure, q'encor nel savoit a cele heure que mon frere et ma mere et gie. (vv. 5048-55) 195

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[the seneschal] deceived my mother who told him how it was with the rose on my thigh. As the Lord God give me victory, no one else knew of it until then except my brother and my mother and myself. Similarly, she does not conceal that onor is, above all, the wealth of empire which Conrad possesses and to which she aspires (vv. 5088-9). By staking out the conditions of fair exchange - virginity for empire - she reveals the self-deception in Conrad's last song, a rondeau alleging love as its own fulfilment: Que demandez vos quant vos m'avez? que demandez vos? dont ne m'avez vos? - Ge ne demant rien se vos m'amez bien. (vv. 5106-11) What more can you ask for if you have me? what more can you ask for? don't you have me? - I don't ask for anything more if you really love me. The refrain struck up by the rest of the court as an ironic Te Deum on the happy ending is closer to the mark: Tendez tuit voz mains a la flor d'este, a la flor de liz, por Deu, tendez i! (w. 5113-15) Stretch out your hands, all of you, to the summer flower, to the lily flower, in God's name, stretch out your hands to it. Although the courtiers invoke not the 'rose' but the lily with which it was first associated (see Jouglet's description, v. 697), desire for sexual possession of an 'innocent' woman is scarcely masked by their flowery rhetoric. As Jean Renart amusedly comments, plus tire cus que corde (v.53OO), 'sex pulls more than a rope does'. Lienor's engin thus both undoes the seneschal's and confirms it, since she reasserts innocence and honour but within the same modalities of 'realistic' exchange as he had established. Reacting against both his misogynistic language and the euphemisms of courtliness, she is, as I said before, conditioned by both. Since she is also the creature of one of the cleverest writers of the Middle Ages, Jean Renart, it would be foolish to attempt to identify her with a historical feminine voice, such as those of the trobairitz. Instead we should see her as analogous to the feminine voices in tensos or partimens licensed by male poets to mark the limitations and deceits of their own language. In Guillaume deDole, this male-authored feminine voice is instanced in the examples of 'women's song' whose career L'ienor 196

Guillaume de Dole 34

so closely follows. Bele L'ienor, like Bele Aeliz, gets up early in the morning and decks herself out (cf. main se leva bele Aeliz, vv. 3 lOf f., 318ff., 532ff., 542ff., 1579ff., and Lienor's preparations for court vv.4193ff.). Like Bele Aude(vv. 1159ff.), Bele Aye (vv. 1183ff.) and Bele Doe (vv. 12O3ff.), she suffers for the man she loves. Like Bele Aiglentine (vv. 2235ff.) and Aigline (vv. 5188ff.), she gets him in the end. Or rather, as the conclusion to Bele Aiglentine makes clear, he gets her: Oit le Henris, mout joianz en devint. II fet monter chevalier trusq'a .xx., si enporta la bele en son pais et espousa, riche contesse en fist. Grant joie en a li quens Henri quant bele Aiglentine a.

(vv. 2289-94)

Henry was jubilant when he heard this. He had twenty knights mount their horses and carried the lovely one off to his land, married her and made her a wealthy countess. Count Henry was very glad when he got lovely Aiglentine. Bele L'ienor, Bele Aiglentine and the rest exist to be possessed, like Bele Mariette in the dance song (vv.522ff.), and the nuete in the strophe from the Chastelain de Couci (v. 929) - the only love object explicitly referred to in any of the inset cansos. Their role, as subjects, is to place themselves in the object role, as do many of the trobairitz examined in Chapter 3. Like 'she of Oisseri' (vv. 3419ff.), protagonist of what is apparently a tournoiement des dames, Lienor collaborates with masculine desire to the extent of adopting a masculine social role (in her case not arms but litigation) in order to achieve this goal. Like the authors of fabliaux,15 Jean Renart uses a trickster figure (the seneschal) and a feminine voice (L'ienor) to expose the delusions of courtliness. In particular, he shows that the subject position of the courtly lyric is shaped by self-deceiving euphemisms which are intended to safeguard desire and control perception of the love object. These euphemisms are a means of avoiding confrontation with the sexual and the material as presented by a 'realist' or misogynistic discourse (such as the seneschal's), but because they exist to ward off 'realism' they are, in fact, founded on it, and so are infinitely vulnerable to it: the seneschal's engin is instantly successful. The engin associated with woman's song denounces 'misogynist realism' as a form of violence, but then reinscribes sex and property from a further masculine perspective which both undercuts courtly euphemism and is more reconcilable with it: the lyric subject can get what he desires, 197

Romance appropriations because it is what women want. The lyric object is returned to the lyric subject, after a tour deforce of demystification. The romance of Flamenca

Flamenca is the last in date of the romances considered here, and the only one composed in Occitan.36 That its author was familiar with troubadour productions from at least the time of Marcabru is beyond any doubt.37 Like Guillaume de Lorris's poem, it contains extensive use of allegory, and like Guillaume de Dole it offers interesting perspectives on gender and status. I shall, however, examine it in the light of the discussion of performance in the last chapter, because of the way in which the two principal protagonists, Guilhem and Flamenca, alternate between the roles of performer and audience. In particular, this essay will consider the transition which both characters make from being passive consumers to active producers of poetic texts. Flamenca can thus be read as a commentary on the concerns of Chapter 4. To what extent is the subject in performance shaped by audience complicity? What is the value of 'novelty' as a rehearsal of the 'old', and to what extent can discursive conventions, interacting with 'authentic' historical circumstances, produce 'autobiography'? Love's text Guilhem, a hyperbolic amalgam of literary models (vv. 1571-8), and child prodigy of clergia and cavaleria, is first presented as an exemplary consumer of the discourses that circulate in his society, his clerical learning, acquired at the University of Paris (vv. 1622-5), being matched by an extensive knowledge of vernacular culture: chansons e lais, descortz e vers, serventes et autres cantars sabia plus que nuls joglars. (vv. 1706-8) He knew more cansos and lais, descorts and vers, sirventes and other songs than any jongleur. He is thus master of an authoritative tradition establishing the nature of love: Per dir saup ben que fon amors, cant legit ac totz los auctors que d'amor parlon e si feinon consi amador si capteinon. (vv. 1763-6) 198

The romance o/Flamenca He knew through language what love was, since he had read all the authors who speak of love and simulate the behaviour of lovers. The narrator's wit - and my theme - is apparent in this juxtaposition of auctor and feinon. What kind of conviction do the 'simulations' of love songs and narratives carry? How authoritative is their 'authority'? Is it possible for established conventions to carry authentic, 'autobiographical' value? Or are they necessarily ironic? Guilhem wants to combine his learning with lived experience: Ancar d'amor no s'entremes per so que [lo] ver en saupes. (w. 1761-2) He had still not embarked on love in such a way as to know the truth about it. He is dissatisfied with being a mereyogter (v. 1708) who sings without 'truth'; instead, he himself wants to live segon joven (v. 1768), and so change from being a receiver to being a producer, from being an observer to being a performer. How, and how far, will this turn out to be possible? The romancer undertakes to describe Guilhem's sentimental education. What is instantly striking is that this consists not in leaving the schoolroom, but in further study. For whilst in this romance Amors is presented in her traditional roles of warrior (vv. 1803-5, 3418) firing her arrows at lovers (vv. 2706-8,2713ff.), and of feudal overlord (vv.3716, 5570ff.), her most important attribute is that of speech. She is constantly to be heard advising (conselhar), instructing (mandar), and above all teaching (ensenhaf) her protege. 38 Her first allegorical intervention at Guilhem's side shows her in thoroughly clerical guise: Amors ben pres de lui s'acointa e fes si mout gaia e cointa; fort lo presisca e.l sarmona e mostra li es ben artos e sobre totz homes ginos. (vv. 1783-4, 1788-90) Love takes up her stand beside him, merry and eloquent... she preaches at him and sermonizes him at length, and demonstrates to him that he is more artful and ingenious than anyone. This 'sermon' no doubt has much in common with the ironic one of Jean de Meun's Genius, but its irony only confirms the romance's ascription of 'love' to the domain of textuality. When, a few hundred lines later, Guilhem launches into an 'etymological' analysis of the 199

Romance appropriations word aziman, he shows that true lovers are those who understand how far language is founded on mastery of Latin; for the vernacular * corrupts' the a of Latin adamans to /, to give azimans.39 A lover's education consists in understanding and learning {entendre and aprendre, vv. 2110-11) the mots d'amor (v.2111). Thus it is not surprising that Guilhem's initial courtship of Flamenca is accompanied at every step by literary reminiscence. He has moments of spring exordium, echoes of Jaufre Rudel, fits of cossirar, and dreams;40 he hears a May song and lives a fragment of an alba.41 His monologues are a tissue of motifs and terms whose source cannot be specified, so characteristic are they of the century and a half of troubadour poetry that precedes him. Love's apprenticeship is undertaken via the study of auctores, not by leaving them behind; and Guilhem goes so far as to be ordained a clerk in Love's service (vv. 3704-11). When the moment comes for him to whisper his first words to Flamenca in the course of the mass, he trusts to Love to inspire him (v. 3938) and comes out with the two syllables hai lasl (v. 3949). From this modest beginning as a troubadour-performer, he builds up a sequence of similar utterances before acquiring sufficient fluency to produce long speeches (in the meetings in the bath house) and the formal salut d'amor, unfortunately lost as a result of a lacuna in the sole MS. As the love affair progresses, does Guilhem's language, and that of his lady, despite (or because) of its dependence on the conventions of love's text, come to contain the 'truth' they seek? Love's gloss With his hai las, Guilhem inaugurates the central part of the romance which revolves around the words exchanged in church and in which the principal characters meditate at length, alone in Guilhem's case, with her confidantes in Flamenca's, on the words they have heard and those they intend to speak. This part of the romance resembles, as a result, thirteenth-century glossed MSS in which the text, written in a formal hand, is surrounded on the page by extensive marginal commentaries. The explicit theme of these glosses is the indeterminacy of erotic language. After hai las, Guilhem laments his apparent lack of success: even if Flamenca heard him she didn't react. Her silence is an ambiguous sign, and he tries to guess at the sentiments that underlie it. Guilhem's gloss occupies over a hundred lines (39924108). Flamenca's follows almost at once (vv.4131ff.). She is disturbed by the ambiguity of Guilhem's words. Is he mocking her, 200

The romance of Flamenca as Guilhem feared she might think? Or could such a flimsy utterance contain an authentic gesture of courtship? For Flamenca Guilhem's discretion, with which he has just been reproaching himself, is evidence that it might; she is also affected by his air of emotion (vv.4149-54). These two readings - that he is mocking her, and that he is wooing her - are debated by the three women together. Flamenca wants to know her lover's heart, and must therefore analyse both his words and his performance. Not a graduate, she nonetheless knows her Ovid and owns at least one romance (Floire et Blanchefleur),42 and she unhesitatingly resorts to a linguistic metaphor to describe her project to Alis: Amiga, quan sabrai del tot son cor, que.m dira mot et mot...

(vv.4253-4)

Friend, when I shall know his entire heart, which he will tell me word by word ...

Guilhem's words will eventually tell her his true inclinations; she is confident of not being deceived (vv. 4261 -2). Linguistic metaphors continue: as soon as she knows him to be sincere, she will not dispute his love (metre emplag, v.4280), otherwise he would know that the you she granted him was messongiers - a deceptive text (v. 4284). As subsequent exchanges gradually convince her of Guilhem's sincerity, his words appear less as 'text', more as 'acts'. Why would Guilhem come to tell them he was dying, asks Alis, if not for love? 'Domna,' dis el\ 'e de cal dan pensavas que.s vengues clamar? Ja no.s vengra sai rancurar, qui Pagues ferit ni raubat; dese.l tin[c] per enamorat, pois saup ques a vos si plania.' (vv. 4904-9) 'Lady,' she said, 'for what loss do you imagine he would come and make complaint, then? He would never express bitterness here if he'd been hit or robbed; and so I think he must be in love, to have come to lament to you.'

The circumstances of Guilhem's 'performances' combine with his words to gain their belief. He speaks in person (such a handsome person!, vv.4547-54, 4771 -4), and his brave appeal to an unknown audience (vv. 4898-900) impresses them. Flamenca is sufficiently persuaded to put 'simulation' (fenher, v.4924) aside and formulate, for the first time, a personal contribution to the dialogue: per cui? 201

Romance appropriations v. 4914). The hoped-for response per vos puts an end to her doubts, and hearing Guilhem say that he seeks a means to garir, all she need do is devise one: Consi puesc far eu garimen Al[s] mals d'amors c'us autre sen? ... als mals que eel suffre per me, aissi con dis, e ben o ere. (w. 5099-100, 5105-6) How I can heal the sufferings of love that another feels? ... the sufferings he endures for my sake, just as he says he does, and I believe him.

She is convinced that his words carry a determinate, autobiographical value: that he does love her, and suffer for her, as he claims. The uniqueness of the circumstances of his 'performance' commands her belief (vv.4969-77, 5107-14). In her contributions to the dialogue, however, Flamenca wishes to preserve ambiguity. The first reply que plans?, devised by Alis, strikes her as admirable (vv. 4311 -14) because it avoids any sign of commitment on her part (4233-44). On hearing it, it is Guilhem's turn to launch into textual analysis. Witnessing Flamenca's reply (the way she held the psalter, vv.4375-8), his eyes are convinced of her 'sincerity'; likewise the ears are charmed by her voice which they equate with the voice of Amors (vv. 4387-93). Neither perceives the problem of meaning which his heart will confront: Le cor dis: 'Hoc, sol que non falla Merces.' Aqui eis la batailla. (vv. 4399-400) The heart said: 'Yes, provided her favour is really there.' Here the battle is underway.

The heart justifies its misgivings by telling the exemplum of a friend who had spent the best part of his life pursuing without success a lady who would never give him a clear answer; not even Amors had been able to read her intentions. It is possible, therefore, that Flamenca spoke merely to observe decorum, in order not to appear proud: Ges per tan non es amorosa. Se dis que plans a ton ai las, ja per aiso no.m proaras que t'ame ni que.t voill' amar.

(w. 4456-9)

It doesn't follow that she's in love; if she said 'Why do you lament' to your 'Alas', you will never prove to me on those grounds that she loves you or intends to do so. 202

The romance 0/Flamenca Guilhem's uncertainty persists. When Flamenca whispers per cui?, he is happy to have the chance to explain the 'truth' of his desire (vv. 4944-58); but his reply per vos meets with a deliberately noncommittal (vv. 5027-31) qu'en puesc?: En qu sen puesc? non ai dan ni pron; ab qu 'en puesc? non dis hoc ni non. Pero qui ben [i] vol entendre ben sembla que mais deja penre vaus hoc que vaus non tal doptansa. Ben atrobet mot de balansa; veramens es domna reials que motz faitisses naturals atroba dese contra.ls mieus. (w. 5047-55) In 'What can I do about it?' I find neither loss nor gain; in 'What can I do about it?' she said neither yes nor no. Yet for anyone who understands it aright is seems that such hesitation inclines more to yes than to no. How clever of her to devise such uncertainty. She is truly a royal lady to invent such natural, artful words to answer mine. The irony which performance generates from the combination of the apparently 'natural' (authentic) with the 'artful' (simulated) is still unresolved for Guilhem. In order to gloss Flamenca's words, he bypasses her text in an attempt to construe the disposition of her heart, imagining her meaning to be that she will do anything in her power for him (vv. 5079-82). Direct contact between two hearts comes only at the very end of the dialogue when, on St John's day, Flamenca asks consi?: que ab lo mot lo mielz compli, quar si Pateis ben tro al cor. (w. 5164-5) for with this word he [St John] accomplished the very best, for thus it touched his [Guilhem's] heart. Irony is eliminated (from the characters' perspective if not from ours); and Guilhem anticipates such unity between himself and Flamenca as will give rise to a single state of happiness between them (vv. 5190-8). Love's community Guilhem and Flamenca seem to act as self-determining subjects, as each decides that the other's words contain a core of truth. But the narrative undermines this apparent autonomy by means of repeated 203

Romance appropriations coincidence of thought and even of language between the two; the careful exercise of independent judgement is seen, as a result, to be overdetermined by assumptions common to both lovers. Flamenca identifies from the outset with the role which Guilhem has assigned her. He was afraid she might think his initial hai las! was derisive; and so she does (vv. 4134-6). Guilhem had tried to justify Flamenca's show of indifference by telling himself: quar donna es cuberta res, zo dison, e sai que vers es, e non vol far negun semblan tro s'o agues pensat avant. (vv. 4079-82) for a lady is a creature of concealment, so they say, and I know it's true, and she doesn't want to give any sign until she has reflected on it further. As if in response, Flamenca declares: E donna deu son cor rescondre sivals de primas, tan o quant, c'om non conosca son talan; e deu motz dir d'aital egansa que non adugon esperansa ni non fasson dese[s]perar. (vv.4238-43) And a lady should hide her heart, at least at first, for the most part, so that her intentions cannot be known; and she should pronounce herself equivocally, so as to excite neither hope nor despair.

The zo dizon (v.4080) of the first of these passages shows that both performer and audience in these bizarre exchanges are influenced by the (by now) weighty tradition of courtly discourse. A large number of the correspondences between the lovers' reflections stem from the vision prefacing their courtshp, in which Flamenca appears to Guilhem to propound the architecture of her own seduction. Is it the strength of the hero's desire which thus succeeds in constructing a world in accordance with his fantasy? Or does the heroine's need for love create the scenario of her liberation? Have both internalized the language of the courtly community to such an extent that it becomes a vital part of their mental makeup, revealing itself to both of them (and to the reader) through dream? Is that why the ensuing course of their love affair seems 'predestined'?43 However one answers these questions, the whole of the remainder of the romance is governed by the language and attitudes of this vision. Each protagonist seems to determine 204

The romance of Flamenca the responses of the other, both are governed by their oniric archetypes, and these in turn are dictated by tradition. The dream (and it is clearly a masculine dream, whatever Flamenca's role in it may be) proposes an ideal of behaviour corresponding to the gracious receptivity of the 'mixed' gender domna (cf. Chapter 3). Here is the visionary Flamenca speaking: Car eu non ai ges cor de fera ni sui de ferre ni d'assier ... e tan dous pregar deu ben torser tot bon cor et adomescar, qui.us [pot] tan ni quant escoutar; quar ferre freg deuria fendre doussor de preg, qui.l vol entendre. (vv. 2894-5, 2898-902) For I don't in the least have the heart of a wild beast, nor am I made of iron or steel... and such sweet entreaty ought, indeed, to bend any noble heart and tame it, after even briefly listening to you; for the sweetness of entreaty ought to break cold iron, for anyone who understands it.

The metaphor of iron echoes Guilhem's dissertation on the ideal 'masculine' lover (amans deuportar cor de ferre, v.2065), and that of the wild beast will be taken up again by Flamenca on hearing the words hai las: El mon non a drago ni vibra, ors ni leon ni lop ni sibra, qu'om no.l pusca adomeschar ab gent tener, sie.i vol poinar. (vv.4291 -4) There is no dragon or viper, bear, wolf or zebra (?) that cannot be tamed by noble treatment, if one will persist in it. She also repeats from her dream counterpart the idea that it will be impossible for her to know Love, given the difficulty of her circumstances(cf. vv.2865-70,4158-65). Similar expressions recur in one of Guilhem's monologues, when his heart tells the exemplum of his friend at Montardi, and cites the words of the unrelenting lady who caused his distress (vv.4430-2). The quasi-obligation of the domna to reward her lover with her merce is a major theme of these correspondences between Guilhem and Flamenca's meditations. Guilhem's exemplum condemned the lady who showed no merce at the end of two years; Flamenca had already reproached those who didn't reward their lovers within a year: 205

Romance appropriations Diabols es fers, [s']a cap d'an merces non l'a tan forsada ... (vv.4274-5) She is a ferocious devil if, at the end of a year, Merce has not sufficiently constrained her ... Delighted by Flamenca's asking consi?, Guilhem sees an end to his waiting provided she will do her duty with regard to merce (vv. 5186-90); and once the dialogue is over, Flamenca discourses on the duty of all domnas to render to Amors the fief which is his due (vv. 5594ff.). Guilhem admits, however, that the lover's right to merce does not authorize him to pre-empt his lady's desires: Mais trop ai dig senes comjat quar de son tener ai parlat, quar non s'atain aisi la tenga; non voil que per orat m'avenga si non avia son autrei. (w. 4711 -15) But I have said too much without permission, for I spoke of holding her, yet it is not appropriate that I should hold her in this way; I don't wish it to come to pass through my request unless I have her consent. Flamenca anticipates his desire and grants her autrei without his needing to solicit it: Tener mi poira tota nuda quan li plasera, o vestida, que ja non li farai ganzida. (vv. 6204-6) He could hold me completely naked whenever he wished, or clothed, for I would not refuse him. Guilhem also know that merce is born of love, which inspires the lover to empathize with the feelings of the loved one. For this reason he is alert to Flamenca's miserable plight in her husband's prison (vv. 4646-52). The prison motif will later be taken up by Margarida re Flamenca (w. 5409ff.). For her part, Flamenca comes to appreciate that Guilhem suffers for her too, and has put his life at risk in order to liberate her (vv. 5359-61). It is obvious that these echoes result from shared language and attitudes deriving from the antecedent tradition of troubadour lyric. The roles of lover and lady are inscribed in the tradition of fin 'amors, and those roles overdetermine the 'psychology' of the characters in the romance. But as each protagonist contributes to the role of the other, they collaborate, along with that tradition, in the construction of the plot. By assimilating the already-said of the other, each lover 206

The romance of Flamenca comes to incarnate the tradition and make it his or her own. While subject to tradition, they are also the subjects of their performances, and the ironic divergence between 'simulation' and 'autobiography' is perceived (by them) as eliminated. By calquing their reality on the discourse of Love's community, Guilhem and Flamenca find it to be authentic - for themselves, at least. Poetic tradition and performance Guilhem's reflections on his initial hai las open with the words: Las! con no mor? Amors! ben pauc enansat m'as. (vv. 3992-3) Alas! Why don't I die? Love! you have done little to advance my cause. They anticipate strikingly his future contributions to the dialogue (hai las! - mor mi - d'amor). A few lines later Guilhem and Amors exchange speeches which divide the octosyllable into bisyllabic groups, with alternating questions and answers: Non sai. - Qui done? - Amors. - Que.t val? Qu'il non s'entremet d'autrui mal. - Tort has. - Per que? - Si fai. - Cossi? Deu! fez ti parlar hui ab si. (vv. 4011-14) I don't know - Who then? - Love. - What help is that? For Love has no concern for others' sufferings. - You're wrong. - Why? - Yes, you are. - How so? - For God's sake, I managed to allow you to speak with her today! Both the form and the content of the dialogue in the church are thus sketched out from a very early stage. The 'text' which Guilhem and Flamenca will compose and perform seems to come 'naturally' to them. The terms they use to comment on their productions suggest awareness that it is, nonetheless, a 'poetic' text. Margarida is congratulated by Flamenca on being a bona trobairis (v. 4577) when she 'finds' the question de que? Guilhem speaks of 'according' his words together (vv. 4839-40) and praises Flamenca for 'according' hers to his so skilfully (vv. 4857-64). Other passages suggest the literary expertise that underlies their efforts (vv. 4590-1,4827-30,5441 - 3 ) . They also conscientiously rehearse or re-enact the utterances they have heard, or are about to perform. As is well known, the resulting dialogue bears a striking similarity to stanza vi of Peire Rogier's Ges non puesc en bon versfallir (vi); 207

Romance appropriations it is slightly less like Giraut de Bornelh's Ailas, com mor (n), and has a general family resemblance to all the dialogue songs, of which there is a substantial tradition from the second half of the twelfth century (see Chapter 2). Evidently, then, the lovers in Flamenca found their courtship on a precise and prestigious period in literary history, a hundred years before the composition of their romance (though a mere seventy or so from the date in which it is set). What is the effect of this debt on their subjectivity as lovers and performers? Do they succeed in internalizing these old texts, as they seem to do the rest of the tradition on which they draw? Textually, the dialogue in Flamenca differs from its models in three respects. Firstly, Peire Rogier and Giraut de Bornelh both present the poet debating with himself, or else with a friend/ counsellor. This difference is relatively unimportant, since there are other dialogue songs which, though otherwise unlike the exchanges in Flamenca, do confront a lover and his lady.44 Thus tradition could still seem to be weighing on the romance protagonists. Secondly the dialogue between Guilhem and Flamenca becomes progressively quite distinct in content from all its possible models, because of the need to adapt it to their particular 'historical' circumstances. Once the proposal has been made to act per gein (Guilhem, v.5204), the commonplaces of sentiment (morir, garir) have to be relinquished for comically discordant logistic details (iretz ... als banz). Thirdly, as the rhythm of the liturgy allows the lovers to speak only two syllables at a time, the metrical form of the Flamenca dialogue is unique to the genre, and more rigorous than any of its models. Does the novelty of their text marks its 'authenticity'? The metrical peculiarity of their dialogue is produced by 'historical' circumstances (the giving of the pax), but it is particularly appropriate to the octosyllabic metre of the romance. According to Dragonetti, the exchanges make up five lines of eight syllables each, but with the key response suppressed, namely Flamenca's pren /7, proposed as a reply to per gein but never pronounced: Hai las! - Que plains? - Mor mi. - De que? - D'amor. - Per cui? - Per vos. - Qu'en pucs? - Garir. - Consi? - Per gein. - (Pren l'i.) - Pres l'ai. - E cal? - Iretz. - Es on? - Als banz. - Cora? - Jorn breu et gen. - Plas mi. 208

The romance 0/Flamenca Alas - why lament? - I am dying - what of? - of love - for whom? for you - what can I do about it? - heal me - how? - by strategy - (adopt it) - I have - what is it then? - you will go - where? - to the baths when? - in the near and agreeable future - all right. Tous ces fragments [de discours] restent assez enigmatiques jusqu'au verset tu, qui en constitue pour ainsi dire le centre silencieux' (Le Gai savoir p. 93). By taking away the silent pren I'i and redisposing the remainder of the dialogue, the octosyllabic structure can be restored. The moment of adopting the strategy which differentiates the lovers in the romance from their literary predecessors would thus seem to have been abandoned in order to preserve the metrical perfection of their text. The 'authenticity' of the lovers' response to their circumstances would thus be ironically subordinated to the metrical concerns of the romance's author. Attractive as this analysis may be, it is perhaps over-subtle. The narrative says that Flamenca assegura Guilhem of her love (vv. 5278-9), thus indicating that she spoke, and what could she have said if not the pren I'i resolved on a few lines before (v. 5230)? In any case, as Dragonetti suggests by printing it in italics, the 'inappropriate' element in the dialogue is above all Guilhem's hypermetricyora breu egent; and this may merely result from aberrant punctuation. In the most recent edition, Gschwind in fact prints: a fag entendre a si dons que 'jorn breu'; e gent pueis s'ostet d'avan lui corrent. (vv. 5498-500) he told his lady that it should be 'on a nearby date'; thereupon he elegantly departed from her in haste. Restoring pren I'i and abridging to jorn breu produces five regular octosyllables broken up into bisyllabic exchanges: Hai las! - Que plains? - Mor mi. - De que? - D'amor. - Per cui? - Per vos. - Qu'en pucs? - Garir. - Consi? - Per gein. - Pren I'i. - Pres l'ai. - E cal? - Iretz. - Es on? - Als banz. - Cora? - Jorn breu. - Plas mi. In differentiating their text from the dialogue poems of earlier troubadours, Guilhem and Flamenca, on this reading, create a text which is a response both to the peculiar circumstances of performance, and to their singular strategy for meeting. The conventions of the twelfth century are recycled as the characters appropriate the past and transform it into their personal future. The fact that their text is so 209

Romance appropriations extraordinarily consonant with the form of the romance means that irony, from the perspective of the narrator, is never eliminated. But so far as the characters are concerned, they are autonomous subjects reworking their literary inheritance. One of Guilhem's monologues (following on from mormi) offers an interesting commentary on this reworking. He realizes that, intense though his sufferings may be, he has nonetheless scored some success through his words at the church. The metaphor to which he turns has nothing original about it; it figures notably in the prologue of Chretien's Conte del Graal: Ades seran autras meissos et eu ai tan pauc semenat! Cujar aver tant enansat quar sol as .ii. mugz semenatz! Tardius sera, so.m cug, mos blatz ... Non sai per que tal aissa.m mene, car, segon so ques eu semene, la merce Dieu! naisso mieu broil. Anc mais set jornz non fon e moil Ai las, et a l'uchen b[r]uillet. (vv.4672-6, 4681 -5) Soon there will be further harvests, yet I have sown so little. Is it possible to be deluded into thinking one has advanced so far, after only sowing two measures? My wheat will come late, I imagine. I don't know why such anxiety besets me, for, thank God, according to what I sow, my little plants come up. My'Alas' has only been in the ground seven days, and on the eighth it was germinating. Guilhem has just used a similar metaphor to describe the growth of love: Merce takes root in suffering, and the sweetness which makes it possible to feel the suffering of others is Amor; the fruit of Merce is the possibility of cure. This repetition marks the equivalence, in Guilhem's thought, between sentiment and poetic language, and identifies both as organic. The two are further linked to performance in a third recurrence of the metaphor. In Guilhem's salut d'amor, one flower, issuing from the mouth of the lover-author, links the beginnings of all the lines, and another, linking all the rhymes, enters the ear of the tfowAza-addressee (vv. 71OOff.). It could be that this metaphor is in some ways emblematic of the entire romance, since in it we see the texts 'sown' by their literary inheritance 'germinate' in the characters and 'flower' in their own poetic productions before finally 'bearing fruit' in their experience. For the narrator, however, this 'sowing' might, rather, be a dissemination: not an organic transmission of authenticity but a random scatter of 210

The romance of Flamenca ironic elements - just as the fragments of the lovers' text are scattered over several months of fictional time and several thousand lines of text. Flamenca can be read as an allegory of the relation of performance to literary tradition and 'autobiography'. The narrator has wilfully, and comically, made the circumstances of his characters' 'performance' as ludicrous as possible, and yet shown how earlier texts can successfully be adapted to them. The lovers, like the troubadours, are dependent on antecedent texts without which intelligibility would be impossible. That very tradition makes their own texts ambiguous as between 'autobiography' and 'simulation', an empty rehearsal of the commonplace. They have to rely on the impact of performance - the bodily presence of each before the other - in order to convey conviction. In performance, the very indeterminacy of poetic language becomes an asset, since it makes possible the voicing of desire in allusive and (in this case) abridged and fragmentary form. Because both characters share the same preconceptions about roles in love, each is able successfully to interpret the words of the other and then assimilate to those roles, experiencing them as 'real'. But the poet is also invited to innovate - in the sense of minimally reworking the 'old'. By the adaptations which they make to the poems of the dialogue tradition, Guilhem and Flamenca have the impression of participating, organically, in a literary history of which they are both receptors and continuators. Courtly poets declare themselves to be in love. Similarly, the author of Flamenca has given his characters the 'true' love which they wanted. The fact that the romance is composed in such a way as to suspend our belief in that 'truth' is another matter. The 'authority' of others is not necessarily perceived as 'true', his own text admits as much (vv. 1761 -6). From the outset the reader is warned that the love of Guilhem and Flamenca will not necessarily be 'authentic' for anyone else except themselves. Ultimately, it seems, it is an open question whether one believes in performance or not.

211

CONCLUSION

Every age reads the troubadours differently. The blind spots of eighties criticism will be unforgivingly exposed in years to come. Some of the gaps in this book can be laid at the door of those blind spots. (I don't say this in an attempt to excuse the failings particular to me.) As love comes back into fashion, my analysis of gender and sexual desire will seem unduly unromantic; my neglect of Christian language, imagery, and inspiration will strike readers of a less sceptical generation as hard to justify. Yet troubadour lyrics continue to be read, and have probably been more influential in European literature than any other body of poetry, since they set the model for first-person love poetry for hundreds of years. Their success lies in the conjunction of passion with formal refinement, commitment with convention, referentiality with irony, concreteness with abstraction, seriousness with humour. Different readers will respond to these contradictions differently, in different poems, and at different times. The point that holds together this poetic world of coincidentia oppositorum is the first-person subject position, and this book has presented my own attempt to weigh that position in this intricate series of balances. The domination of troubadour rhetoric by irony and hyperbole, and by other forms of 'difficult' ornament, means that this poetry never manifests a simple commitment to content of any kind, and that the first person which it articulates is primarily a linguistic construct, marked by generic style. The notion that the subject is subject to factors which overdetermine it has recurred throughout this study. For example, in Chapter 3 I proposed that historical notions of value may have affected the concept of masculinity, and in Chapter 4 that poets and audiences were alike subject to expectations about possible meanings. On the other hand, there is evidence of a relationship between the lyric first person and the characters of other medieval genres, which suggests that medieval readers were prepared to take the first person 212

Conclusion as referring to an ontological entity (a person). Justification for this emerged in Chapter 2 (the subject is construed in conjunction with an allegorized self), in Chapter 3 (the subject has gender and status) and in Chapter 4 (the subject is allied to a body enacting a character). Chapter 5 showed how the lyric subject was appropriated by romance writers as a character for insertion into romance plots. Identification of the first-person subject of lyric texts with their probable historical authors (as practised from the time of the vidas and razos onwards) was supported by arguments in my Introduction and in Chapter 4. Many of the devices within each poem, and their exploitation of the intertext, conduce to the acceptance of the 'autobiographical assumption'. The element of masculine competition (Chapter 3) gives an edge of individualism to this autobiographical subject, as does reference to specific ties between the troubadour and his dedicatee (Chapter 4). The subject, then, can be read not just as a grammatical position, but as articulating a self. The delicacy of the relationship between self and subject was discussed in Chapter 2, where examples showed the sophisticated self-awareness of certain poets (Arnaut Daniel, Lanfranc Cigala). The development of an autonomous, knowledgeable subject (what was thought of as the 'modern' subject until 'postmodernism' came along) is attested by a confident distinction between self and other, subject and object, in certain poems, and by the idea of the subject as arbitrator between ironic alternatives (Chapter 1), between allegorized impulses (Chapter 2), and between alternative interpretations of performance (Chapter 5). But the 'self with which the subject allies itself does not habitually maintain this position of autonomy with any confidence. The relationship between self and other, subject and object, is seen as complex and precarious. This is particularly evident in Chapter 3, where the gender system used by male poets seems designed to preserve masculine superiority, but in fact exposes male anxieties. The subject, or the self, is also perceived as split in various ways. The trope of irony, which dominates lyric writing, presides over hesitations and alternatives. Allegory admits the dispersal and fragmentation of 'self. It can dramatize the failure of desire to find expression, blocked by forces of social regulation which apparently exist within the subject, and divide it against itself. The socializing force of language, and the constraints of interaction with an audience, are also recognized by the tropes of performance. In perceptions such as these, medieval and more recent explorations of the subject find common ground. That this study is partial results not only from when I write, 213

Conclusion or from my writing 'subjectively', but from the complexities of the topic. It would be impossible to take stock of all its aspects. But I have tried to show that by organizing textual effects around the firstperson subject position, the troubadours were also negotiating the complex contradictions implicit in that position, and thus that subjectivity is a central issue in one of Europe's oldest, and most successful, vernacular literatures.

214

NOTES

The following abbreviations are used in the notes: Levy

E. Levy, Provenzalisches Supplement-Worterbuch, 8 vols. (Leipzig, 1894-1924) Raynouard M. Raynouard, Lexique romane, 6 vols. (Paris, 1836-44) TL A. Tobler and E. Lommatzsch, Altfranzb'sisches Worterbuch, 10 vols. (Berlin, 1925- ) Introduction 1. See in particular J. Lacan, Seminaire. Livre II (Paris, 1978). 2. J. Kristeva, Le Texte du roman (The Hague, 1970). 3. L. Irigaray, Speculum de Vautrefemme(Paris, 1974), Cesexequin'en est pas un (Paris, 1977). 4. See for example M. Foucault, L'Ordre du discours (Paris, 1971). 5. For an earlier study of this term, see my 'Rhetoric and Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry', in The Troubadours and the Epic. Essays in Memory of W. Mary Hackett ed. L.M. Paterson and S.B. Gaunt (Warwick, 1987), pp. 102-42. 6. E.g. the following passage from Ernest Hoepffner, Les Troubadours dans leur vie et dans leurs oeuvres (Paris, 1955), p. 55:'L'un des moments les plus douloureux pour Bernard [de Ventadorn], c'est celui de la separation, quand les necessites de sa carriere l'obligent a reprendre apres un sejour heureux le baton du voyageur. II rappelle avec une emotion sincere la scene de ses adieux, quand la dame, incapable de parler, cache son visage dans ses mains: De Vaiga que dels olhsplor .... 7. Bernart de Ventadorn and Raimon de Miraval are singled out for praise because they are sincere (A. Jeanroy, La Poesie lyrique des troubadours, Toulouse and Paris, 1934, II, pp. 138, 156), whereas Giraut de Bornelh is 'affected' (p. 55), Arnaut Daniel indulges in 'bizarreries pueriles' (p. 50), and others are merely 'monotonous'. 8. Robert Guiette, D'une poesie formelle en France au moyen age (Paris, 1972), first printed in the Revue des Sciences Humaines US (1949), 61-8. Guiette influenced most writing on the lyric in the fifties and sixties, by critics including P. Bee, R. Dragonetti, E. Vinaver, and P. Zumthor. 215

Notes to pp. 3-6 9. R. Dragonetti, La Technique poetique des trouveres dans la chanson courtoise (Bruges, 1960). 10. Zumthor's account of the tradition as the sole object of meaning implies the mastery of the 'expert' in the criticism of medieval literature. 11. Discussion of E. Kohler's writings will be found in Chapters 1 and 3. 12. This of necessity schematic account has left to one side the important studies produced in England in the seventies: L.T. Topsfield's Troubadours and Love (Cambridge, 1975) and L.M. Paterson's Troubadours and Eloquence (Oxford, 1975). 13. See for example CM. Morris, The Discovery of the Individual: 1050-1200 (New York, 1973, first published by SPCK in 1972) and C. W. Bynum, 'Did the Twelfth Century Discover the Individual?', Journal of Ecclesiastical History XXXI (1980), 1-17. 14. See P. Zumthor, Parler du Moyen Age (Paris, 1980), pp. 49-72, for a history of the relationship between medieval studies and Romanticism. 15. The status of 'autobiography' in the Middle Ages is discussed by M. Zink, La Subjectivite litteraire au moyen age (Paris, 1985), pp. 17Iff. 16. See E.B. Vitz, 'Type et individu dans 1'autobiographic medievale', Poetique VI (1975), 426-45; G. May, L'Autobiographie (Paris, 1979), pp. 23-4; Zink, Subjectivite pp. \1r3ff. 17. See P. Zumthor, Langue et techniques poetiques a Vepoque romane (Paris, 1963), pp. 131-61; Essai de poetique medievale (Paris, 1972), pp.220-3; and again in Langue, texte, enigme (Paris, 1975), pp. 183-96. Zumthor's idea of register is also presented in 'Style and Expressive Register in Medieval Poetry', in Literary Style: a Symposium ed. S. Chatman (New York, 1971), 263-81. 18. P. Zumthor, 'De la Circularite du chant', Poetique I (1970), 129-40; Essai pp. 189-243. 19. The theoretical stranglehold exercised by Zumthor is well illustrated by the contradictions in S. Thiolier-Mejean's Les Poesies satiriques et morales des troubadours du XIF siecle a la fin du XIIf siecle (Paris, 1978), which is torn between commitment to objectivizing 'registers', and constant encounters with what look like idiosyncratic reactions to particular social, historical or religious experiences; and by the articles collected as Studia Occitanica in memoriam Paul Remy, on which see my review in French Studies XLI (1987), 440-1. In his Parler du Moyen Age Zumthor renounces the quasi-formalist position of the Essai, but retains a negative attitude to subjectivity in medieval texts. 20. See in particular the ground-breaking article of R. Guiette cited in n. 8, and also, though from a formalism determined by Latin poetic practice, E. R. Curtius. For a critique of Curtius, see P. Dronke, Poetic Individuality in the Middle Ages 2nd edn. (London, 1986). 21. Cf. J. Gruber's criticisms of Zumthor and other formalist accounts of the troubadours in Die Dialektik des Trobar (Tubingen, 1983), pp. 2-3 n.6. 216

Notes to pp. 7-9 22. J. H. Marshall, 'Dialogues of the Dead: Two Tensos of Pseudo-Bernart de Ventadorn', in The Troubadours and the Epic pp. 37-58. The 'Bernart' protagonist is identified as fictional primarily because in both tensos the poets address each other as equals whereas Bernart de Ventadorn would have been much older and more famous than his fellow debaters (supposing them to be the historical Peirol and Gaucelm Faidit), and indeed his career may not have overlapped with theirs at all. 23. Except for the expression descaptener - captener las domnas, which also occurs in Bernart de Ventadorn's Can vei la lauzeta mover and in only one other text, according to Appel, Bernart von Ventadorn (Halle, 1915), p. 255; cf. M. Kaehne, Studien zur Dichtung Bernarts von Ventadorn. Ein Beitrag zur Untersuchung der Entstehung und zur Interpretation der hofischen Lyrik des Mittelalters (Munich, 1983), II, pp.297-8. 24. The partimen between Izarn and Rofian in which Jaufre Rudel is discussed also seems to be based on the poet's vida. For text and discussion, see S. Neumeister, Das Spiel mit der hofischen Liebe (Munich, 1969), pp. 7 2 - 4 . On how different twelfth-century troubadours seem to have possessed auctoritas at different periods of the thirteenth century, see E. Schulze-Balsacker, 'La Conception poetique de quelques troubadours tardifs', in Studia Occitanica I, pp. 265-77. Gruber, Dialektik pp. 22ff., discusses the reception of various troubadours in the thirteenth century. See also Jofre de Foixa's Be m'a lone temps menat a guiza d'Aura, incorporating quotations from Arnaut de Maruelh, Perdigon, Folquet de Marselha, Gaucelm Faidit and Pons de Capduelh, discussed in I. Frank, 'La chanson Lasso me de Petrarque et ses predecesseurs', Annales du Midi LXVI (1954), 259-68. The troubadour most commonly mentioned by name after his death is Marcabru; see Jeanroy, Poesie lyrique II, p. 30 and n. 1. 25. Gruber, Dialektik and M.L. Meneghetti, // Pubblico dei trovatori. Ricezione e huso dei testi lirici cortesifino alXIVsecolo (Modena, 1984). 26. He also discerns the 'classic' (Hegelian) dialectical structure of thesis, antithesis, synthesis in individual songs; see e.g. p. 91. 27. See for example N. Pasero, 'Pastora contro cavaliere, Marcabruno contro Guglielmo IX. Fenomeni de intertestualita in L'autrier jost'una sebissa', Cultura Neolatina XLIII (1983), 9-25; S.B. Gaunt, 'Peire d'Alvernhe affronte Jaufre Rudel', in Croisades: realites et fictions ed. D. Buschinger (Amiens, 1988), pp.95-106. 28. Peire Vidal's baiser vole episode is constructed from scattered allusions in his songs III, XXXVII and XL (along with briefer references elsewhere) and worked into a novella by the razo to Song XL; see also E. Hoepffner, Le Troubadour Peire Vidal. Sa vie etson oeuvre (Paris, 1961), pp. 69-71 and 'Le "baiser vole" chez Peire Vidal', in Casopis moderna Filologia. Melanges Krepinski (1946), pp. 140-5. The existence of an underlying narrative subtending the songs of Uc de Sant Circ is discussed by his editors in their Introduction pp. xv-xxxiv; they conclude, pp. xxxiii-iv, 217

Notes to pp. 9-10

29.

30. 31.

32.

'Uc est le seul des troubadours qui ait fait un recueil de poesies se rapportant au meme sujet et que rien n'empeche d'attribuer a la meme epoque, tres restreinte, de sa vie.' Although Raimon de Miraval's songs inspired a number of razos, neither of his recent editors suggests that his songs are therefore to be grouped into narrative cycles. Commenting (Langue, texte, enigme p. 177) on the razo to Bernart de Ventadorn's Can vei la lauzeta mover, Zumthor is astonished that Tinterpretateur propose une lecture autobiographique de la chanson', given that this is 'en complete opposition avec l'esprit du grand chant courtois'. P. Bee, Burlesque et obscenite chez les troubadours. Le contre-texte au Moyen Age (Paris, 1984), pp. 11 Iff., considers this razo a burlesque. For studies of the relation between romance and lyric see Chapter 5. See for example D. Monson, 'Jaufre Rudel et Pamour lointain: les origines d'une legende', Romania CVI (1985), 36-56. On the wilfully fantastical narrativization of Peire VidaPs amours with na Loba, see R. Lejeune, 'Ce qu'il faut croire des Biographies provencales: la Louve de Pennautier', Le Moyen Age XLIX (1939), 233-49. Although found in T, a and V|/, the song is complete only in a; Tlacks stanza VI and v|/ lacks vv. 1-17. The text is Toja's (who follows a for the text but T for the graphy) with the following alterations: V. 3,1 have restored joi for noi, the former being in both MSS. Canello prints foi. V. 7 is corrupt in both MSS: the scribe of a has conflated vv. 6 and 7 into a single line, car ben amz daizom ain b anqars; for v. 7, T has amatz gioi gamm enciers; the solution I include is Perugi's, but it is not entirely satisfactory. Toja follows Canello. Vv. 17-22: the syntax of these vv. is hard to make out; Toja punctuates his text differently from the translation he offers, and Perugi opts for points de suspension after mou in v. 20 to indicate that he sees the clause as incomplete. Canello emends vv. 21-2 heavily: Es'ab deliure nonfor eis / tost m 'aurapereianfaducs, translated by Lavaud 'et si elle n'en sort pas promptement, un fou aura tot en moi son pareil'. V.48 Toja has c'ai encubit, c'as is the reading of vj/. V. 50: I have adopted the word division of \\t. The translation follows Toja on most points. Some discussion of the following is called for: V. 2.1 disagree with Levy III, 14, that v. 3 with the MS reading joi does not make sense; it merely initiates a series of paradoxes of which further examples occur at w. 5, 17-21. V. 7. Toja's text and translation are both improbable. Why cers for cert! If en cert = 'certainly' (Levy I, 249) how can it mean 'incertamente'? V. 16: I agree with Perugi that decs = 'confines' not 'commands'; cf. Arnaut Daniel IX, v. 74. V. 31: Is esmers here cognate with esmerar (= 'pure') or is it a derivative of a form *es-mersus (= 'submerged')? There is a similar problem in 218

Notes to pp.

10-13

Giraut de Bornelh's Er' auziretz (Kolsen XXX) where the expression en amar esmers (v. 18) is translated as 'submerged' by Kolsen: Qu'era tro que s'esperec tenia.l drech per envers, tan er' en amar esmers! (vv. 14-16) For then, until it [my heart] awoke, I used to get the right side and the wrong side muddled up, I was so submerged in love. This interpretation is supported by an analogous water image in Giraut's tenso with Alamana (Kolsen LVII): Et eu que tern d'est' ira que.m confonda, que m'en lauzatz, si.m tern perir, que.m traia plus vas l'onda? (vv. 21-3) And as for me, who am afraid of being destroyed by this distress, how is it that you advise me, if I'm afraid of drowning, to strike out further into the wave?

33.

34. 35.

36.

In XXX v.49, Giraut also refers to his eyes full of tears as los ohls on bat la mars. The reading of XIV, v. 31 in a, enmers, indicates that it at least assumed a meaning 'submerged'. Thus although the meaning 'pure' is not impossible, I incline to the water image. V. 37.1 agree with Perugi that sepecar here means 'miss one's goal', cf. Levy VI, 170 (5), (6). V.45 For encreiser 'to be repugnant' cf. Levy III, 457 (2). Vv.47-8 Ben sai is not the finite verb Toja and Perugi take it for but means 'perhaps', cf. Levy VII, 402 (25); sec is impersonal. Cf. Lavaud's translation: 'Sans doute, si tu patientes, il s'ensuivra ceci ...'. V. 50. The words fermanz and esfer proposed by Toja (following Canello) and Perugi respectively are neither of them plausible; the reading of \\t may well be a lectio facilior, but has the merit of being (a) Occitan and (b) intelligible. I wish to thank J. H. Marshall for help with the text and translation of this song. These lines are also alluded to in Arnaut Daniel XVI, vv. 6 - 7 , and are taken up both by the Monje de Montaudan, in his 'gallery', and by the author of Arnaut's vida; they are later echoed in the words placed in Arnaut's mouth by Dante in the Purgatorio: 'leu sui Arnaut que plor e vau cantan ...' There is also a marked similarity with Raimbaut d'Aurenga's>l/ss/ mou (XVIII); cf. also his Ar vei bru (X). As pointed out in n. 32, these words are probably not cognate, but this does not affect the verbal similarity between the rhymes of X and XIV. Toja's text of XIV, v. 7 gives cers as a form of cert; this would produce a further parallel between the rhyme words of the two texts (cf. X, v. 3), but as indicated in n. 32 I am sceptical about his emendation here. In Perugi's text, the fourth line of each stanza is heptasyllabic because 219

Notes to pp. 13-17 he follows a in preference to T(the only MSS to contain stanza I) on the length of v. 4: chassava la lebra bou (a). This involves him in Procrustean operations on succeeding stanzas. 37. Arnaut may not be the originator of this metaphor; cf. Giraut de Bornelh, Razon e luec (Kolsen XVII): C'aissi s'aploc tot belamen s'amors al cor, que.m brolh' e.m mais ... (vv.61-3) For thus does love for her rain pleasingly into my heart, so that it burgeons and is born. The greater explicitness of Giraut seems to have been condensed by Arnaut. 38. There is another example of this proverb at the conclusion of one of Giraut de Bornelh's crusade songs (Kolsen LXVII): Car totz terns vei c'om aten La ploia, can fort trona. (vv.47-8) However, in Giraut the meaning seems to be the opposite from that found here in Arnaut Daniel. Giraut uses the proverb as a metaphor of the coming of Antichrist in the wake of an upsurge of 'felonious people' (vv. 45 -6); the meaning seems to be 'all the signs are that the storm will break, that the wicked announce the coming of Antichrist just as thunder is followed by a rainstorm'. Unless the whole of the rest of st. V in Arnaut XIV is ironic, Arnaut is talking about progressive improvement: the gentle rain after the threatening thunder. 39. See n. 32 above for the uncertainty about the meaning of esmers. If it should indeed be interpreted as 'pure', then the association with the refining of metal fit into a further cycle of imagery which is discussed next. 40. See for example G.J. Brogyanyi, 'Plot Structure and Motivation in Chretien's Romances', Vox Romanica XXXI (1972), 272-86. 41. This is in contrast with Zumthor's declared policy of not taking imponderables into account, see e.g. Essai pp.64, 192. 1 Indeterminacy of meaning 1. Cf. S.B. Gaunt, Troubadours and Irony (Cambridge, 1989), p. 28: 'There is no absolute truth: there are only questions and uncertainty. Jankelevitch sees this type of irony as an extremely subtle mode of speech: "L'ironie ne sert plus a connaitre, ni a decouvrir l'essentiel sous les belles paroles, elle ne sert qu'a survoler le monde et a mepriser les distinctions concretes." This type of irony can produce distance from a text, an uneasiness about apparent meanings, without actually implying what may stand in their place.' 2. Medieval rhetoricians class hyperbole as a trope, or difficult ornament, 220

Notes to pp. 17-22 and it is in that spirit that I discuss it here. But their definition is narrower than that which I use, for they limit it to expressions containing an implied comparison or metaphor whereas I extend it to any kind of extreme claim. This is because the difference between 'more beautiful than Helena' and 'the most beautiful in the world', though grammatically obvious, seems to me not relevant in this context. 3. Sexual innuendo and obscenity in Marcabru, Irony pp. 51-60; and in Giraut de Bornelh, pp. 153-8; see also S.B. Gaunt Tour une esthetique de l'obscene', in Actes du IF Congres International de rAssociation d'Etudes Occitanes ed. G. Gasca Queirazza (Turin, 1990, forthcoming). M.S. Regan, Love Words. The Self and the Text in Medieval and Renaissance Poetry (Ithaca and London, 1982), p. 116, suggests there may be sexual innuendo in vv.45-8 of Arnaut Daniel XIV, and an obscene reading of his sestina is proposed by C. Jernigan, The Song of Nail and Uncle: Arnaut Daniel's Sestina Lo ferm voter q'el cor m'intra\ Studies in Philology LXXI (1974), 127-51. 4. For example, through use of the 'false praise' topos. See Irony pp. 9-15, and the commentaries on Marcabru's Emperaire, per vostre prez, pp.48-51 and Peire d'Alvernha's Belh myes, pp. 110-14. 5. See for example Gaunt's attack on L. Milone's reading of Raimbaut d'Aurenga's Lone temps ai estat cubertz, Irony pp. 138-43. 6. See also the persuasive commentary on Bernart Marti's A mar dei, Irony pp. 80-5. 7. In the abundant literature on this poem it is only the male protagonist whose role is commonly read as ironic: see A. G. Hatcher, 'Marcabru's A la fon tana del vergier\ in Modern Language Notes LXXIX (1964), 284-95; F. Pirot, 'A la fontana del vergier\ in Melanges (...) Imbs (Strasbourg, 1973), pp. 621-42. W. Pagani, 'Per un'interpretazione di A la fontana del vergier\ Studi Mediolatini e Volgari XX (1972), 169-174 does, however, propose reading the whole work as 'una parodia satirica' - though without offering a detailed literary analysis. 8. Elsewhere in Marcabru, blanc is used to connote purity (e.g. XXIV vv. 4-6). Cf. D. W. Robertson Jr, 'The Doctrine of Charity in Medieval Gardens: A Topical Approach through Symbolism and Allegory', Speculum XXVI (1951), 24-49, pp. 36ff., for 'ironic' gardens in twelfthcentury literature. 9. This passage is quoted by Peter Dronke, 'Medieval Rhetoric', in The Medieval Poet and his World (Rome, 1984), 7-38, p. 28; first published in Literature and Western Civilization II, ed. D. Daiches and A. Thorlby (London, 1973), pp.315-45. I have slightly altered his translation. 10. Arnaut's own taste for hyperbole can be judged from his song XV, vv. 15-18:

221

Notes to pp. 22-6 Si Dieus volgues sa gran beutat devire, granren pogra d'autras dompnas honrar; tant cum mars clau ni terra, is pot estendre, es lo sieus pretz de totz caps e primiers. If God were willing to divide up her great beauty, he would be able to do honour to vast numbers of other ladies; for her merit is the chief and foremost of all, as far as the earth extends and is enclosed by the sea.

Even so, the world is so false that Arnaut judges lying and prevarication to be more prudent than telling the truth; see Song XVI, vv.40-2. 11. Geoffrey of Vinsauf is nonetheless concerned lest hyperbole appear excessive: see the Poetric Nova, ed. E. Faral, Les Artspoetiques du XIF et du Xlir siecle (Paris, 1924), vv. 1013-21. 12. The stanza order in the MSS is as follows (the numbers represent the position of stanzas in Appel): A IK DRN

Ma O

C V

1 IV VI ][ IV VI 1 IV VI ][ IV VI [ VII III [ VI II

V V V VII V IV

II II VII III II III

III II V IV VII

III II VIII VI VIII V

Cf. Kaehne, Bernart von Ventadorn II, p. 214. 13. S. G. Nichols, Jr et al., The Songs ofBernart de Ventadorn (Chapel Hill, 1962). Lazar and Nicholls do not, in fact, offer justification of their procedure but rely on Appel's authority. Appel's choice is defended in his edition (no. XXXIX) and in a review of Crescini, Zeitschrift fiir romanische Philologie XX (1896), 387-8. His principal reason is the alleged inconvenance of using apostrophe in the middle of the song (viz. in the stanza he places sixth but which most MSS place third), and then returning to it only later, in the stanza he places at VII. 14. V. Crescini, 'Delia canzone di Bernart de Ventadorn Can I'erbafrescha...'; 'Per il testo d'una canzoni di Bernart de Ventadorn Can I'erbafrescha...', both in Romanica Fragmenta, Scritti scelti dalVautore (Turin, 1932), pp.408-30 and 431-63. 15. Of early editors, only Karl Vossler reconstructs the stanza order with regard solely to the MS tradition, arriving at the order IIV VI V II III VII VIII (again, these numbers are those of Appel); see Der Minnesang des Bern hard von Ventadorn (Munich, 1918), pp. 82-3. This order is followed by Kaehne. 16. Crescini, 'Deliacanzone', pp.418-19. Kaehne, Bernart von Ventadorn II, p. 217, also founds his commentary on the interplay between 'reality' and 'dreams and wishes'. 17. These songs are called chansons de change by Jeanroy, Poesie lyrique I, p. 122 n. 1; see also C. Leube-Fey, Bild undFunktion der dompna in derLyrikder Trobadors. Studia Romanica 21 (Heidelberg, 1971), p. 74 222

Notes to pp. 26-32 for more examples. A particularly interesting early instance of the genre is by Marcabru's contemporary Bernart Marti (Song IV). 18. On Marcabru's parodic use of nature openings, see Gaunt, Irony pp. 65-72. 19. The metrical structures of the two songs are as follows: Marcabru: a7' b7' a7' b7' c7' c7' d7', coblas singulars, rhymes a = -atge, b = -ada, c = -ura, d = -iza. Bernart de Ventadorn: a8 b7' a8 b7' b7' a8 a8 b7', coblas doblas, rhymes -utz, -atge (I, II); -or, -enda (III, IV); -ar, -anha (V, VI, and tornados). Marcabru's rim*esparsa is in turn an allusion to Jaufre Rudel, who uses it in all his songs except Non sap chantar. It may be the case that there is intertextual play of some kind between Jaufre Rudel's Lanquan lijorn, Marcabru's Lanquan fuelhon li boscatge, Gausmar's Lanquan lo temps renovelha and Bernart Marti's Lancan lo douz temps s 'esclaire (Song IX). See Gruber, Dialektik pp. 148-9; Meneghetti, Pubblico pp. 108-13; and the notes to his edition of Bernart Marti's song by F. Beggiato. 20. Text from Lazar. Lauzar (v. 36) is the isolated reading of V against the fifteen other MSS which have amar. Lazar's decision is supported by Kaehne, Bernart von Ventadorn II, p. 97. The ambiguous morphology of v. 14 is paralleled by the related Song IX: No sai domna, volgues o no volgues, si.m volia, c'amar no la pogues. (vv.26-7)

21. 22. 23. 24.

where it is impossible to decide between 'I don't know of a lady who, whether she wanted to or not, if I fancied, I could not love her', and '... whether I wanted to or not, if she wanted me, I ...'. The prima facie difference between the two is in fact diminished if one takes both as examples of unreasonable behaviour; cf. the strictures of Lanfranc Cigala's saber in his Entre mon cor emee mon saber, discussed in Chapter 2. In v.47 Lazar prints volham. I owe a debt here to Jill Mann, 'Satiric Subject and Satiric Object in Goliardic Literature', Mittellateinsiches Jahrbuch XV (1980), 63-86, though as her title indicates her concern is with satire rather than parody. Cf. Peire Vidal IX, Estat ai gran sazo. Cf. Raimon de Miraval VIII and XIV; a later imitator is Uc de Sant-Circ in his songs XIII and XXV. The text is Topsfield's, but cf. also Switten p. 144 (song I). Both edit from the same base MS (D), out of a choice of twenty-two whole or partial copies. The transmission of the song comprises many variations, especially in the tornados, and Topsfield's edition is not wholly clear as to what version is to be found in which MS. On p. 285 he states that G contains VIII, IX and VII, but on p. 286 that only QUa1 contain IX, and on p. 291 that it is only in GUa1. The following table is constructed from 223

Notes to pp. 32-8 his account, assuming the indication on p. 286 to contain a misprint Q forG: ABCDELN

a1

G IK U MV O

Q

H If FJ& R

][ II III [

II III 1 II III [ II III ] II III ] II III ] II III 1 II III I II III*

[

II IV

IV V IV V IV V IV V IV V IV V IV V IV V IV V IV V IV V III

VI VI VI VI VI VI VI VI

VII VIII VII VIII VIII IX VII VIII VIII* VII VIII VII* VIII VII VIII VII

VI

VII

IX VII IX -

U* w.62-4 only; O* vv.55-7 only; H* vv. 19-23 only. 25. Topsfield gives the variants to v. 56 as follows: Qal (GaJ); q. mals ans sian auut (Q; q. malanans siauut (R); maiab si auut (IK); en noz augut (U)\ enant (Qa1). 26. Arnaut de Maruelh XII, v.22: 'Domna, nos trei, vos et ieu e Amors'. 27. On signals to irony, cf. Gaunt, Irony pp.60-5. 28. The text is cited from Toja. The more recent edition by Perugi has an idiosyncratic stanza order, the implications of which are discussed in Chapter 2. I shall occasionally incorporate emendations from Perugi; see notes below. 29. On the use of legal conceptions and vocabulary by the troubadours see P. Ourliac, Troubadours etjuristes', Cahiers de Civilisation Medievale VIII (1965), 159-77, and R. Lejeune, 'Formules feodales et style amoureux chez Guillaume IX d'Aquitaine', in Atti del VII Congresso Intemazionale diStudiRomanzi (Florence, 1956), pp.227-48, reprinted inLitteratureet Societe OccitanesauMoyen Age (Liege, 1980), 103-20.

Henceforth all papers reprinted in this volume will be referred to from that source only. 30. This emendation of MSS clam is likewise made by Perugi. 31. Toja's translation effaces the legal flavour of the vocabulary: 'schiva e lascia ogni domanda d'amore, chiunque sia chi qua e la t'inviti'; Perugi offers 'Bene, allora comincia a fare al meno delle richieste e a disperderle qua e la, chiunque sia che ti ci spinga: perche se uno incorre de se nella follia e chiaro che il suo diritto a pretendere viene meno'. For the legal character of this passage, see Levy VI, 332 s.v. plag (1), especially the example from Bertran d'Alamanon; VII, 807 s.v. somonre, especially the examples from historical texts. For esquivar as a synonym of desmandar, see ibid. Ill, 287, s.v. esquivar (3). 32. The association of aponher with horsemanship is pointed out by Perugi in his note to this v. (= 39 in his edn); Toja opts for the weaker 224

Notes to pp. 38-41 33.

34. 35.

36.

37.

'raggiungia'. For the military connotation of ganda, cf. the cognate verb gandir in OF, in TL IV, 8 5 - 6 . See TL III, 1354.41ff. and 1356.6ff. It is possible that the cola of v. 25 means 'slip'; cf. Raynouard II, 437; in OF, it has this sense only when reflexive, see TL II, 562.28ff. I have altered Toja's text of v. 28, where he emends mon to con although the latter reading is only found in T. The translation of colar is problematic. Perugi accepts Levy's suggestion (I, 279, s.v. colar (3) of 'ablassen', rendering 'e non molla'. This is certainly preferable to Toja's 'e non si parte da lei'. The possibility that it might mean 'slip' is raised in note 33 above. It may be that there is a metaphor of fluidity underlying these difficult stanzas, and that cola has here the meaning 'hoist sail' (Levy, loc. cit., s.v. colar (2)); see below. Nichols goes further (too far?) along this road in maintaining that Arnaut is drawing on observation of the various properties of the plants concerned and pairing them with qualities of his love; see S. G. Nichols, Jr, 'Towards an Aesthetic of the Provencal Canso\ in The Disciplines of Criticism ed. P. Demetz et al. (New Haven and London, 1968), 349-74, p. 369. Arnaut's reference to pons e planchas is particularly reminiscent of Lancelot's passage over the sword bridge into the land of Gorre; although wounded, he suffers gladly in the service of the queen: A la grant dolor c'on li fist s'an passe outre et a grant destrece; mains e genolz et piez se blece, mes tot le rasoage et sainne Amors qui le conduist et mainne, si li estoit a sofrir dolz. (ed. M. Roques vv. 3110-15) He crosses [the bridge] in the great pain inflicted on him, and with great distress; he wounds his hands and knees and feet, but Love who leads him and gives him safe conduct altogether comforts and heals him, so that suffering was pleasing to him.

The religiosity of Arnaut Daniel's language is also more in harmony with Lancelot than with any other of Chretien's heroes; see Le Chevalier de la Charrete w . 4 6 5 2 - 3 , 4716ff. 38. E. Kohler, 'Observations historiques et sociologiques sur la poesie des troubadours', Cahiers de Civilisation Medievale VII (1964), 27-51. 39. Kohler works similar wizardry on Jaufre Rudel's famous Lanquan lijorn son lone en mai in 'Amor de lonh, oder der ' 'Prinz" ohne Burg' in Orb is Mediaevalis: Melanges... Bezzola (Bern, 1978), 219-34. One might think, the argument runs, that this is a love song in which the troubadour gives poignancy to his plight by setting the object of his passion in a distant land, but this fails to take into account the fact that Jaufre lost control of his fief for a period. Therefore the object of Jaufre's passion in some sense is the distant land - the fief to which he wishes to return. 225

Notes to pp. 41-5

40. 41.

42. 43.

44. 45.

46.

47.

In voicing this aspiration, Jaufre would be the spokesman of the whole insecure social group of the lesser nobility. M. Zink, La Pastourelle. Poesie et folklore au moyen age (Paris, 1972), p. 102: 'La doctrine courtoise, que Ton presente toujours comme une victoire de la femme, consacre en realite le triomphe du "vassal".' Epic matter not infrequently surfaces in the form of explicit comparisons; a good example is Raimbaut de Vaqueiras V, w. 11-13, where the lover/hero compares himself to Roland who was treacherously wounded by Ferragut just as Raimbaut has been by his domna. Song X v. 18, leis on no.m val escrima. Although Toja glosses escrima as 'defense', the literal meaning is 'fencing, sword-play'. Speech, silence, and the difficulty of finding a diction adequate to express the quality of feeling are abiding themes in Arnaut Daniel; cf. also XV, vv. 6-7,11; VII, vv. 11 -16, and the discussion of the 'ineffability topos* in Chapter 4. His concern with poetic language is analysed by Paterson, Troubadours and Eloquence Chapter 5; see also my study 'La Notion de personnalite chez les troubadours: encore la question de la sincerite', in Mittelalterbilder aus neuer Perspektive. Wurzburger Kolloquium 1985 ed. E.P. Rune and R. Behrens, 166-181, pp. 177-9, for a close study of language in Song IX. Quoted from T.B. W. Reid's edition (Manchester, 1942). Tzvetan Todorov, 'On Linguistic Symbolism', in New Literary History VI (1974-5), 111-34, quotes from Thomas Aquinas an interesting further caveat on recognizing where we may have to do with figurative language: 'When Scripture speaks of the arm of God, the literal sense is not that he has a physical limb, but that he has what it signifies, namely the power of doing and making' (p. 115). There is a persuasive account of Geoffrey of Vinsauf's view of imagery in Dronke, 'Medieval Rhetoric' (see n.9 above). M. de Riquer, Los Trovadores. Historia literaria y textos (Barcelona, 1975). De Riquer mentions that the nostalgia for Provence is imbued with amorous, rather than 'patriotic', feeling, but this is on the basis of literaryhistorical information extraneous to the song: Peire Vidal came not from Provence but from Toulouse, so he must admire Provence for sentimental reasons! Tilde Sankovitch offers a reading of this song in 'Structure and Unity in the Poems of Peire Vidal', Neophilologus LXII (1978), 374-85, in which she takes the progression from Provence to love as forming its basic structure. There is a remarkable syncretism of metaphor and synecdoche in Raimbaut d'Aurenga's Cars, douz (edited and discussed by Paterson in Troubadours and Eloquence pp. 147 - 51), in the image of the female wren (bederesca), both as metaphor for the woman poet Raimbaut is addressing, and as a pun on her place of origin (Beziers, from which the Occitan adjective is Bederres); that is, if Aimo Sakari is correct about the identification of Azalais de Porcairagues with Raimbaut's Joglar. 226

Notes to pp. 45-50

48. 49.

50.

51.

See: 'Azalais de Porcairagues, le Joglar de Raimbaut d'Aurenga', Neuphilologische Mitteilungen L (1949), 23-43, 56-87, 174-198, pp. 69-71. See R. Dragonetti, 'Aizi et aizimen chez les plus anciens troubadours', in Melanges ... M. Delbouille (Gembloux, 1964) II, pp. 127-53. Text, translation and commentary from my article 'Derivation, Derived Rhyme and the Trobairitz\ in The Voice of the Trobairitz. Perspectives on the Women Troubadours, ed. W.D. Paden Jr (Syracuse, 1989), 157-82, on which the comments here are based. For an interpretation along these lines of the courtly lyric in general, see F. Goldin, The Mirror of Narcissus in the Courtly Love Lyric (Ithaca and New York, 1967). Commenting (p. 75) on Guiraut de Calanso's Los grieus dezirs, he writes: 'here are the crucial themes celebrated in every courtly song: the supreme beauty of the lady as a visible expression of ethical ideals; the universal esteem she enjoys as a consequence; the implicit vindication of the poet's complete submission to her will. She is the image of every courtly virtue. She is what he wants to become what he can never be, but what he can recognize and aspire to.' Cf. also Goldin's commentary on Peire Bremon Ricas Novas, Us covinens gentils cors, pp. 104-5. There are many possibilities here which have not been mentioned: e.g. psycho-analytic metaphors of text as self, as discerned by M.S. Regan in Arnaut Daniel, in Love Words, pp.58-62, 83-116 and passim. Although my commentaries on Arnaut Daniel and Peire Vidal both ended with analysis of the 'figurative' as figuring the text's own composition, there was no intention to privilege this reading over others. Indeed, another weakness I discern in Zumthor's notion of intertextuality (see Introduction) is his unjustified privileging of a particular level of what I have called 'metaphorical depth' (see my 'Rhetoric and Subjectivity'). Zumthor's account of 'la circularite du chant' leads him to identify chanter as the superordinate term among the verbs characteristically carrying the first person in the lyric, principally aimer and chanter (Essai pp. 205-18); chanter 'includes' aimer in what he classes as catachresis (Essai p. 217). Favouring catachresis and the elimination of the subject (on Zumthor's reading) is only one response to the problem of metaphorical depth, to which Kohler's favouring of synecdoche and the collective subject is another. 2 Allegory M. R. Jung, Etudes sur lepoeme allegorique en France au Moyen Age (Bern, 1971), p. 122, mentions a fourth category of Classical Latin-derived allegory figuring Amors as a male deity. I do not examine any texts of this type in this chapter (but see Chapter 5 on the Roman de la Rose). Nor do I propose to defend the frontiers of personification as distinct 227

Notes to pp. 50-2 from the deployment of abstractum agens, which forms an important part of discussions by Jung, S. Heinemann, Das Abstraktum in derfranzosische Literatursprache des Mittelalters (Bern, 1963) and R. Glasser, * Abstractum agens und Allegorie im alteren Franzosischen', Zeitschrift fiir romanischePhilologie LXIX (1953), 43-122. The small scale of lyric poetry reduces the importance of this distinction; I use 'personification' fairly loosely to designate the collocation of non-human nouns with verbs or other complements implying human agency or characteristics. 2. For example by Jeanroy, Poesie lyrique II, pp. 116-23; see the beginning of H. R. Jauss, 'La Transformation de la forme allegorique entre 1180 et 1240: d'Alain de Lille a Guillaume de Lords', in L'Humanisme medieval dans les litteratures romanes du xiie au xiv6 siecle, ed. A Fourrier (Paris 1964), pp. 107-144, for the history of the depreciation of allegory in comparison with symbolism. 3. See J.P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus: series latina (Paris, 1854-81) XL, p. 1091; for discussion, see H. Walther, Das Streitgedicht in der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters (Munich, 1920) pp. 110-26. 4. See R. Tuve, Allegorical Imagery (Princeton, 1966), Chapter II (pp. 57ff.) and Appendix (pp.441ff.). 5. Jauss, 'La Transformation', pp. 114-18; see also Brian Stock, The Implications ofLiteracy. Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, 1983), pp. 321 - 2 , for a possible relationship between Alain of Lille's personification allegory and discussion surrounding the Eucharist. David Hult, Self-fulfilling Prophecies. Readership and Authority in the First 'Roman de la Rose* (Cambridge, 1986), p. 190, questions whether Guillaume de Lorris used the allegorical technique in this way, and distances himself from Jauss's observations without contesting their applicability to other, more clerically minded texts. 6. D. Scheludko, 'Klagen iiber den Verfall der Welt bei den Trobadors. Allegorische Darstellungen des Kampfes der Tugenden und der Laster', NeuphilologischeMitteilungen XLIV (1943), 22-45; see also R. Cornelius, The Figurative Castle. A Study in the Medieval Allegory of the Edifice with Especial Reference to Religious Writings (Bryn Mawr, 1930) pp. 20-36. 7. Jung, Etudes p. 138 comments in similar terms on the 'objectivity' of Guiraut de Calanson's Celeis cui am (VII). 8. Guilhem de Sant Leidier, writing only shortly after Marcabru, cleverly devises a fictional dialogue (IX) in which the interlocutor tells of a recent dream in 'objective' narrative, while Guilhem himself takes on the 'subjective' role of expositor. 9. In particular, Charles Muscatine, 'The Emergence of a Psychological Allegory in Old French Romance', Publications of the Modern Languages Association of America LXVIII (1953), 1160-82; Jauss, 'La Transformation'; Hult, Self-fulfilling Prophecies, passim. 228

Notes to pp. 52-9 10. Jung's interest in the lyric is essentially taxonomic. His principal argumentative focus is a rehearsal of that of Glasser and Heinemann: the question of the relation between allegory as a deliberate and elaborated rhetorical device, and the grammatical 'licence' of using abstract nouns as subjects of verbs governing human complements (cf. note 1 above). By far the most interesting study of allegory in relation to troubadour subjectivity is S. G. Nichols, Jr, The Promise of Performance: Discourse and Desire in the Early Troubadour Lyric', in The Dialectic of Discovery. Essays on the Teaching and Interpretation of Literature presented to Lawrence E. Harvey ed. J.D. Lyons and N. J. Vickers (Lexington, Kentucky, 1984), pp. 93-108. 11. Cf. L. Griffiths, Personification in Piers Plowman (Woodbridge, 1985), pp. 4 1 - 6 . 12. See my 'Rhetoric and Subjectivity'. 13. This text is Toja's apart from this last line, where Toja prints c'a bon /?, following MS a; car is in E. Toja's text is discussed below. 14. Toja's text. It is possible that estug means 'store', 'reservoir'; Toja translates 'I have made of you a refuge for myself; Perugi renders it 'I have reserved/preserved you'; on the problems of estug, see Toja's n. to v. 15. 15. The editor has, however, emended without support from the MSS (I^KyO1) at this point. Their reading of v. 19 is defor a guerrer dinz; see Branciforti's note to this v. 16. See Marcabru's contrast between fruitful and sterile gardens in III, AI departir, discussed by Topsfield, Troubadours and Love pp. 75-6; the collocation florir/granar occurs elsewhere in his corpus, in XXXII, vv. 66-7; XXXIV, v. 9; XLI, v. 30. See also Robertson, 'The Doctrine of Charity'. 17. Cf. the fountain in the first part of the Roman de la Rose and the commentary on it in the second part by Jean de Meung. There is a striking image of love as simultanesouly a roaring torrent and a deep pool in the poet's heart in Arnaut Daniel XV, 2 6 - 8 , discussed in Chapter 4. 18. This distinction between the abstract-moral and the individualpsychological can be illustrated by comparing Lanfranc Cigala's Entre mon cor emee mon saber (X) with Garin lo Brun's Nueyt e iorn suy en pessamen (ed. C. Appel in Revue des Langues Romanes XXXIII, 1889, pp. 405-9); the former is worked into an individual narrative in which the 'I' ends up assimilating the positions adopted by Heart and Sense; the latter is a static confrontation between Moderation and Recklessness which is unrelated to any specific event, and in which the two 'characters' remain locked in rigid opposition. The Lanfranc Cigala song involves personified faculties rather than abstractions, and is discussed in the next section. 19. See also v.3443 where Bel Acuel is reproached with being dangerous. 20. See also Arnaut de Maruelh's song XXIII, stanza I, which elaborates the contradictory impulses inspired by Love and by the domna. 229

Notes to pp. 62-9 21. Cf. Muscatine's observation, 'Psychological Allegory* p. 1162, that in the Rose, psychological events are formulated in a way which implies the existence of general psychological principles. 22. Note that the semi-pun cors 'heart', cors 'body' is here used characteristically to underline the subject/object distinction: the poet is all heart, his love object a body. (Not that there cannot be ambiguity surrounding the word cors as applied to the troubadour; see W. D. Paden, Jr,' Utrum copularentur: of cors\ UEsprit Createur XIX (1979), 70-83.) 23. It is curious that in this highly successful song, with 23 MSS attestations, the next following v. is subject to considerable corruption: as though scribes were disconcerted by Peire's eccentricity in thus identifying with some of his faculties. 24. Cf. M. S. Regan, Love Words p. 19: 'I call the literary text an equivalent self in that both self and text are ongoing active constructions near a crucial enigmatic "core" that provokes words but does not finally yield to them.' 25. There is considerable disagreement about stanza order among the fifteen MSS of this song, which Toja tabulates as follows (the stanza numbers are, of course, those in his own edition, which therefore approximates to that found in CTV): ABDELN IKN2 Uc CTV R

][ ] ] ]

IV IV II

I

VI

IV

V II V IV IV

III V III V V

II VI VI III III

VI III II VI II

VII VII VII VII

Toja claims that his order alone is 'logical'; Perugi, however, innovates with: the different 'logic' represented by I VIII V III IV VII. 26. Cf. Philippe Menard, 'Le coeur dans les poesies de Bernard de Ventadour', in Actes du Ve Congres International de Langue et Litterature d'Oc et dfEtudes Franco-Provencales, Nice, 1967 ed. G. Moignet and R. Lassalle (Nice, 1974), pp. 182-95. 27. The songs in question are Raimbaut d'Aurenga IV, VI, VIII, XVI, XVII, XIX; Giraut de Bornelh II, V, XXI; Peire Rogier IV, V, VI, VII; Gaucelm Faidit XX, XXI, XXXII. Several later poets imitate this technique: see the list proposed by C. Appel, DasLeben und die Lieder des Trobadors Peire Rogier (Berlin, 1882), pp. 13-16. There is some uncertainty about the dates of Gaucelm Faidit's career. Mouzat remains faithful to his earlier dating in 'De Ventadorn a Barjols', Melanges... J. Boutiere (Liege, 1971) I, pp. 423-34, where he reaffirms the existence of associations between Raimbaut d'Aurenga, Giraut de Bornelh, and Gaucelm; but Gruber, Dialektik p. 122 fn. 33, proposes 1185-1220, in which case Gaucelm would no longer be a contemporary of Raimbaut. Gruber defends this view at greater length in Laura und das Trobar Car. Romanistik in Geschichte und Gegenwart 3 (Hamburg, 1976), pp.46ff. On the use of 230

Notes to pp. 69-72

28.

29.

30. 31.

32.

dialogue in Giraut de Bornelh, see J. A. Storme, 'Suggested Dialogue in the Poetry of Giraut de Bornelh. The Conversations of the Heart', Neophilologus LXVIII (1984), 340-54. Gaunt proposes (Irony p. 165) that Giraut de Bornelh's Ailas, com mor was intended to be performed by two singers representing Raimbaut d'Aurenga and Giraut himself. In his edition, Nicholson has the 'poet' speak the whole of stanza I; Appel, Peire Rogier, introduces the 'interlocutor' at v.4. See further discussion by H. Suchier in his review of Appel in Gottingenische gelehrte Anzeigen (1883), pp. 1339-44, and L. Cocito, 'Sul canzoniere di Peire Rogier', in Romania: scritti offertiaF. Piccolo nelsuo LXX compleanno (Naples, 1962), pp.217-39. MS R has found a way round this difficulty by altering the mas of v. 8 to pus so that v v . 4 - 9 form a coherent single intervention. The dialogue in several other songs can be seen as principally a device of exposition: e.g. Raimbaut d'Aurenga XVI, Gaucelm Faidit XXXII. This catechistic technique is reminiscent of, and perhaps influenced by, the Elucidarium. I acknowledge a great deal of help with this poem from John Marshall. The text is Mouzat's, with the following alterations: V. V. V. V. V. V. V. V.

17 causic (MS), Mouzat causisc 32 giausent (MS), Mouzat giautentc. 40 consider (MS), Mouzat considers. 51 se.l dit (MS), Mouzat se.l ditc. 56jen, Mouzat len (MS). 59 sofre.n clau> Mouzat sofren clau 63 vers, Mouzat ver (MS). 94 traire, Mouzat tremer, MS treimi.

Mouzat's Apparatus shows confusion over final -s (MS -c) as the reason for virtually every emendation. This has been borne in mind in making most of these alterations. My translation differs substantially from Mouzat's: V. 5 'sans effort'. Vv. 2 3 - 4 'm'en savent gre'. V. 27 Mouzat takes merce as the subject of mante. Vv. 29-31 'que je sais maintenant etre patient, c'est ainsi que je suis heureux en amour, et que je pense toujours a ma jouissance': Mouzat here eliminates the paradox of simultaneous consirar and gauzir which is such a striking feature of these lines. Vv. 35 - 4 0 'Et je le proclame souvent, car au soir clair et suave ou je fus comble je me prends a penser avec amour ...' Again these lines are founded on a paradox which Mouzat suppresses. Vv. 51 'si ces paroles sont follement utilisees'. Vv. 52-7 'Comme elle m'y a autorise, elle entend que j'aie loisir de 231

Notes to pp. 72-5 dire peu a peu les bienfaits qu'elle m'a donnes.' But by poder I understand not permission but capacity: the poet is in a position to speak of her favours because he has to some degree enjoyed them (v. 57). Song XIX, also found only in T, and with obvious similarities of versification and vocabulary to this one, contains in stanza IV an account of watching his lady going to bed which may be an amplification of the allusion in v. 57. Leser combines the meanings of 'permission' and 'pleasure' (Levy IV, 390, s.v. lezer, (2) and (4)). The poet thinks, to start with, that he has both subject matter and a licence to divulge it; but in v. 58 he changes his mind about the second. Marshall suggests punctuating the end of v. 51 with a semi-colon and continuing v. 52 c'om gia.m det, 'for I was given the power [i.e. by public or patrons?], I mean, rather, that I had the opportunity ...'. This does not seem to fit the dialogue structure at this point, since the voice in v. 50 is pro-composition, the voice in v. 51 is prosilence, and the voice in v. 52ff. apparently pro-composition again. V. 63 'Tu peux fort bien etablir la verite.' If asire here meant 'establish' and ver 'truth' then the latter would be preceded by a definite article. I think ver is the scribe's representation of vers; for asire with the literary meaning 'compose [poetry]'; see Levy I, 90, especially the example from Appel's Provenzalische inedita. Neither Levy s.v. asire nor Raynouard V, 219 (9) s.v. assezer has anything like the construction asire ver in the sense perceived by Mouzat. The meaning I propose forms an obvious parallel with v. 49, and leads on to the concluding vv. of the stanza where the poet convinces himself that he must die either from not composing or because his compositions cause offence. Vv. 64-8 'Veut-elle me tuer? C'est ainsi que me secourt celleque je sers? et je mourrai, si je tais sa louange, ou si les paroles ne lui plaisent pas!' Voll in v. 64 = volh. V. 77 Marshall suggests punctuating e.ssap, 'and she for her part knows'. Vv. 84-5 Mouzat's 'car, a me repeter, j'ai peur qu'elle ne me tienne pour menteur' makes little sense. There is only one example in Levy VIII, 302 (7), of tornar in the sense of 'repeat' (from the Leys), and as it clearly relies on the verb's basic meaning 'return to', it does not offer a plausible analogue for this passage. For the substantival use of tornar exemplified here, Levy (30) gives only 'return', which I adopt. By mentidor is surely meant not someone who has spoken a falsehood, but someone who has committed a breach of trust, i.e. by revealing what he should have kept silent; see Levy V, 205, s.v. mentir, (2) and (3). The same meaning holds for v.87, where Mouzat again has '[si je] mens'. V. 91 pensamentc, 'soucis'. 33. D'un dote bell plaser is found only in MS T. 34. This sister song is likewise found only in T. It celebrates Amors as Gaucelm's only inspiration, without which his trobars, / q'ies fins e clars, / nonfora cars / ni agra gran valensa (vv. 13-16); the collocation clars, cars appears again in its tornada. 232

Notes to pp. 76-86 35. As mentioned in n. 32, stanza IV of D'un amor on s'es asis alludes to an evening when Gaucelm was permitted to watch his lady going to bed. It may be that vv. 37-40 of D'un dote bellplaser elliptically express satisfaction at this past favour and the hope that it may be repeated. There is a remarkably similar passage in Raimbaut d'Aurenga XXII, vv.48, 63-6. 36. Other examples of intra-subjective debate are: all the Raimbaut d'Aurenga dialogue songs, the remaining dialogue songs by Gaucelm Faidit, Peire Rogier VII (discussed above) and Giraut de Bornelh XXI. 37. Gui d'Ussel, be.m pesa de vos, XV in Audiau, Les Poesies des quatre troubadours d'Ussel. 38. In my view it is, however, most unlikely that Kolsen and others are right in the suggestion that the second participant is Raimbaut d'Aurenga; see Gaunt, Irony p. 164 and n. for references. In the tenso which exists between these two poets, each addresses the other as vos. 39. Elias Cairel XIV ironizes this convention by using dialogue to dramatize not only the composition of the song, but also its performance to his lady! 40. According to Jung, Etudes p. 125, the troubadour who initiated this tradition of addressing Amors was Bernart de Ventadorn. See also Raimbaut d'Aurenga XIX, Arnaut Daniel XVI (discussed above) and the famous tenso with love by Peirol (XXXI). 3 Gender and status 1. M. Bogin, The Women Troubadours (New York and London, 1976). 2. See A. Rieger, 'Ins e. I cor port, dona, vostrafaisso. Image et imaginaire de la femme a travers l'enluminure dans les chansonniers des troubadours', Cahiers de Civilisation Medievale XXVIII (1985), 385-415, pp. 388-9. 3. For example E. J. Burns, The Man behind the Lady in Troubadour Lyric', Romance Notes XXV (1985), 254-70: The [modern] scholarly controversy surrounding fin*amors ... is conditioned by the same patriarchal myth of womanhood that was earlier embraced by medieval poets, theologians, and historians alike' (p. 258). The kind of criticism she is combatting is illustrated by C. Leube-Fey, Bild undFunktion, who begins her study by uncritically quoting Vossler's claim that the courtly relationship involves a reversal of the natural relationship between the sexes ('umgekehrten Naturverhaltnis der Geschlechter', p. 26). 4. The Donatzproensals of Uc Faidit, ed. J. H. Marshall (London, New York, and Toronto, 1969) distinguishes five genders: 'Masculis es aquel que aperte a las masclas causas solamen, si cum: bos, mals,fals. Feminis es aquel que perte a las causas feminils solamen, si cum: bona, bela, mala e falsa. Neutris es aquel que no perte a l'un ni a l'altre, si cum: gauc e bes.9 At this point the grammarian recognizes that neuter does not 233

Notes to p. 86 differ from the masculine in the vernacular. He continues: 'Comun sun aquelh que perten[en] al mascle et al feme ensems, si cum sun li particip que fenissen in -ans vel in -ens.9 He then admits that these inflect differently in the plural according to whether they agree with a masculine or feminine noun. The fifth gender is the universal one: 'omnis es aquel que perte al made et al feme et al neutri ensems, qu'eu pose dire: aquest cavaliers esplasens, aquesta dona esplacens, aquest bes m 'esplaisens' (pp. 88-90). The Razos de trobar (B and H texts, pp. 8-11) begins by distinguishing three genders, masculine, feminine, and common, contrasting this usage with the five genders of grammatica (Latin). This teaching is abridged and versified in the Doctrina d'acort, vv. 105-64. The Regies de trobar (H text) coins the term linatge to describe gender, indicating a strong bias in favour of a masculine-feminine opposition, but it too describes a common gender of adjectives (p. 58). References to all three texts are from J. H. Marshall, The Razos de trobar ofRaimon Vidal and Associated Texts (London, New York, and Toronto, 1972). The later Las Leys d'Amors, ed. J. Anglade (Toulouse, 1919-20) Book III, describes masculine and feminine as 'veray gendre' (p. 37), but also includes discussion of neuter, common and universal genders (p. 38). The edition by Gatien-Arnoult of the Leys II, p. 230, describes Romance verbs as possessing three genders, active, passive, and neuter: A. F. GatienArnoult, Las Flors del gay saber, estier dichas Las Leys d'amors (Paris and Toulouse, 1840-3). It seems, therefore, that there is a degree of consensus that there are more than two genders; that the masculine and feminine ones are in some sense primary; but that there is also a third, 'mixed' or 'common' category, usually comprising one further gender. The distinction between semantic and arbitrary gender is not found in the treatises edited by Marshall, but it is taken into account in the Leys d'Amors which uses the terminology real (semantic) - vocal (grammatical); see Anglade Book III, pp. 37ff.; and Gatien-Arnoult II, pp. 64ff. The possibility of distinguishing more than two genders may help to account for the occasional division of women into three categories by Andreas Capellanus, De Arte Honeste Amandi (consulted in the translation The Art of Courtly Love by J.J. Parry, New Y>rk, 1941), e.g. Book I, Chapter VI (Fifth Dialogue); and by certain troubadours, e.g. Daude de Pradas in A mors m 'envida e. m somo, text and commentary in R. Nelli, Ecrivains anticonformistes du moyen-dge occitan: laFemme et I'Amour (Paris, 1977), pp. 220-5, and in de Riquer, Los Trovadores III, p. 1547. On the term midons, see G.M. Cropp, Le Vocabulaire courtois des troubadours de Vepoque classique (Geneva, 1975), pp. 29-35, and W. M. Hackett, 'Le probleme de midons\ in Melanges... Boutiere (Liege, 1971) I, 285-94. The element of feudal submission inherent in the term is stressed by Cropp and by Lejeune, 'Formules feodales', but it is questioned by W. D. Paden Jr,' Utrum copularentur: of cors* p. 71, and 'The Trobadour's Lady: Her Marital Status and Social Rank', Studies 234

Notes to pp. 86-90

6.

7. 8.

9.

10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

in Philology LXXII (1975), 28-50, pp. 32-6. Deriving from dominus, midons remains cognate with Occitan don(s), which is masculine. According to Hackett (p. 292), 41 est vraisemblable que cet element du terme midons signifiait a l'origine "maitre", et que ce terme exprimait une subjection plus absolue que le rapport vassalique.' Doubt is cast on the meaning 'la femme du seigneur' attributed by Hackett to sidons in Marcabru by R.E. Harvey, The Troubadour Marcabru and Love (London, 1989) Chapter VII, and 'On the Satirical Use of a Courtly Expression: sidons\ Modern Language Review LXXVIII (1983), 224-33. The 'logic of the supplement', whereby 'supplementing' a term that is notionally 'complete' in fact destabilizes it and exposes the confusions within it, is explored by J. Derrida in De la grammatologie (Paris, 1967) and in 'La Pharmacie de Platon', in Dissemination (Paris, 1972). For an exposition of the 'logic of the supplement', see J. Culler, On Deconstruction. Theory and Criticism after Structuralism (London, 1983), pp. 102-6. Cf. J. M. Ferrante, Woman as Image in Medieval Literature from the Twelfth Century to Dante (New York and London, 1975), pp. 20-3. I have understood the closing lines of this stanza differently from Uc's editors who translate: 'la tromperie et la faussete leur semblent courtoisie et les plus honteux marches joie et elegance'. Ferrante, Woman as Image pp. 19,23; see also Marie-Therese d'Alverny, 'Comment les theologiens voient la femme', in Actes du Colloque consacre a la femme dans les civilisations des X* — XIIf siecles, Cahiers de Civilisation MedievaleXX (1977), 105-128, pp. 108-9. Readers who find this comment excessive should reflect on Genius's sermon, in Jean de Meun, Roman de la Rose w . 20,058-60: 'Car escoillie, certain en sommes, / sont coart, pervers et chenins, / por ce qu'il ont meurs feminins'. (For we are certain that eunuchs are cowardly, corrupt and malign [i.e. dog-like], because they have the moral character of women.) This makes it apparent that castration results in a 'feminine' character, i.e. one which is depraved and animal-like. Dejeanne VI, vv.21-2, cf. vv.37-40. Harvey, Marcabru pp.83-4, comments on this topos of indiscrimination and its links with lechery and venality. See Harvey, Marcabru Chapter V, first published as 'The Harlot and the Chimera', Reading Medieval Studies X (1983), 24-33. For female insatiability in Andreas Capellanus's DeArte Honeste Amandi, see Book I, Chapter X. See Lazar's note to this v.; Kaehne, Bernart von Ventadorn II, p. 85 and note. G. Gouiran, L*Amour et la Guerre I, p. 13. See S.B. Gaunt, 'Poetry of Exclusion: A Feminist Reading of Some Troubadour Lyrics', Modern Language Review LXXXV (1990) (forthcoming). 235

Notes to pp. 90-2 15. See Chapter 5 for the association of Amors with the lover in the Roman de la Rose and Flamenca. Aucassin is particularly frank in 'theorizing' the 'nobility' of masculine love in comparison with feminine sensuality: 'Fenme ne puet tant amer l'oume con li horn fait le fenme. Car li amors de la fenme est en son oeul, et en son le cateron de sa mamele, et en son l'orteil del pie; mais li amors de l'oume est ens el cuer plantee, dont ele ne puet iscir.' (Woman is incapable of loving a man as a man does a woman. For a woman's love is in her eye, at the tip of the nipple of her breast, and at the tip of her toe; but the love of a man is set within his heart, and cannot leave it.) Quoted from Aucassin etNicolete, para. 14, ed. F. W. Bourdillon (Manchester, 1919). 16. Pace the suggestion that 'courtly love' is a cover for homosexuality, made by (among others) C. Marchello-Nizia, AnnalesE.S.C. XXXVI (1981), pp. 969-82. The phenomena she describes would better covered by the term 'homosocial desire', on which see E. K. Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (London and New York, 1985), Chapter I. Sedgwick contends that even literature ostensibly celebrating sexual relations between the sexes is often more concerned with the value of social relationships between men - relationships which she terms homosocial. 17. Ferrante, Woman as Image p. 6; Alverny, 'Comment les theologiens voient la femme' p. 111. 18. See Cropp, Le Vocabulaire Courtois Chapters III, IV and V, for characterization of which qualities are shared by both lovers and which are particular to each. 19. It is true that women could inherit lordship in the South of France, and did sometimes wield effective power. See I. Kasten, Frauendienst bei Trobadors und Minnesdngern im 12. Jahrhundert. Zur Entwicklung und Adaption eines literarischen Konzepts (Heidelberg, 1986), pp. 66ff., and Bogin, The Women Troubadours, pp. 22ff. Nonetheless such women were exceptional; feudalism was predominantly if not exclusively male. See Robert Fossier, 'La Femme dans les societes occidentals', Colloque consacrea la femme (see n. 9 above), 93-102; M. Bloch, Feudal Society, tr. L. A. Manyon, 2nd edn (London, 1967), pp. 200-1. 20. According to S. Shahar, The Fourth Estate. A History of Women in the Middle Ages (London, 1983), pp. 11-21, women were not allowed to act as judges, lawyers or procurators, or even to testify in court except under exceptional circumstances. 21. E.g. Harvey, Marcabru p. 140: 'Marcabru occasionally evokes a female presence, but in terms so imprecise that the lady is as it were disembodied and is almost indistinguishable from the idea of fin9 amor.' 22. Cf. Leube-Fey, Bild und Funktion pp. 29-30; Raynouard II, 494. In 'Utrum copularentuf p. 71, Paden suggests other ways of masking the femaleness of the domna by using images of place (sai, lai, loc, alhors) and by the term res ('thing, creature'). 236

Notes to pp. 92-8 23. On the opposition domna-femna see Cropp, Le Vocabulaire courtois p. 26. See also G. Encomou, The two Venuses and Courtly Love', in In Pursuit of Perfection: Courtly Love in Medieval Literature ed. J. M. Ferrante and G. Encomou (London and New York, 1975), pp. 17-50. For a dual view of sexuality in the early Middle Ages, see M.-C. DerouetBesson,'Inter duos scopulos. Hypotheses sur la place de la sexualite dans les modeles de la representation du monde au XIe siecle', AnnalesE.S.C. XXXVI (1981), 922-45. For Burns, The Woman behind the Man', the contrast between the two models of the female is between the ideal (desired) and the real (unreceptive), This contrast also exhibits the 'logic of the supplement', though in a different form from the one presented here. 24. J.-C. Huchet, L*Amour discourtois. La fin* Amors chez les premiers troubadours (Toulouse, 1987), suggests that the troubadours both celebrate and lament the 'otherness' of the domna to themselves. 25. In his edition of Raimbaut, Pattison (p. 45) dates the tenso in 1169. See his notes to the text for discussion of the authorship of the domna's contributions. 26. When not a subject, the 'feminine' is often portrayed as wholly transitive, that is, as a vehicle mediating relationships between men; one man may assail, betray or injure another by having sexual relations with the latter's wife. This 'transparency' of the 'feminine' is common in Marcabru, e.g. XVI, vv. 31 - 6 , but is also attested in 'courtly' songs; see Gaunt, 'Exclusion'. It obviously corresponds with certain realities of social practice, such as the transmission of lineage and the formation of marriage alliances. 27. Although Tops field in his notes refers to the lion as an image of pride and fear, a closer analogue is Marcabru's description of the puta in Soudadier per cui (XLIV) which he cites in his commentary: Puta sembla leo d'aitan: fers es d'ergueill al comensan, mas pueis quan n'a fag son talan, tro que son mil no.s prez' un gan.

(vv. 25-8)

The whore resembles a lion in this much: at the beginning she is fierce with pride, but when she has had her will of them [her lovers], until there are a thousand of them, she does not value herself as highly as a glove.

(Text and translation from Harvey, Marcabru pp. 91 -3.) As Harvey explains, other passages in Marcabru suggest that 'the poet is not discussing actual prostitutes, but rather women who do not conduct themselves as a courtly dompna should' (Marcabru p. 90). Images of women as wild beasts are also found in Andreas Capellanus, De Arte Honeste Amandi Book I, Chapter IX. 28. Alzonne is near Carcasssonne; according to legend, 'les pierres d'Alzonne se toucheront au moment ou les femmes perdront toute pudeur' (Topsfield, n. to v.7). 29. Switten, Raimon deMiraval, punctuates in the same way as Tops field. As her n. to vv. 19-20 shows, the understanding which she and Topsfield have of this line accumulates difficulties for what follows. 237

Notes to pp. 98-102 30. Raimon de Miraval may have had in mind here Guilhem de Peitieu's image of a woman who cannot get a 'warhorse' having to make do with a 'palfrey' (II, v. 18). 31. Cf. Bernart de Ventadorn I, v. 55: 'ors ni leos non etz vos ges\ Switten, Raimon de Miraval p. 77 n. 30, admits, 'Criticism of the lady is present or implicit in almost all Miraval's cansos.' 32. S. Neumeister, Das Spiel pp. 172-3, considers this an authentic collaboration between two speakers, as does Nelli, Ecrivains anticonformistes pp. 261-3. 33. There is every probability that rape was a common occurrence against which women had little redress; cf. Bogin, The Woman Troubadours p.25; Shahar, The Fourth Estate, pp. 16-17; see also Andreas Capellanus, De Arte Honeste Amandi Book I Chapter XI and Book II Chapter VI. In the romance of Flamenca, the heroine endorses rape against the domna who is too slow to say either yes or no (vv. 6252-8). 34. Text from Paterson, Troubadours and Eloquence pp. 43-7. 35. D. Evans, 'Some Vocabulary and Imagery of Fowling in Old Provencal', Proceedings of the Third British Conference on Medieval Occitan Language and Literature (Warwick, April 1985) II, pp. 214-32. (The papers read at this conference were circulated privately.) Evans writes as follows:' Vesc is accompanied by the rare verb envescar... such a verbal creation might have the senses "to lime" (i.e. apply bird-lime to twigs, etc.) or "to capture by means of bird-lime", this latter sense being the one required by the present context. What is puzzling in the wording of these two lines is the presence of the verbal form trai, since it suggests the use of a decoy or a lure rather than bird-lime... unless a feature such as the mistletoe's smell [bird-lime is made from mistletoe] is regarded as a prime enticement to the bird. Or has, perhaps, the sense of vesc been contaminated by that of "decoy" through the process of semantic extension already noted in this fowling terminology, notably in cembeP. The presence of the qualifying adjective mal would suggest as much ... Whatever the exact interpretation of the wording here, both fowling practice and the literary tradition of its imagery establish that, whatever the driving instinct of the victim, it is the fowler who sets up the decoy and prepares and employs the bird-lime. Since the unwary lover is the brico, both the Vus and the Vautre are most likely to refer to aspects or activities of the fowler, i.e. the lady' (pp. 226-7). 36. Evans, 'Vocabulary of Fowling', p. 229. 37. R. H. Bloch, Medieval French Literature and Law (Berkeley and London, 1977), pp. 215ff., revises Kohler's social contextualization of courtliness as promoting the interests of the lower knights, to contend instead that it favours the development of state or monarchical power by delegating to the 'individual' responsibility for moral self-determination; but for Bloch, this 'individual' identity is masculine identity. 38. Though the reasons for this ascription are not the same as formulated 238

Notes to pp. 102-4

39.

40.

41.

42. 43. 44. 45.

46. 47. 48.

by the male critics: they find the women's contributions too witty, too formally perfect, and too marked by literary allusions, to be by real women; cf. S.B. Gaunt, 'Sexual Difference and the Metaphor of Language', Modern Language Review LXXXIII (1988), 297-313, n. 14. For reasons of space, and also in view of their heterogeneity, I do not consider here the female-female dialogue poems. It is clear that the mere fact of taking a woman as addressee does not automatically produce a recognizably 'female' voice. But the poems which do not take heterosexual love as their theme could well be seen as more 'authentic' examples of woman's song; see in particular Carenza and n'Alaisina Iselda, Na Carenza albeicors avinen, ed. P. Bee, 'Avoir des enfants ou rester vierge? Une tenso occitane du XIIIe siecle entre femmes', in Mittelalterstudien Erich Kohlerzum Gedenken ed. H. Krauss and D. Rieger (Heidelberg, 1984), pp. 21 -30; and the sirventes No. mpose mudar no diga mon veiaire misattributed to Raimon Jordan and printed in de Riquer, Los Trovadores I, p. 576. Giraut de Bornelh and Alamanda, Si. us quer conselh, ed. Kolsen (LVII); Maria de Ventadorn and Gui d'Ussel, Gui d'Ussel, be.mpesa de vos, ed. Audiau, Les quatre troubadours d'Ussel (XV); Pistoleta and anonymous domna, Bona domna, un conseill vos deman, ed. E. Niestroy (Halle, 1914) (X); Lanfranc Cigala and na Guillelma, Na Guillelma, maint cavalier arratge, ed. Branciforti (XVI). Garsenda and anonymous man, Vos que. m semblatz dels corals amadors, ed. O Schultz-Gora, Die provenzalische Dichterinnen (Leipzig, 1888), p. 21; anonymous man and anonymous woman, Domna, si.m fos grazitz mos chans ieu m'esforzera, ibid., p. 30. Montan and anonymous domna, Eu veing vas vos, seigner, fauda ledvada, ed. P. Bee, Burlesque p. 161. See Gaunt, 'Sexual Difference'. See Kay, 'Derivation'. For a survey of recent scholarship on the trobairitz, see P. Dronke, 'The Provencal Trobairitz Castelloza', in Medieval Women Writers ed. K.M. Wilson (Athens, Georgia, 1984), 131-52, pp. 143-4, and M. T. Bruckner, 'Na Castelozza, Trobairitz and Troubadour Lyric', Romance Notes XXV (1985), 239-53. See in particular P. Bee, 'Trobairitz et chansons de femme. Contribution a la connaissance du lyrisme feminin au moyen age', Cahiers de Civilisation Medievale XXII (1979), 235-62, and M. Shapiro, 'The Provencal Trobairitz and the Limits of Courtly Love', Signs III (1978), 560-71. I have also consulted J.-C. Huchet, 'Les femmes troubadours ou la voix critique', Litterature LI (1983), 59-90. Sakari, 'Azalais de Porcairagues' pp. 56-66. Sakari, Guillem de Saint-Didier pp. 78-9. Meneghetti, Pubblico pp. 118-20, comments on the similarities between Azalais's song and a different one by Raimbaut, Ara non siscla ni chanta (XIV). 239

Notes to pp. 106-11 49. Sakari considers that the last stanza must have been added after the death of Raimbaut in 1173 ('Azalais de Porcairagues' p. 183); the metre of this stanza is defective, and it may indeed be a later addition by a continuator. 50. The identification with Guilhem de Sant Leidier abandoned, the question of the identity of the spokesman from Velay is reopened. Could it be Peire Rogier, who (1) wrote criticizing the he ome as a lover, (2) came from the Auvergne, and (3) moved in the same circles as Azalais, like her exchanging poems with Raimbaut d'Aurenga and dedicating them to Ermengarda de Narbonne? 51. Cf. II, vv.8-9, 18. 52. Cf. Ill, vv.13, 15. 53. Dronke, The Provencal Trobairitz' pp. 143-4, likewise expresses reservations on Paden's characterization, as does Bruckner, 'Na Castelloza', p. 252. 54. Following advice from J. H. Marshall, I have altered Paden's text and translation at this point. The five MSS read as follows: TV s'om no cal lansa IK d no tal A tot no.il A, chosen by Lavaud and Schultz, is a lectio facilior, which has the further disadvantage of not giving lansar any real contextual sense ('even though a man cast it out'). Paden prints following TV and translates 'if no man applies a lancet'. Dronke rightly points out (p. 152 n. 9) that the interpretation of cal 'applies' is unjustified. Marshall's emendation is supported by his argument that 'word divisions are often misleading in N1'. 55. Though there is no certainty here that lansar means 'lance' (in a medical sense), there is still an implication of violence; cf. Raynouard III, p. 19 (6) who glosses lansar as 'lancer, jeter, darder, pousser'. 56. Bee,' Trobairitz et chansons de femme', p. 245 n. 36, takes the male lovers as subjects but does not discuss the alternative possibility; no more do Paden or Dronke. 57. This seems to have been particularly true of the Languedoc. L.M. Paterson in her forthcoming book Medieval Occitan Society: Life in the World of the Troubadours writes that in the Canso de la Crotzada 'the boundary between nobles and non-nobles, knights and bourgeois, is extremely fluid. The term bar frequently refers to the bourgeois as well as knights, the baros prezens assisting the consuls comprise both, and they are commonly grouped together.' (I am extremely grateful to Dr Paterson for permission to use as yet unpublished material.) A.-H. Schutz, lJoglar, borges, cavallier dans les biographies provencales. Essai d' evaluation semantique', in Melanges... /. Frank (Saarbriicken, 1957), 672-7, concludes, p. 677, 'Dans le Midi, les classes sociales s'interpenetrent plus facilement a cause de la souplesse de leurs cadres et de leur moindre rigidite.' 240

Notes to pp. 111-13 58. A survey of the social background of early troubadours is provided by Kasten, Frauendienst pp. 99-111; see also Schutz, 'Joglar'. 59. Erich Kohler, 'Zum trobar clus der Trobadors', RomanischeForschungen LXIV (1952), pp. 71-101; repr. in Trobadorlyrik und hofischer Roman (Berlin, 1962), pp. 133-52. Henceforth, articles reprinted in this volume will be cited from that source only. 60. The Poems of the Troubadour Bertran de Born, ed. W. D. Paden, Jr, T. Sankovitch, and P. H. Stablein (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1986), pp. 1-33. 61. Cf. Raimbaut de Waqueims's Epic Letter I, vv. 6-10, ed. and tr. Linskill in The Poems...: 'I have found in you a most generous lord. For you have graciously maintained and equipped me, and shown me great kindness, and from lowly state raised me on high, and from naught made me a knight of repute, welcome at court and praised by ladies.' Knighthood has given him an entree to courtly circles and without it he was nien. 62. See, for example, Sakari, 'Azalais de Porcairagues'. 63. L. Halphen, 'La Place de la royaute dans le systeme feodal', Revue Historique CLXXII (1933), 249-56; in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 'le meme seigneur peut etre pour certaines terres vassal d'un seigneur de rang tres inferieur et meme souvent vassal de son propre vassal' (pp. 249-50). 64. Kohler, 'Reichtum und Freigebigkeit in der Trobadordichtung', Trobadorlyrik pp. 45-72; 'Uber das Verhaltnis von Liebe, Tapferkeit, Wissen und Reichtum bei den Trobadors', Trobadorlyrik pp. 73-87; 'Zum Begriff des Wissens im hofischen Kulturbild. Klerus und Ritertum', Trobadorlyrik pp. 29-43. The importance of largesse in medieval Occitan poetry is studied by E. M.K. Brett, 'Avarice and Largesse: a Study of the theme in Moral-Satirical Poetry in Provencal, Latin and Old French, 1100-1300' (PhD, Cambridge 1986). Brett comments on the phrase rics malvatz avars in Peire Cardenal's A totas partz vei mescV ab avaresa (Lavaud XIII), fols. 195-7. She also provides a useful Appendix of examples of the phrase ric malvatz and related expressions, fols. 286-90. 65. Kohler, 'Les troubadours et la jalousie', in Melanges ... J. Frappier (Geneva, 1970) I, pp.543-59. 66. Kohler, 'Observations'. A more detailed exposition of Kohler's views is F. Pirot, L' 'ideologic' des troubadours. Examen de travaux recents', LeMoyen Age 4 e Serie XXIII (1968), 301-31, pp.314ff. 67. See U. Peters, 'Niederes Rittertum oder hoher Adel? Zu Erich Kohler's historisch-sociologischer Deutung der altprovenzalischen und mittelhochdeutschen Minnelyrik', Euphorion LXVII (1973), 244-60, esp. pp. 249-50. Bonassie contends of Catalonia that 'II est certain qu'a la fin du XIe siecle la chevalerie confere la noblesse': P. Bonassie, La Catalogne du milieu du Xe a la fin du XIe siecle, croissance et mutation

d'une societe (Toulouse, 1975-6), p. 806. This is quoted by Paterson, 241

Notes to pp. 113-15 Medieval Occitan Society, Chapter on Knights, n. 207, with the comment that it implies 'that milites or cabalers (a) [were] exempt from seigneurial exactions, (b) were regarded as the lowest type of nobiles by the Usages of Barcelona, and (c) underwent the initiatory rite of dubbing'. On the ordo literature, see G. Duby, Les Trois Ordres, ou, I'imaginaire du feodalisme (Paris, 1980). 68. U. Liebertz-Griin, Zur Soziologie des 'amour courtois\ Umrisse der Forschung. Beihefte zum Euphorion X (Heidelberg, 1977), pp. 97-103. 69. 'Sens et fonction du terme "jeunesse" dans la poesie des troubadours', Melanges... R. Crozet (Poitiers, 1966) I, pp. 569-583. On the unlikelihood of 'marginalmen' from a variety of different social margins making common cause, and becoming cultural innovators, see Liebertz-Griin, Soziologie pp. 104-5. She compares Kohler's use of the term joven with Duby's concept of the juvenes and concludes that they are not talking about the same social group. Kohler's view of the juvenes is also criticized by Kasten, Frauendienst pp. 130-41. 70. Ourliac, 'Troubadours et juristes', pp. 164-7; Archibald R. Lewis, 'La feodalite dans le Toulousain et la France meridionale (850-1050)', Annales du Midi LXXVI (1964), 247-259. In a discussion of the Canso de la Crotzada (159, vv.20-3) Paterson, Medieval Occitan Society (Knights Chapter) writes: 'Feudal arrangements between the Counts of Toulouse and those who held fiefs from them did not entail significant military obligations and in the few cases where vassals are perceptible in this epic, it is not clear that they would be fighting without pecuniary inducements'. She continues: 'Occitan texts tend not to emphasise this [sc. the feudal relationship] but rather the free assistance rendered by equals'. The diversity of forms of land tenure in the South, many of them involving monetary payment, is shown by J.-P. Poly for Provence in La Provence et la societe feodale (879-1166). Contribution a Vetude des structures dites feodales dans le Midi (Paris, 1976); by Bonassie for Catalonia, pp. 798-99. (All references to Bonassie are taken from Paterson, Medieval Occitan Society). 11. See A. R. Press, 'The Adulterous Nature of fin 'amors: a Reexamination of the Theory', in Forum for Modern Language Studies VI (1970), 327-41. 72. See for example R.E. Harvey, 'The Troubadour Marcabru and his Public', Reading Medieval Studies XIW (1988), 47-76, and S. B. Gaunt, 'Marcabru, Marginalmen and Orthodoxy', Medium Aevum (forthcoming), 73. L.M. Paterson, 'The Concept of Knighthood in the Twelfth-Century Occitan Lyric', in Chretien de Troyes and the Troubadours. Essays in Memory of the late Leslie Topsfield ed. P. S. Noble and L.M. Paterson (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 112-32. In lyric, cavalier may also occasionally mean 'suitor' or 'lover'. 74. Quoted Kaehne, Bernart von Ventadorn II, p. 24; see pp. 23-4 for further 242

Notes to pp. 115-22

75. 76. 77.

78.

79.

discussion and references; see also Ourliac, Troubadours et juristes' pp. 162-3. Doubts about the pervasiveness of feudal imagery are recorded by M. Mancini, 'Tan volh sa senhoria. Sulla metafora feudale nei trovatori', Medioevo Romanzo XII (1987), 241-60, esp. pp. 241-4. Kohler, 'Observations'. Kaehne, Bernart von Ventadorn II, p. 104. Kaehne, ibid. p. 105. On the change of symbolic connotation from inequality (kneeling) to equality (standing) in the homage ceremony, see J. LeGoff, 'LeRituelsymboliquedelavassalite', in Pour unautreMoyen Age (Paris, 1977), pp. 349-420. Kaehne, ibid. p. 102, tries to solve the second of these problems. For him, the lines reveal Bernart's sophisticated knowledge of legal usage since ochaizonar carries the connotation of 'adducing a pretext', 'making an illfounded accusation*. He comments: 'Der Dichter sagt also, "Ihre in der Sache ungerechte Anklage besteht zu Recht, da sie nichts iiber meine Motive weiss" M f by this he means we should translate 'her accusation can rightly be called groundless, given that she does not know whether I am in the wrong or not', that still does not resolve the difficulty, because the state of her knowledge has no necessary bearing on the justness of her accusation. In any case the translation is at some distance from the text. And while it is true that ochaizonar may carry unfavorable connotations, it need not necessarily do so. This is a conception which is elaborated elsewhere, for example by Raimabut d'Aurenga and Arnaut de Maruelh: Ben ai cor ric plus qu'ieu non die, e tan adreg que ducx ni reg no prez, si no.m prez' eissamens. (Raimbaut d'Aurenga XVII, vv.45-9) My heart is rich (powerful), more than I can say, and so upright that I don't esteem dukes or king unless they esteem me equally. Ges [proeza] no nais ni comensa segon autra naissensa, qu'ins el cor, so sapchatz, la noiris voluntatz. (From the ensenhamen Razos es e mezura, cited Kohler, Trobadorlyrik p. 40) Personal worth is not born, does not begin, as other things are born; for it is bred within the heart by the will.

This idea of worth as resulting from inner disposition may be connected with twelfth-century philosophical thinking; see e.g. Raimbaut d'Aurenga V, which seems to highlight intention as a mainspring of worth. 80. My translation of v. 5 differs from Sakari's, who prints: 'et qui me tient depuis que j'entendis vanter see merites'. 81. See Levy VI, 525-6 s.v. pretz (1) (2) and (3). On the slippage between 243

Notes to pp. 122-6

82.

83.

84. 85. 86.

87. 88. 89. 90.

feudal and financial metaphor in Gace Brule see Eugene Vance, 'Love's Concordance: The Poetics of Desire and the Joy of the Text', Diacritics V (1975), 40-52. On their commixture in the lyric, see Shapiro, 'Trobairitz' pp. 568-9. A.-H. Schutz, The Provencal Expressionpretz e valor\ Speculum XIX (1944), 489-93, views this binomial as capable of drawing the same distinction as I make here: 'Pretz carries over from its economic use the idea of an estimation of personal worth by common consent within a given milieu and under given circumstances, hence the pretium famae, mutable and extrinsic. Valor is the basic worth of a person, the sum of inherent qualities, hence intrinsic and not subject to common estimation' (p. 493). Vance, 'Love's Concordance' p.47; Brett, 'Avarice and Largesse9 fols. 121 - 6 , stresses the need for discernment in gift-giving which means that gifts are always perceived as related to merit, and hence part of an exchange. R. H. Bloch, 'Money, Metaphor, and the Mediation of Social Difference in Old French Romance', Symposium XXXV (1981), 18-33, p. 25; Marc Bloc, Esquisse d'une histoire monetaire de VEurope (Paris, 1954). M. Bloch speaks of the 'revolution' (p. 44) in the status of money between the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, and gives a complex account of the various ways in which exchange rates were made subject to modification as a result of it. R. H. Bloch is not quite right to assert that M. Bloch equates this transformation with the philosophical opposition between realism and nominalism. M. Bloch speaks rather of 'monnaie reelle' (e.g. p. 46) in contrast to a 'monnaie de compte', which he denies is 'nominal' or 'imaginaire' (e.g. p. 43). R.H. Bloch, 'Money, Metaphor' p. 26. This and the two previous quotations are from R.H. Bloch, 'Money, Metaphor' p. 27. G. Duby, Guerriers et paysans Vlf-XIf siecle. Premier essor de Veconomie europeenne (Paris, 1973), pp. 264-85. On the wealth of city knights, see Poly, La Provence pp. 302-4, and Paterson, Medieval Occitan Society, Knights Chapter. Duby goes so far as to suggest that money actually becomes the measure of personal worth, rather than, as proposed here, a metaphor for it: merchants 's'accoutument a evaluer en deniers - et en ces unites abstraites de compte que sont le sou et la livre - la puissance de leur maitre. Car l'argent est devenu dans la seconde moitie du XIIe siecle le plus puissant instrument du pouvoir' {Guerriers et paysans p. 282). On troubadours of bourgeois origin see also Schutz, 'Joglar' pp. 673 - 4 . Switten's text (no. IX) is used here rather than Topsfield's (XXVIII), since I agree with her criticisms of his stanza order, ADIKLN and E. The final line of this stanza, with its reference to being beaten with a rod, offers an image of punishment for the lover's misdemeanour, but it could 244

Notes to pp. 126-33

91.

92. 93. 94.

95.

also suggest sexual activity with a curious reversal of roles (she hits him with her rod). To use the evocation of punishment as a prolepsis of hopedfor intercourse would be an interesting admission of the real, as opposed to the alleged, status roles in this text. Pedro II of Aragon, and Raimon-Rogier, to whom Raimon de Miraval's brother swore fealty in 1191? Topsfield does not annotate these lines, so these identifications are inferred from other material in his edition. For Aragon, see songs XLVII and XLVIII, both classed by him as * poesies douteuses'; for Beziers, see his Appendix, Acte XXII, p. 379, and Introduction, pp. 17-19. Switten provides no notes to these lines either. He explains cap * tower' from Levy, Petit Dictionnaire: 'roof. See J. N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (London, 1982), p. 72. For guarnit 'ready', see Levy SWB IV, 72. There are disagreements about how to punctuate and interpret these lines; see Paden, edition cited, and Dronke, Castelloza p. 141. Paden takes trag as a verb: 'I endure all the suffering and loss that is destined to me through you - my family makes you welcome, and especially my husband.' For Dronke, trag is part of the noun maltrag, as given here, but lignage means 'birth', 'rank'; he translates, 'All the affliction and harm that have been my lot because of you, my birth makes me thank you for all these'; he glosses 'since I am of lower birth than you, it is inevitable that I should suffer through loving you, and my husband is glad that you do not bring me unalloyed happiness through extramarital love'. Kohler, 'Les troubadours et la jalousie'. For the paradox of 'courtly love' in his analysis, see also the beginning of 'Observations'. An appreciative account of Kohler's background in Marxist dialectic is given by H. Krauss, 'Historisch-dialektische Literaturwissenschaft. Zum Werk Erich K orders', in Mittelalterstudien Erich Kohler zum Gedenken pp. 9-13. 4 Performance

1. L. Kendrick, The Game of Love. Troubadour Wordplay (Berkeley etc., 1988), pp. 165ff. 2. P. Zumthor, Introduction a la poesie orale (Paris, 1983). 3. De Riquer, Los Trovadores I, pp. 15-19; D.S. Avalle, La letteratura medievale in lingua d'Oc nella sua tradizione manoscritta (Turin, 1961), pp. 47-57; D. Rieger, 'Horen und Lesen im Bereich der trobadoresken Lieddichtung. Einige Gedanken zu einer kunftigen Romanistik', Zeitschrift fur romanische Philologie C (1984), 78-91; 'Senes breu de parguaminal Zum Problem des "gelesenen Lieds" im Mittelalter', Romanische Forschungen XCIX (1987), 1-18. 4. Discussed by R. H. Bloch, Etymologies and Genealogies. A Literary Anthropology of the Middle Ages (Chicago and London, 1983), pp. 120ff., and Kendrick, The Game of Love pp. 37-8. See the two articles by Rieger in n. 3 above for (the few) other examples of songs alluding to written transmission. 245

Notes to pp. 134-41 5. J. Derrida, Delagrammatologie(Paris, 1967). For Zumthor's reaction to 'archi-ecriture', see Poesie orale p. 27. 6. As Langfors, glossary s.v. lezer notes, the line appears to be corrupt. He records Jeanroy's hypothetical emendation Mais sapcha lieire e monstrar c., 'pourvu qu'il sache lire et montrer de l'intelligence'; simpler would be to emend lezer to legir 'read*. 7. Appeal to the metaphor of * writing' is also found in Peire Vidal, the first troubadour known to have masterminded the written transmission of part of his corpus; see Avalle, Peire Vidal, Introduction pp. xxxv-xxxix, and Song XIX, vv. 16-7: 'Qu'inz e mon cor m'a fait Amors escrire / sa gran beutat, don res non es a dire' (Tor Love has made me write in my heart her great beauty, which exceeds anything one can say'). For other examples of metaphorical escriure (usually with the sense * describe'), see Rieger, 'Series breuy p. 16 and n. 53. 8. M.T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record (London, 1979). See also Stock, The Implications of Literacy Chapter I. 9. See Stock, The Implications of Literacy, pp. 47-57; Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, pp. 220-6; Ourliac, Troubadours et juristes'. 10. Punctuation of the two closing lines has been modified from Avalle. 11. Ed. KolsenLVIII, vv. 11-13, 38-41. 12. C. Page, Voices and Instruments of the Middle Ages. Instrumental Practice and Songs in France 1100-1300 (London and Melbourne, 1987), pp. 14-15; cf. also Zumthor, Poesie orale pp. 177ff. and J. Stevens, Words and Music in the Middle Ages. Song, Narrative, Dance and Drama, 1050-1350 (Cambridge, 1986). 13. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record pp. 202-30. 14. See e.g. P. Saiz, Persona and Poiesis: The Poet and the Poem inMedieval Love Lyric (The Hague, 1976); W. T. H. Jackson, 'Persona and Audience in Two Medieval Love Lyrics', Mosaic VIII (1975), 147-59. 15. D. R. Sutherland, 'L'element theatral dans la canso chez les troubadours de l'epoque classique', in Revue de Langue et Litterature d'Oc XII-XIII (1962-3), pp.95-101; W.D. Padan, Jr, 'Dramatic Formalism in the Alba Attributed to Gaucelm Faidit', Neuphilologische Mitteilungen LXXXIII (1982), 68-77. 16. For the construction of a stage persona by Marcabru, see Harvey, The Troubadour Marcabru and his Public'. 17. The text I have given is Kolsen's, but my translation differs from his at v.30 where he takes sen as 'breast' not 'reason'. Sharman takes it as 'reason', but suggests that forses might mean 'strengthen'. She then emends chauzimen v. 37 (against all the MSS) to iauzimen, so that in her text discussion of the role of reason is slighter and less interesting than in Kolsen's as I have translated it. See R. V. Sharman, 'A Critical Edition of the Cansos of the Troubadour Giraut de Borneil' (PhD Cambridge, 1980) no.XLI; same number in her The Cansos and Sirventes of the 246

Notes to pp. 145—6

18.

19. 20. 21.

22. 23.

24.

Troubadour Giraut de Borneil: A Critical Edition {Cambridge, 1989). Sharman's translation of vv.41 - 4 accentuates (in my view unduly) the transparency of language: 'if anyone loved me for my fine poetry, I would soon tell him what I had not yet said: that the tongue savours truly of the heart, which it serves and assists'; her note to w. 43 - 8 reads 'A man's words are a clear indication of the state of his heart. His tongue will speak in accordance with what is in his heart.' Kolsen nuances Giraut's commitment to textual transparency by translating vv.43-4 with a concessive: 'Dient doch die Zunge immer mit gutem Geschmack dem Herzen...'. For an attack on Bernart's claim to sing with sincerity, see D. A. Monson, 'Lyrisme et sincerite: sur une chanson de Bernart de Ventadorn', in Studia Occitanica pp. 143-59; see also M. S. Regan, Amador and Chantador: the Lover and the Poet in the Cansos of Bernart de Ventadorn', Philological Quarterly LIII (1974), 10-24. For a defence of the idea of sincerity, using an argument about patronage which anticipates that found in this chapter, see Kay, 'La Notion de personnalite', and, from a different point of view, Zink, La Subjectivity litteraire p. 54. 'Rhetoric and Subjectivity', pp. 107-9. That Folquet de Marselha sang his own songs, as well as sending jongleurs, is shown by Stronski, Folquet de Marseille pp. 9*, 53*. See also Kasten, Frauendienst pp. 90-2. In their vidas, women are said to mandar not cantar; in MS if, however, five trobairitz carry what Rieger calls the 'baton du trobar' - suggesting recognition of their quasi-professional status as poets? See Rieger, 'Image et imaginaire de femme' pp. 391 - 2 . L.M. Paterson, 'Great Court Festivals in the South of France and Catalonia in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries', Medium Aevum LI (1982), 213-24. In the Middle Ages, the appending of an autograph of one's name did not count as a signature, except for Jews; for Christians, it was the seal, sign of the cross drawn next to the sign manual, which authenticated it. See Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record p. 184. According to F.M. Chambers, Proper Names in the Lyric of the Troubadours (Chapel Hill, 1971), the following troubadours 'sign' their poems. (I use Chambers' graphies for names; the number in parentheses designates the total of 'signed' songs excluding dialogues with other troubadours.) Alegret (1), Amaneu de la Broqueira (1), Amanieu de Sescas (1), Arnaut Daniel (14), Bernart Marti (1), Bernart de Ventadorn (2), Bertran de Born (2), Bertran Carbonel (2, of which one a tenso with his heart), Cerveri de Girona (7), Daspol (tenso with God), Garin lo Brun (1), Gavaudan (2), Giraut de Bornelh (1), Giraut Riquier (6), Grimoart (1), Gui de Cavaillon (tenso with his cloak), Guilhem Ademar (4), Guilhem Figuiera (1), Guiraudet lo Ros (1), Joyos de Tolosa (1), Marcabru (18), Marcoat (1), Matieu de Caerci (1), Peire d'Alvernha (4), 247

Notes to pp. 146-51

25.

26. 27.

28. 29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

Peire Rogier (2), Peire Vidal (1), Peirol (3), Raimbaut d'Aurenga (2), Raimon de Durfort (1), Raimon de Miraval (2; he names himself via his fief in 21 others), Richard I (1), Arnaut de Tintinhac (2). Chambers omits: Cercamon (3). Chambers, Old Provencal Versification (Philadelphia, 1985), pp. 4 0 - 1 , 42, cites two further examples of dialogue poems by Marcabru which are also contrafacta. The second sirventes by Peire Bremon Ricas Novas against Sordello 'est construit sur le modele a peine modifie du deuxieme sirventes de SordeP: Boutiere, Peire Bremon Ricas Novas p. 112. E.g. by Stronski, Folquet de Marselha pp.42*-3*, 131*, and 'Les Pseudonymesreciproques', AnnalesduMidiXXV (1913), 288-97, p.296. Chambers, Proper Names, s.v. Conort, Esgart, Esper, Desir, Miralh, Vezer. Linskill, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras p. 39, alludes to the practice of using a senhal which had been made famous by an earlier troubadour. Stronski, 'Les Pseudonymes reciproques'. Gaucelm Faidit XVII has five dedications; Peire Vidal XXXI and XLI each have four; LXII has five. On troubadours' recomposition of their own songs for new audiences, see Avalle, La letteratura medievale pp. 65-72. Kolsen dates the text 1172 and identifies the corns as Raimbaut d'Aurenga, but R.V. Sharman, Giraut de Borneil fols. 145-52 (printed edn p. 87), follows Stronski, Folquet de Marseille p. 11 *, in situating the events of Alphonso's success in 1177-81. (Absemblan is Song X in her edition.) See also M. de Riquer, 'La Litterature provengale a la cour d'Alphonse II d'Aragon', Cahiers de Civilisation Medievale II (1959), 177-201, p. 187. The vv. are reminiscent of Marcabru XIV, [Co]ntra \Vf\vern que s 'e[n]ansa, vv. 17 - 1 8 . 1 take the first semblan to echo v. 6 and the second to echo v. 3: the opposition is between the lady's charms which seem to promise success, and his answering conviction that he won't succeed with her. This song is discussed by E. Kohler on pp. 169-70 of his 'Die SirventesKanzone: "genre batard" ou legitimeGattung?', Melanges... R. Lejeune (Gembloux, 1969) I, pp. 159-83. Linskill gives the stanza order of the MSS as follows: ABDIKN2 S U M T C R Sg a1

1 1I 1 ]I 1 1i 1I 1I 1I

P

]

Dc

1

2 2

2 2

2 2 2 2 2

3 3 3 5 5 5 5 5 7

4 5 5 3 3 3 3 7 3

(1 line) (1 line)

5 6 6 4 4 6 7 3 5 4 5

248

7 7 7 6

10 4 7

7 4

4 8

4 (4 lines)

10 8

10

10

8

9

Notes to pp. 151-69 34. The variants from M are taken from my own transcription of the MS, Paris, B.N. fr. 12474. 35. For the apparent identity of Eleanor of Aquitaine and the domna in Bernart de Ventadorn, see Kasten, Frauendienst p. 177. 36. On Ermengarda of Narbonne, see Kasten, Frauendienst pp. 7 4 - 5 . 37. The two are perhaps contrasted in the tornado of VI with its opposition Tort-n'avetz - Dreit-n'avetz. 38. Peire addresses Raimbaut d'Aurenga directly in VIII, Seign'enRaymbaut. Raimbaut imitated Guilhem IX's song IV in his riddle poem Escotatz, mas no say que s'es (XXIV). 39. In Mouzat's edition there are ten because he includes as one of the series the partimen between Gaucelm and Uc de la Bacalaria (XLV). Mouzat notes (p. 304) that na Maria is also named in three others of Gaucelm's songs and referred to in two more. 40. Mouzat interprets this v. differently, translating 'quand je la supplie elle m'ordonne et me conjure de la quitter; et puisque rien n'avance mes affaires ...'(p.380). 41. In this song the domna is not relegated to the 'feminine' gender, as she is in other songs addressed to Maria, cited in Chapter 3. 42. Compare the possibility in the Peire Rogier song discussed above of a link with Raimbaut d'Aurenga. 43. Zink, La Subjectivite litteraire p. 57. 44. Emendation by Paterson, Troubadours and Eloquence p. 93 n. 2., from whom this text is taken. Sharman (Song XXVIII) prints que sens e cartatz. 45. Song I: 15 MSS; IX: 20 MSS; XIV:5 MSS. 46. There are two vv. lost from the song in the sole attesting MS ( Q . 47. See Paterson, Troubadours and Eloquence p. 62, who refers to Curtius. 48. R. Lejeune, 'Themes communs de troubadours et vie de societe', repr. in Litterature et societe pp. 287-98, sees Peire d'Alvernha's song as a comic reworking of Bernart's; a similar view is put forward by Gruber, Dialektik p. 196. For Del Monte, in his edition of Peire, n. to IV w . 8-11, it is the difference between the two texts which are most striking. 49. Peire Vidal's song is a witty 'narrative of two women' which rejects Bernart's idealizing acceptance of amor de lonh at the end of Tant ai and opts instead for pragmatic success with a different lady. Bernart's central image of the man tossed in a boat is amusingly recast in Peire's first stanza, where the boat is gone and the lover is drowning; Bernart's opening image of the transformation of winter by the joy of love is transferred to the end of Peire's text, to mark the sucess of his new-found love. 50. On the pun in apanar, see Paterson's n. to this v., Troubadours and Eloquence p. 62. The allusions are to Guilhem de Peitieu X, v. 30, and Marcabru XVI, vv. 16-18. On the latter passage, cf. Paterson, Troubadours and Eloquence p. 25. 51. This is particularly true of metre. Innovation in metrical form is 249

Notes to pp. 169-73 characteristic of opening stanzas; but since most songs are isometric, the novel schema becomes the tradition within which succeeding stanzas are composed. 52. Another interesting statement about novelty is found in Gui d'Ussel I, in which, finding that everything has already been said, the troubadour decides to say it again, in slightly different words, so as to achieve' novelty'. 53. Thus Kaehne, Bernart von Ventadorn I, pp. 32-3, proposes that each 'new' song marks a fresh authentication of the preceding tradition. 5 Romance appropriations 1. SeeHult, Self-fulfilling Prophecies p. 213 fn. 2. Though given the use of a first-person position and the heterogeneity of its material the Rose might also be classed as a dit. See J. Cerquiglini, 'Le Clerc et l'ecriture: le VoirDit de Guillaume de Machaut et la definition du dit', in Literatur in der Gesellschaft des Spatmittelalters, Grundriss der romanischen Literatur des Mittelalters, Begleitreihe I (Heidelberg, 1980), ed. H.V. Gumbrecht et ai, pp. 151-68. 3. See especially L. T. Topsfield, The Roman de la Rose of Guillaume de Lords and the Love Lyric of the Early Troubadours', Reading Medieval Studies I (1975), 30-54; Sylvia Huot, From Song to Book. The Poetics of Writing in Old French Lyric and Lyrical Narrative Poetry (Ithaca and London, 1987), Chapter 3 and passim; Hult, Self-fulfilling Prophecies pp. 208-50; see also p. 194 and fn. 22. 4. D. Poirion, Le Roman de la Rose (Paris, 1973), p. 30. 5. Hult, Self-fulfilling Prophecies p. 102, regards anonymity as a deliberate strategy of the first part of the Rose. 6. Cf. Poirion, Le Roman de la Rose pp. 69ff. 7. See Jung, Etudes pp. 188 -90 for examples from Jean Renart's Escoufle; cf. his Lai de VOmbre vv. 550-61. 8. *Ce fu uns blons qui en biautes / maintenir mout se delitoit. / Cis se chaugoit bien et vestoit / et avoit les chevaus de pris. / Cis cuidast bien estre repris / ou de murtre ou de larrecin / s'en s'estable eiist nul roncin' (vv. 1112-18). (He was a blond who loved to cultivate his own beauty. He went well shod and well dressed, and kept valuable horses. He would have expected to be accused of murder or larceny if a single nag had been found in his stable.) 9. TL VI, 1053 oisos adjective, 1055 oisose feminine substantive. 10. In Guillaume's poem only Verite and Malebouche have a different gender as personifications from the grammatical gender of the corresponding substantives. 11. Hult, Self-fulfilling Prophecies p. 228, comments that when Deduit's carole breaks up into a society of courting couples, 'the characters pass from personification to exemplum'; cf. Poirion, Le Roman de la Rose pp. 43-5. 250

Notes to pp. 174-84 12. Most recently Zink, La Subjectivity litteraire pp. 128-9. 13. The figure of Amors is masculine in a few poems deriving from the tradition of Latin debate literature (see Jung, Etudes pp. 192ff.) which Guillaume de Lorris appears to have known (p. 304). The sustained use of this latinism remains rare in the thirteenth century. Amors in Flamenca is feminine, and in the Occitan Cort d'Amor is portrayed now as a domna, now as a baron. 14. For review of this debate see Hult, Self-fulfilling Prophecies pp. 277ff. 15. As Poirion, Le Roman de la Rose pp. 48 - 9 , points out, there is temporal ambiguity within this episode, since although the arrows from Biaute through Compaignie to Biau Semblant are apparently fired in a single volley, a considerable lapse of time may be implied on the figurative level between the lover's first seeing the loved one's beauty, his enjoyment of her companionship, and receipt of encouragement. 16. See Tops field, The Roman de la Rose9, for detailed analysis of resemblances between the Rose and the Occitan requete dyamour. 17. Although dated by R. Lejeune, L 'Qeuvre de Jean Renart. Contribution a Vetude d'un genre romanesque (Paris, 1935), to 1212, the later date of 1228 assigned by Foulet in his edition of the romance (p. viii) is now generally accepted. On the relation between it and Guillaume de Lorris, see M. Zink, Roman rose et rose rouge. Le Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole de Jean Renart (Paris, 1979), pp. 69ff. 18. See edition pp.xxiiiff. for details. On the language of the Occitan songs, see F. Gegou, 'Jean Renart et la lyrique occitane', in Melanges ... P. Le Gentil (Paris, 1973), pp.319-23. On the significance of the placing of the Occitan songs, see E. Baumgartner, 'Les Citations lyriques dans le Roman de la Rose de Jean Renart', Romance Philology XXXV (1981-2), 260-6, p. 261. For a study of the grands chants courtois, see M.-R. Jung, 'L'Empereur Conrad chanteur de poesie lyrique. Fiction et verite dans le Roman de la Rose de Jean Renart', Romania CI (1980), 35-50. 19. Huot, From Song to Book p. 113, acknowledges her debt to Baumgartner, 'Les Citations lyriques', on this point. 20. Gaston Paris thought that the songs 'ne conviennent guere a celui dans la bouche duquel elles sont mises et n'expriment pas du tout les sentiments qu'il doit avoir', cited Baumgartner, 'Les Citations lyriques' p. 261. Lejeune, L'Oeuvre de Jean Renart p. 148, sees the dance songs as ornamental but the cansos, pp. 148, 150ff., as appropriate to Conrad's 'feelings'. For the romance as a reflection on literary tradition, see Zink, Roman rose, passim; Jung, 'L'Empereur Conrad'; Huot, From Song to Book pp. 108-116.1 am especially indebted to R. L. Krueger, 'Double Jeopardy: The Appropriation of Woman in Four Old French Romances of the Cycle de la Gageure\ in Speaking the Woman in Late Medieval and Renaissance Writing: Essays in Feminist Contextual Criticism ed. S. Fisher and J.E. Halley (Knoxville, Tennessee, 1989), pp. 21-50. 251

Notes to pp. 184-98 21. R.W. Hanning, The Individual in Twelfth-Century Romance (New Haven and London, 1977), Chapter 3. 22. G. Paris, 'Le Cycle de la gageure', Romania XXXII (1903) 481-551; Krueger, 'Double Jeopardy'. 23. Krueger, 'Double Jeopardy'. 24. Cf. Baumgartner, 'Les Citations lyriques' p. 262, Tempereur se substitute au JE du trouvere'. 25 Huot, From Song to Book p. 113:' [Conrad] acquires a lyric voice of his own, enunciates a detailed statement of lyric inspiration (stanza 1) and torment (stanza 2), and thereby brings precisely these torments upon himself. 26. Cf. Lejeune, L'Oeuvre de Jean Renart p.45 n.2. 27. Foulet, glossary s.v. rais, 'mot inconnu, peut-etre altere'. 28. SeeN. J. Lacy, '"Amer par oi'r dire": Guillaume de Dole and the Drama of Language', The French Review LIV (1981), 779-87; H. Rey-Flaud, LeNevrose courtoise (Paris, 1983), p. 89: 'A la place du corps, Le Roman de la Rose met d'abord le nom de la femme comme cause du desir.' 29. On Conrad's Utopian economics as a deliberate inversion by Jean Renart of the pragmatic policies of Philippe-Auguste, see Lejeune, L 'Oeuvre de Jean Renart pp. 63-6. See also Zink, Roman rose pp. 19-22: 'Guillaume ne peut pas a fois s'enrichir dans les tournois, enrichir ses creanciers ..., enrichir ses compagnons en les couvrant de cadeaux magnifiques, et epargner financierement les chevaliers qu'il a vaincus. L'empereur ne peut pas a la fois s'enrichir, enrichir ses sujets et enrichir ses courtisans' (p. 22). 30. Zink, Roman rose, pp. 58ff. 31. Vv.608-9, 981-2, 1031-2, 1079-80, 1179-80, 1231-2, 1607-8, 1635-6, 1865-6, 1893-4, 2017-8, 2483-4, 2551-2, etc. 32. Vv. 832-3, 1400-1, 2985-6, 3093-4, 3547-8, 3717-8, etc. 33. Vv.4633, 4752, 4775, 4789, 4892, 4916, 5026, 5042, 5068, 5088, 5126, 5140, 5182, 5262, 5270, 5277. 34. Cf. Baumgartner, 'Les Citations lyriques' p. 264. 35. Cf. Lejeune, L'Qeuvre de Jean Renart pp. 332ff. 36. On the date (post 1263?) see R. Lejeune's articles, all reprinted in Litterature et societe: 'Flamenca, fille fictive d'un comte de Namur', pp. 341 -53; 'Le Calendrier du Roman de Flamenca9, pp. 355-78; 'Le Tournoi de Bourbon-L'Archambaut dans le Roman de Flamenca\ pp. 379-94, and 'Le Caractere "nordique" de certains details du Roman deFlamenca\ 395-400; seealsoC. Camproux, 'Preface a Flamenca?', Melanges ...P. Imbs (Strasbourg, 1973), pp. 649-62. 37. C. Camproux, 'Preface a FlamencaV\ A. Limentani, 'II poeta di Flamenca e la sua cultura', L 'Fccezione narrativa. La Provenza medievale e Varte del racconto (Turin, 1977), pp. 157-289; P. Damon, 'Courtesy and Comedy in Le Roman de Flamenca\ Romance Philology XVII (1963-4), 608-15; H. Solterer, 'Sermo and Juglar: Language Games in Flamenca', Court and Poet. Selected Proceedings of the Fourth 252

Notes to pp. 198-208 International Conference of the International Courtly Literature Society

38. 39.

40.

41. 42. 43.

(Toronto 1983) ed. G. S. Burgess and R. A. Taylor (Woodbridge, 1985), pp. 330-8; L. T. Topsfield, 'Intention and Ideas inFlamenca', Medium Aevum XXXVI (1967), 119-33. E.g. vv.2038, 2040, 2463, 2495, 2564, 3847, 4725-8, 6805. Flamenca is also enrolled in Amors's escola, v.4766. For R.Dragonetti,LeGaiSavoir dans la rhetoriquecourtoise. Tlamenca' et (Joufroi de Poitiers' (Paris, 1982), / as the initial of the word for 'lord' in Latin, Greek and Hebrew is 'le signe par excellence de la rectitude transcendentale' (p. 103), viewed by Guilhem as a sign of corruption in comparison with a, the initial of Amors. For biblical exegetes, a represents Adam and e Eve; boy children at birth cry 'a', and girls 'e': see Alverny, 'Comment les theologiens voient la femme' p. 113. Could that be a reason for the superiority of al But perhaps Guilhem simply has in mind the conventional order of vowels, which would give a priority over /. The nightingale, vv.2351- 6; amor de lonh vv. 1774ff., Guilhem as estrainzpellegrisw. 2043, his need for a devi vv. 1835-6, mannav.4390, separation of heart and body, vv. 2690-1; pensamen, v. 1877 - 8 , dream vv. 2147-9. Vv.3235ff.; vv.2159-76. See vv.4477, 4827-38, 5569, 6275. A. C. Spearing, Medieval Dream-Poetry (Cambridge, 1976) and H. Braet, Le Songe dans la chanson de geste au XIIe siecle. Romanica Gandesia

XV (Gent, 1975) both survey ancient and medieval dream lore in which the Freudian notion of dream as unconscious desire has little place; but for an interesting account of dream-like desire in a medieval author see J. Ferrante, 'The French Courtly Poet: Marie de France', in Medieval Women Writers ed. K.M. Wilson (Athens, Georgia, 1984), 63-89. 44. E.g. Elias Cairel, XIV, Totz mos cors e mos sens.

253

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Where two or more editions are included, an asterisk indicates the one usually referred to. Items not included in this bibliography are given in the notes and can be located using the index, the three sections of which correspond to the three sections of the bibliography. Editions of troubadours Arnaut Daniel. Canzoni ed. G. Toja (Florence, I960)* Le Canzoni di Arnaut Daniel ed. M. Perugi (Milan and Naples, 1978) Les Poesies d*Arnaut Daniel. Rendition critique d'apres Canello par R. Lavaud (Toulouse, 1910) Les Poesies lyriques du troubadour Arnaut de Mareuil ed. R. C. Johnston (Paris, 1935) Azalais de Porcairagues: ed. de Riquer, Los Trovadores I, p. 460 Bernart Arnaut and Lombarda ed. S. Kay, 'Derivation, Derived Rhyme and the Poetry of the Trobairitz', in The Voice of the Trobairitz. Perspectives on the Women Troubadours ed. W.D. Paden Jr. (Syracuse, 1989), 157-82 // Trovatori Bernart Marti ed. F. Beggiato (Modena, 1984) Bernart von Ventadorn: seine Lieder ed. C. Appel (Halle, 1915) Bernard de Ventadour: chansons d'amour ed. M. Lazar (Paris, 1964)* L 'Amour et la guerre. L 'Oeuvre de Bertran de Born ed. G. Gouiran (Aixen-Provence, 1985) 'The Poems of the Trobairitz Na Castelloza' ed. W.D. Paden Jr et al.y Romance Philology XXXV (1981), 158-82 // Trovatore Cercamon ed. V. Tortoreto (Modena, 1981) Clara d'Anduza: ed. Bee. Burlesque p. 194. 'Les Chansons de la comtesse Beatrix de Dia' ed. G. Kussler-Ratye, Archivum Romanicum I (1917), 161-82. Der Trodabor Elias Cairel ed. H. Jaeschke (Berlin, 1921) L'Qeuvrepoetique de Falquet de Romans, Troubadour Q&. R. Arveiller and G. Gouiran (Aix-en-Provence, 1987) Le Troubadour Folquet de Marseille ed. S. Stronski (Krakow, 1910) Les Poemes de Gaucelm Faidit ed. J. Mouzat (Paris, 1965) 254

Select bibliography Sdmtliche Lieder des Trobadors Giraut de Bornelh ed. A. Kolsen (Halle, 1910 and 1935)* R. V. Sharman, A Critical Edition of the Cansos of the Troubadour Giraut de Borneil (PhD Cambridge, 1980) The Cansos and Sirventes of the Troubadour Guiraut de Borneil: A Critical Edition (Cambridge, 1989). (Unfortunately, Dr Sharman's edition did not appear until after this book was submitted for publication, and consequently only limited reference to it has been possible.) Gui d'Ussel: J. Audiau, Les Poesies des quatre troubadours d'Ussel (Paris, 1922) Les Poesies de Guilhem de Montanhagol ed. P. T. Ricketts (Toronto, 1964) Guilhem de Peitieu: Guglielmo IX d'Aquitania. Poesiet ed. N. Pasero (Modena, 1973) Guilhem de Sant Leidier: Poesies du Troubadour Guillem de Saint-Didier ed. A. Sakari (Helsinki, 1956) Les Chansons de Guilhem de Cabestanh ed. A. Langfors (Paris, 1924) 'Die Lieder des provenzaliscen Dichters Guiraut von Calanso' ed. W. Ernst, Romanische Forschungen XLIV (1930), 255-406 // canzoniere di Jaufre Rudel ed. G. Chiarini (Rome, 1985) // canzoniere di Lanfranco Cigale ed. F. Branciforti (Florence, 1953) Poesies completes du troubadourMarcabru ed. J.-M.-L. Dejeanne (Toulouse, 1909) Peire d'Alvernha. Liriche ed. A. Del Monte (Turin, 1955) Les Poesies de Peire Bremon Ricas Novas ed. J. Boutiere (Paris, 1930) The Poems of the Troubadour Peire Rogier ed. D. E. T. Nicholson (Manchester, 1976) Peire Vidal. Poesie ed. D.S. Avalle (Milan, 1960) Peirol, Troubadour of Auvergne ed. S.C. Aston (Cambridge, 1953) The Life and Works of the Troubadour Raimbaut d"Orange ed. W.T. Pattison (Minneapolis etc., 1952) The Poems of the Troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras ed. J. Linskill (The Hague, 1964) Les Poesies du troubadour Raimon de Miraval ed. L. T. Topsfield (Paris, 1971)* The Cansos of Raimon de Miraval. A Study of Poems and Melodies ed. M.L. Switten (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985) Rosin and domna H: Nelli, Ecrivains anticonformistes p. 262 Poesies de Uc de Saint-Circ ed. A. Jeanroy and J.-J. Salverda de Grave (Toulouse, 1913) Editions of romances Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose ed. D. Poirion (Paris, 1974) Jean Renart, Le Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole ed. L. Foulet, Classiques Francais du Moyen Age (Paris, 1969) 255

Select bibliography Flamenca: Les Troubadours. Jaufre, Flamenca, Barlaam et Josaphat ed. R. Lavaud and R. Nelli (Paris, 1966)* Le Roman de Flamenca. Novelle Occitane du 13e siecle ed. U. Gschwind (Bern, 1976) Secondary literature Bee, P., Burlesque et obscenite chez les troubadours. Le contre-texte au Moyen Age (Paris, 1984) Bloch, R. H., Medieval French Literature and Law (Berkeley and London, 1977) Gaunt, S.B., Troubadours and Irony (Cambridge, 1989) Gruber, J., Die Dialektik des Trobar (Tubingen, 1983) Hult, D., Self-fulfilling Prophecies. Readership and Authority in the First 'Roman de la Rose* (Cambridge, 1986) Huot, S., From Song to Book. The Poetics of Writing in Old French Lyric and Lyrical Narrative Poetry (Ithaca and London, 1987) Jauss, H. R., 'La Transformation de la forme allegorique entre 1180 et 1240: d'Alain de Lille a Guillaume de Lords', in L 'Humanisme medieval dans les litteratures romanes du xif au xiv* siecle, ed. A. Fourrier (Paris, 1964), pp. 107-44. Jeanroy, A., La Poesie lyrique des troubadours (Toulouse and Paris, 1934) Jung, M.R., Etudes sur le poeme allegorique en France au Moyen Age (Bern, 1971) Kaehne, M., Studien zur Dichtung Bernarts von Ventadorn. Ein Beitrag zur Untersuchung der Entstehung und zur Interpretation der hofischen Lyrik des Mittelalters (Munich, 1983) Kasten, l.,Frauendienst bei Trobadors und Minnesdngern im 12. Jahrhundert. Zur Entwicklung und Adaption eines literarischen Konzepts (Heidelberg, 1986) Kay, S., 'Rhetoric and Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry', in The Troubadours and the Epic ed. Paterson and Gaunt, pp. 122-42. Kohler, E., Trobadorlyrik und hofischer Roman (Berlin, 1962) 'Observations historiques et sociologiques sur la poesie des troubadours', Cahiers de Civilisation Medievale VII (1964), 27-51. 'Les Troubadours et la jalousie', in Melanges... J. Frappier (Geneva, 1970), pp. 543-59. Lejeune, R., Litterature et Societe Occitane au moyen age (Liege, 1980) Leube-Fey, C , Bild und Funktion der dompna in der Lyrik der Trobadors. Studia Romanica XXI (Heidelberg, 1971) Meneghetti, M.L., // Pubblico dei Trovatori. Ricezione e riuso dei testi lirici cortesi fino al XIV secolo (Modena, 1984) Mittelalterstudien Erich Kohler zum Gedenken, ed. H. Krauss and D. Rieger (Heidelberg, 1984) Nelli, R., Ecrivains anticonformistes du moyen-dge occitan: la Femme et I'Amour (Paris, 1977) 256

Select bibliography Neumeister, S., Das Spiel mit der hofischen Liebe (Munich, 1969) Ourliac, P., Troubadours et juristes', Cahiers de Civilisation Medievale VIII (1965), 159-77 Paden, W.D., Jr, 'Utrum copularentur: of cors\ L'Esprit Createur XIX (1979), 70-83 Paterson, L.M., Troubadours and Eloquence (Oxford, 1975) Regan, M. S., Love Words. The Self and the Text in Medieval and Renaissance Poetry (Cornell, 1982) Riquer, M. de, Los Trovadores. Historia literariay textos (Barcelona, 1975) Sakariy A., 'Azalais de Porcairagues, le Joglar de Raimbaut d'Aurenga', Neuphilologische Mitteilungen L (1949), 23-43, 56-87, 174-98. Stock, B., The Implications of Literacy. Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, 1983) Studia Occitanica in memoriam Paul Remy I, ed. Hans Erich Keller et al. (Michigan, 1986) Topsfield, L.T., Troubadours and Love (Cambridge, 1975) The Troubadours and the Epic. Essays in Memory of W. Mary Hackett, ed. L.M. Paterson and S.B. Gaunt (Warwick, 1987) Zink, M., Roman rose et rose rouge. Le Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole de Jean Renart (Paris, 1979) La Subjectivity litteraire au moyen age (Paris, 1985) Zumthor, P., Essai de poetique medievale (Paris, 1972) Langue, texte, enigme (Paris, 1975) Introduction a la poesie orale (Paris, 1983)

257

INDEX

Troubadours cited Graphies are those of de Riquer, Los Trovadores> from whom dates of known activity are also taken, except those marked [ed.] (which are taken from editors or commentators of the song in question), and those marked [BS] (which are taken from J. Boutiere and A.-H. Schutz, Biographies des troubadours (Paris, 1964)). Songs are accompanied by their number in A. Pillet and H. Carstens, Bibliographic der Troubadours (Halle, 1933). Arnaut Daniel (... 1180-95 ...) 68, 124, 141, 146, 226 n. 43 V Lanquan vei (29.12) 54-5, 58 VII Anc ieu non Vaic (29.2) 226 n. 43 IX L'aur' amara (29.13) 226 n. 43 X En cestsonet (29.10) 10-16, 97, 114, 136, 226 n. 42 XII Doutz brais e critz (29.8) 8, 91 XIII Er vei vermeills (29.4) 114 XIV Amors e iois (29.1) 10-16, 221 n. 3 XV Sols sui qui sai (29.18) 141-4, 164, 226 n. 43, 229 n. 17 XVI Ans que.lcim (29.3) 37-43, 66, 219 n. 33, 233 n. 40 XVIII Loferm voler (29.14) 221 n. 3 Arnaut de Maruelh (... 1195 ...) 249 nn. 45, 46 IV Usjois d'amor (30.26) 55 VIII Si cum lipeis (30.22) 59 XI Sesjoi non es valors (30.21) 59 XII L'ensenhamens (30.17) 21-3, 224 n. 26 XV Anc vas amor (30.8) 221-2 n. 10 XVI Belhs myes (30.9) 221-2 n. 10 XX En mon cor ai (30.12) 164 XXI A gran honor viu (30.1) 62-3 XXIII Franques' e noirimens (30.13) 229 n. 20 ensenhamen Razos es e mezura 243 n. 79 Azalais de Porcairagues (... 1173 ...), Ar em alfreg temps vengut (43.1) 104-7

Bernart Arnaut d'Armagnac (... 1206... [BS]), [L]ombards volgr' eu es[s]er (54.1 = 288.1)46, 103 Bernart Marti (mid 12th c ) , I A mar dei (63.1)221 n. 6 IV Companho, per companhia (63.5) 222-3 n. 17 IX Lancan lo douz temps (104.2) 223 n. 19 Bernart de Ventadorn (... 1147-70 ...) 7, 8, 10, 123, 146, 217 n. 22, 230 n. 26, 233 n. 40 I Non es meravelha (70.31) 22-3, 115, 238 n. 31 II Chantars no pot (70.15) 89, 96 IV Tant ai mo cor (70.44) 45, 97, 167 IX Be m'anperdut (70.12) 223 n. 20 X Pel doutz chan (70.33) 139-40 XVII Lo gens terns (70.28) 91, 136 XX Can Verbafrescha (70.39) 24-6 XXIV Can par laflors (70.41) 177 XXV Era.m cosselhatz (70.6) 134 XXVI Can lafreid'aura (70.37) 45,97 XXVIII Amies Bernartz (70.2) 90 XXX Estat ai (70.19) 27-31 XXXI Can vei la lauzeta (70.43) 40, 88, 167, 187, 217 n. 23, 218 n. 29 XXXVII Gent estera (70.20) 116-19, 120, 124, 127 XXXVIII Lancan vei lafolha (70.25) 66, 135 XL En cossirier (70.17) 133-4 Bertran de Born (... 1159-97, d. 1215) 111 I Rassa, tan creis 89-90

258

Index Carenza and n'Alaisina Iselda (end 13th c. [ed.]), Na Carenza (108.1 = 12.1) 239 n. 39 Castelloza (first half 13th c ) , I Amies, s'ieu.us trobes (109.1) 107, 108 II Ja de chantar (109.2) 103, 108, 110 III Mout aurezfag (109.3) 107, 108, 109, 128 IV Perjoi que d'amor (461.191) 128 Cercamon (... 1137-49 ...) 8, 138, 146 VI Puois nostre temps (115.1) 52-3, 55 Clara d'Anduza (first half 13th c. [ed.]), En greu esmai (115.1) 107, 110 Comtessa de Dia (late 12th - early

XX D'un dote bellplaser (167.21) 72-7, 230 n. 27, 232 nn. 33, 34, 233 n. 35 XXI Ar es lo montc (167.10) 230 n. 27 XXXII Tot so qe.ispert (167.61) 230 n. 27, 231 n. 31 XXXIV Solatz e chantar (167.55) 135 XLI 5/ anc nuills horn (167.52) 94-5, 156 XLII Lo gens cors honratz (167.32) 88, 156-7 XLVI Mout a poignat Amors (167.39) 157-60 Giraut de Bornelh (... 1162-99 ...) 124, 221 n. 3, 230-1 n. 27, 231 n. 28 I Er' ai gran joi (242.13) 91 - 2 , 96 II Ai las, com mor (242.3) 77-80, 208, 230-1 n. 27, 231 n. 28 V S'era nopoia (242.66) 230 n. 27 VlAmars, onrars (242.8) 121-2 XVII Razon e luec (242.63) 220 n. 37 XXI Mas, com m'ave (242.43) 230 n. 27, 233 n. 36 XXVI Laflors del verjan (242.42) 162-3 XXX Er' auziretz (242.17) 219 n. 32 XXXI Ab semblan (242.2) 147-50 XLII Los aplechs (242.47) 120 L Be for' oimais drech (242.19)

13th c), I Abjoi et abjoven

(46.1) 107-8, 109 II A chantar m'er (46.2) 103-4, 110, 127-8 IV Estatai (46.4)103, 109 Daude de Pradas (... 1214-82 ...), Amors m'envida (124.2) 234 n. 4 Elias Cairel (... 1204-22 ...), VII N'Elias Cairel, de Vamor (133.7 = 252.1)98, 102 XIV Totz mos cors e mos sens (133.14)233 n. 39, 253 n. 44 Falquet de Romans (... 1215-33 ...), VII Qan cuit chantar (156.11) 119-20 Folquet de Marselha (... 1178-95, d. 1231) 124, 146, 247 n. 19 VIII Mout ifetz gran pechat (155.14) 54 IX Amors, merce! (155.1) 137-8 XII PerDieu, Amors (155.16) 129 XIII Greufera nuls horn (155.10) 122-3 Garin lo Brun (d. 1156 [BS]), Nueyt eiorn (163.1) 229 n. 18 Garsenda(... 1193-1225 ... [BS]) and anon., Vos qe. m semblatz (187.1 = 461.59)103, 239 n. 41 Gaucelm Faidit (... 1172-1203 ...) 7, 230 n. 27, 233 n. 36, 156 XVII Mon cor e mi (167.37) 66, 137, 248 n. 29 XIX D'un amor on s'es asis (167.20a) 232 nn. 32, 34, 233 n. 35

141-2

LVII Si.us quer conselh (242.69 = 12a. 1) 102, 219 n. 32, 239 n. 40 LVIII Era.m platz (242.14 = 389.10a) 136, 246 n. 11 LXVII Tals gen prezicha (242.77) 220 n. 38 Grimoart (3rd quarter of 12th c.)» Lanquan lo temps (190.1) 223 n. 19 Gui d'Ussel (... 1195-6...), I Benfeira chanzos (194.3) 250 n. 52 XV Gui d'Ussel, be.mpesa (194.9 = 295.1)78, 102, 239 n. 40 Guilhem de Montanhagol (... 1233— 68 ...), VIII Non an tan dig (225.7) 169-70 Guilhem de Peitieu (1071-1126) 8 II Compaigno, non puosc mudar (183.4) 238 n. 30 IV Farai un vers (183.7) 8, 155-6, 249 n. 38 VII Pos vezem (183.11) 45, 90

259

Index VIII Farai chansoneta nueva (183.6) 114 X Ab la dolchor (183.1) 97, 249 n. 50 Guilhem de Sant Leidier (... 116595 ...) 104-6, 240 n. 50 III Ben chantera (234.4) 104, 144-5 V Compaignon, abjoi (234.6) 90 VIII Estat aurai (234.11) 121-2, 136-7 IX En Guillem de Saint Deslier (234.12) 228 n. 8 Guillem de Cabestany (... 1212 . . . ) , V Lo dous cossire (213.5) 58 VII Mout m'alegra (213.7) 23, 134 IX Alplus leu (213.7a) 115 Guiraut de Calanson (... 1202-12 ...), I Los grieus dezirs (243.3) 227 n. 50 VII Celeis cui am (243.2) 90, 228 n.7 Izarn and Rofian (late 13th c. [ed.]), Vos, que amatz (255.1 = 425.1) 217 n. 24 Jaufre Rudel (... 1125-48 ...) 8, 10, 217 n. 24 I Non sap chantar (262.3) 8 II Pro ai del chan (262.4) 62 IV Lanquan lijorn (262.2) 45, 96, 97, 223 n. 19, 225-6 n. 39 Jofre de Foixa (... 1267-95 ...), Be m'a lone temps menat (304.1) 217 n. 24 Lanfranc Cigala (... 1267-95 ...), Ill Non sai si.m chant (282.16) 55-6 IV Un avinen ris 6 3 - 4 VII Quant en bon luec (282.19) 56-7 X Entre mon cor e me (282.4) 65-6, 68 XII Escurprim chantar (282.5) 86-7 XVI Na Guillelma (282.14 = 200.1) 102, 239 n. 40 Lombarda, see Bernart Arnaut d'Armagnac Marcabru (...1130-49...) 7, 8, 138, 146, 217 n. 24, 221 n. 3, 229 n. 16, 246 n. 16, 248 n. 25 I A lafontana (293.1) 18-20 III Al departir (293.3) 229 n. 16 VI Amic(s) Marchabrun (293.6) 88, 235 n. 10 XI Bel m'es quan la rana (293.11)

XIV Contra I'ivern (293.14) 99-101, 248 n. 31 XVI D'aisso laus Dieu (293.16) 237 n. 26, 249 n. 50 XXIII Emperaire per vostre prez (293.23) 221 n. 4 XXIV En abriu (293.24) 221 n. 8 XXVIII Lanquan fuelhon (293.28) 27-31 XXXIX Pois I'inverns d'ogan (293.39) 54 XLIV Soudadier, per cui (293.44) 129-30, 237 n. 27 Maria de Ventadorn, see Gui d'Ussel Montan and anon, (mid 13th c. [ed.]), Eu veing vas vos (306.2) 103, 239 n. 42 Peire d'Alvernha (...1149-68...), IV Chantarai pus vey (324.12) 167 XI Sobre.l vieill trobar (324.25) 167-9 XIV Belh m 'es qui a son bon sen (323.8) 221 n. 4 Peire Bremon Ricas Novas (... 123041...), IV Us covinens gent Us cors (330.21) 227 n. 50 VII Be volgra de totz chantadors (330.5) 165-7 XVII Tantfort m'agrat (330.18) 248 n. 25 Peire Cardenal (... 1205-72...), XIII A totaspartz (335.8) 241 n. 64 Peire Rogier (3rd quarter of 12th c.) 153-4, 240 n. 50 III Per far esbaudir (356.6) 154-6 IV Non sai don chant (356.5) 69-70, 81-3, 230 n. 27 V Tant ai mon cor (356.9) 7 0 - 1 , 230 n. 27 VI Ges nonpuesc (356.4) 64, 207-8, 230 n. 27, 249 n. 37 VII Entr' ir' e ioy (356.3) 59-62, 70, 230 n. 27, 233 n. 36 Peire Vidal (...1183-1204...) 9, 124, 146, 217 n. 28, 218 n. 31, 246 n.7 IX Estat ai (364.21) 88, 223 n. 22 XIX Per meils sofrir (364.33) 246 n.7 XX AbValen (364.1) 4 3 - 8 XXIV Baron, de mon dan (364.7) 144 XXVII Atressi co.lperilhans (364.6) 31, 167, 249 n. 49 XXXI Ges pel temps fer (364.24) 63

260

Index XLI S'eufos en cort (364.42) 136 XLII Quant horn honratz (364.40) 146 XLIV Emperador avem (285.1) 146 Peirol(... 1188-1222...) 7 XXI Pos entremes me suy (366.27a)

67,68

XXXI Quant Amors trobet (366.29) 233 n. 40 Pistoleta (... 1205-28...), X Bona domna (372.4) 102, 239 n. 40 Raimbaut d'Aurenga (... 1147-73) 102, 104-6, 136, 230 n. 27, 233 nn. 36, 38, 240 nn. 49, 50 I Cars, douz (389.22) 226-7 n. 47 IV Apres mon vers (389.10) 230 n. 27 V Un versfarai (389.41) 243 n. 79 VI Peire Rogier (389.34) 230 n. 27 VIII Braiz, charts (389.21) 8, 230 n. 27 X Ar vei bru (392.5) 219 n. 34 XIV Ara non siscla (389.12) 239 n. 48 XV Entregel (389.27) 105-6, 137 XVI Pos trobarsplans (389.37) 10, 230 n. 27, 231 n. 31 XVII Assatz m'es belh (389.17) 10, 230 n. 27, 243 n. 79 XVIII Aissi mou (389.3) 10, 219 n. 34 XIX Amors, com er? (389.8) 230 n. 27 XX Assatz sai d'amor (389.18) 92-3 XXII Ben sai c'a sels (389.19) 91, 105-6, 114, 233 n. 35 XXIV Escotatz (389.28) 249 n. 38 XXV Amies, en gran cossirier (389.6) 97, 102 XXVIII Lone temps ai estat (389.31) 221 n. 5 Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (... 1180— 1205...), 124, 146 III Domna, tant vos ai (392.7) 103

V D'amor no.m lau (392.10) 226 n. 41 VII Leu pot horn gauch (392.23) 98 XXII No m'agrad' iverns (392.24) 150-3 Epic Letter I 241 n. 61 Raimon de Miraval (...1191-1229...) 9, 123, 124, 146, 218 n. 28, 238 n. 31 VI A penas sai (406.7) 20-3 VIII Chansoneta farai (406.21) 98-9, 223 n. 23 IX Dels quatre mestiers valens (406.25) 87 XIV S'ieu en chantar soven (406.38) 223 n. 23 XXII Chans, quan non es (406.22) 17 XXXV Aissi cum es genser pascors (406.2) 32-6 XXVIII Selh, cuijoys tanh (406.18) 124-7 Rosin and domna H (13th c. [ed.]), Rosin, digatz m 'ades de cors (249a. 1 = 426.1)99, 103 Uc de Sant Circ (... 1217-53...) 9, 67, 217-18 n. 28 I Anc enemies q'ieu agues (457.3) 67 IX Mains greus durs pessamens (457.20) 87-8 XIII Befai grandafolor (457.7) 223 n. 23 XXV De vos me suipartitz (457.10) 223 n. 23 Anonymous songs Gauselm, no.m puesc (70.32 = 366.23) (13th c , before 1254 [ed.])7 No.m pose mudar (404.5) 239 n. 39 Peirol, cum avetz (52.3 = 165.2) (13th c , before 1254 [ed.]) 7 Domna, si.mfos (409.5) 103, 239 n. 41

Medieval Alain of Lille 228 n. 5 Andreas Capellanus 243 n. 4, 235 n. 11, 237 n. 27, 238 n. 33 Aucassin et Nicolete 236 n. 15 Aquinas 8, 226 n. 45 Augustine 50

sources

Canso de la Crozada 240 n. 57, 242 n. 70

Elucidarium 231 n. 31

Chretien de Troyes, Yvain 40, 42, Lancelot 40, 225 n. 37 Doctrina d'acort 233-4 n. 4 Donatz proensals of Uc Faidit 233-4 n. 4

261

Index Flamenco 198-211, 236 n. 15, 238 n. 45 Jean Renart 250 n. 7; see also Guillaume de Dole Geoffrey of Vinsauf 20-1, 222 n. 11, 226 n. 45; see also rhetoricians Leys d'Amors, Las 233-4 n. 4 Girart de Roussillon 46 Guillaume de Dole 183-98 Razos de Trobar 233-4 n. 4 Guillaume de Lords, see Roman de la Regies de trobar 233-4 n. 4 Rose rhetoricians 220-1 n. 2 Roman de la Rose 52, 57, 58, 171-83, Isidore of Seville 92 227 n. l,228n. 5, 229 n. 17,235 Jean de Meun, see Roman de la Rose n. 9 Modern criticism and critical terms

Adams, J.N. 245 n. 93 Alverny, M.-T. 235 n. 9, 236 n. 17, 253 n. 39 androgyny 92, 94, 97 Appel, C. 24-6 audience 22, 23, 47, 74, 132-70, 198-211 autobiographical assumption 2-3,4, 5-16 autobiography 4, 145-61, 172, 200-3 Avalle, D.S. 245 n. 3, 248 n. 29 Baumgartner, E. 251 nn. 18, 19, 20, 252 nn. 24, 34 Bee, P. 215 n. 8, 218 n. 29, 239 n. 45, 240 n. 56 Bloch, M . 123, 236 n. 19, 244 n. 83 Bloch, R.H. 123, 136, 238 n. 37, 244 nn. 83, 84, 245 n. 4 body 63-4, 94, 108-9, 132-8, 170, 173, 175-6,211 Bogin, M. 85, 233 n. 1, 236 n. 19, 238 n. 33 Bonassie, P. 241 n. 67, 242 n. 70 Braet, H. 253 n. 43 Brett, E.M.K. 241 n. 64, 244 n. 82 Brogyanyi, G. 220 n. 40 Bruckner, M.T. 239 n. 45, 240 n. 53 Burns, E.J. 233 n. 3, 237 n. 23 Bynum, C.W. 216 n. 13 Camproux, C. 252 nn. 36, 37 catachresis 17, 37, 42, 227 n. 51 Cerqueligni, J. 250 n. 2 Chambers, F.M. 247-8 n. 24, 248 nn. 25, 27 characterization: the subject as hero 47, 49; as romance hero 40-1; as epic hero 41, 226 n. 41; as a narrative character 147, 183-97; the performer as character rather than persona 138-45; allegorical

personifications as characters 57-62, 172-4 Clanchy, M.T. 135, 246 nn. 8, 9, 13, 247 n. 23 Cocito, L. 231 n. 29 collective 3, 49, 50-2, 53, 62, 77, 84, 119, 128-31, 161-70, 173, 203-10; see also individual, subject and social control Cornelius, R. 228 n. 6 Crescini, V. 25-6, 222 nn. 13, 14, 16 Cropp, G.M. 234 n. 5, 236 n. 18, 237 n. 23 Culler, J. 235 n. 6 Curtius, E.R. 216 n. 20, 249 n. 47 Damon, F. 252 n. 37 Derouet-Besson, M.-C. 237 n. 23 Derrida, J. 134, 235 n. 6, 246 n. 5 dialectic 8-9, 10; and dialogue 69-83; of desire 96-7; historical 128-31; see also intertextuality domna: as supplementary third gender 86, 91—101; as subject position in female-authored poems 102-9; in relation to female patronage 153-61; romance heroine as, 205-7; see also androgyny, femininity, gender Dragonetti, R. 208-9, 215 n. 8, 216 n. 9, 227 n. 48, 253 n. 39 Dronke, P. 216 n. 20, 221 n. 9, 226 n. 45, 239 n. 45, 240 nn. 53, 54, 56, 245 n. 94 Duby, G. 242 n. 67, 244 n. 86 Encomou, G. 237 n. 22 Evans, D. 100, 238 nn. 35, 36 femininity 86-97, 187-91; and performance 153-61; see also domna, gender

262

Index Fossier, R. 236 n. 19 Foucault, M., 2, 215 n. 4 Frank, I. 217 n. 24

Gruber, Meneghetti Irigaray, L. 2, 215 n. 3 irony 17, 18-20, 26-37, 6 6 - 8 , 9 2 - 3 , 102, 132, 139, 145, 160, 199-211, 233 n. 39; see also hyperbole, intertextuality

Gaunt, S.B. 18, 217 n. 27, 220 n. 1, 221 nn. 3, 4, 5, 6, 223 n. 18, 224 n. 27, 231 n. 28, 233 n. 38, 235 n. 14, 237 n. 26, 238-9 n. 38, 239 n. 43, 242 n. 72 Gegou, F. 251 n. 18 gender 2, 4, 6 3 - 4 , 84-111, 173, 177-9, 183-91; as a three-term system 86-93, 187-91; in female-authored texts 101-11; in medieval grammarians 86, 233-4 n. 4; see also androgyny, domna, masculinity Glasser, R. 227-8 n. 1, 229 n. 10 Goldin, F. 227 n. 50 Gouiran, G. 89, 235 n. 13 Griffiths, L. 229 n. 11 Gruber, J. 8 - 9 , 10, 106, 146, 216 n. 21, 217 nn. 25, 26, 223 n. 19, 230-1 n. 27, 249 n. 48 Guiette, R. 215 n. 8, 216 n. 18

Jackson, W.T.H. 246 n. 14 Jauss, H.R. 228 nn. 2, 5, 9 Jeanroy, A. 2, 85, 215 n. 7, 222-3 n. 17, 228 n. 2, 246 n. 6 Jernigan, C. 221 n. 3 Jung, M.R. 227-8 n. 1, 228 n. 7, 229 n. 10, 233 n. 40, 250 n. 7, 251 nn. 13, 18, 19

Hackett, W.M. 234-5 n. 5 Halphen, L. 241 n. 63 Hanning, R.W. 184, 252 n. 21 Harvey, R.E. 234-5 n. 5, 235 nn. 10, 11, 236 n. 21, 237 n. 27, 242 n. 72, 246 n. 16 Hatcher, A. G. 221 n. 7 Heinemann, S. 227-8 n. 1, 229 n. 10 Hoepffner, E. 2, 215 n. 6, 217 n. 28 Huchet, J.-C. 237 n. 24, 239 n. 45 Hult, D. 174, 175, 182, 228 nn. 5, 9, 250 nn. 1, 3, 5, 11, 251 n. 14 Huot, S. 183, 250 n. 3, 251 nn. 19, 20, 252 n. 25 hyperbole 17, 2 0 - 6 , 6 6 - 8 , 139, 145, 165-7; and irony 21, 23, 26 individual 3, 5; and allegory 52-7, 68, 172-3; and desire 76-7, 79-83; and competition 115-27, 128-31; individual identity as masculine 68, 102; see also collective ineffability 141-4, 162, 164-5, 226 n. 43 intertextuality 2, 3, 105-6, 149, 155-6, 171, 183, 198-200, 203-9, 248n.; and autobiography 1, 5-16; and irony 9-20, 26-36; see also subject and language, mimesis,

Kaehne, M. 10, 25, 217 n. 23, 222 nn. 12, 15, 16, 223 n. 20, 235 n. 12, 242-3 n. 74, 243 nn. 76, 77, 78, 250 n. 53 Kasten, I. 236 n. 19, 241 n. 58, 247 n. 20, 249 n. 36 Kay, S. 215 n. 5, 216 n. 19, 226 n. 43, 227 nn. 49, 51, 239 n. 44, 247 n. 18 Kendrick, L. 132-8, 245 nn. 1, 4 Kohler, E. 4 0 - 1 , 46, 49, 84, 112-31, 216 n. 11, 225 n. 38, 225-6 n. 39, 227 n. 51, 241 nn. 59, 64, 65, 66, 242 n. 69, 243 n. 75, 245 n. 95, 248 n. 32 Kolsen, A. 233 n. 38, 248 n. 30 Kristeva, J. 2, 215 n. 2 Krueger, R.L. 251 n. 20, 252 nn. 22, 23 Lacan, J. 2, 215 n. 1 Lacy, N. 252 n. 28 lauzengeor 31, 89, 128-31, 144-5, 162-3, 183, 185-6; and femininity 131, 157 Lazar, M. 24 Lejeune, R. 218 n. 31, 224 n. 29, 234-5 n. 5, 249 n. 48, 251 nn. 17,

20, 252 nn. 26, 29, 35, 36 Leube-Fey, C. 222-3 n. 17, 233 n. 3, 236 n. 22

Lewis, A. R. 242 n. 70 Liebertz-Grun, U. 113, 242 n. 68 Limentani, A. 252 n. 37 Linskill, J. 150-3 Mancini, M. 242-3 n. 74 Mann, J. 223 n. 21 Marchello-Nizia, C. 236 n. 16

263

Index Marshall, J.H. 7, 217 n. 22, 218-19 n. 32, 231-2 n. 32, 240 n. 54 masculinity 89-91, 102, 119-27, 128-31, 186-7, 189-90; and patronage 147-53; and senhals 147; see also gender, androgyny May, G. 216 n. 14 Menard, P. 230 n. 26 Meneghetti, M.L. 8, 9, 146, 165, 217 n. 25, 223 n. 19, 239 n. 48 metaphor 37-49; feudal metaphor 40-1, 101, 115-19, and financial metaphor 121-7; legal 135-6; psychomachia as 51, 52, 54, 55, 67, 72; spatial 51, 54-7, 181-2; metaphors of territory 45-7, 195-6; of wealth 191-4; metaphor of writing 134; and intertextuality 10-16; and metonymy 40-1, 189-91 metonymy 17, 37, 39, 40-1, 189-91 mimesis 20-4, 26, 26-37, 43, 49-50, 53-62,70-1, 119-27, 147-61 Monson, D. 218 n. 31, 247 n. 18 Morris, C. 216 n. 13 Muscatine, C. 228 n. 9, 230 n. 21

Pagani, W. 221 n. 7 Page, C. 136, 246 n. 12 Paris, G. 251-2 n. 20, 252 n. 22 Pasero, N. 217 n. 27 Paterson, L.M. 162, 168, 216 n. 12, 226 n. 43, 226-7 n. 47, 238 n. 34, 240 n. 57, 242 nn. 70, 73, 247 n. 22, 249 nn. 44, 47, 50 Pattison, W.T. 237 n. 25 persona 18, 19, 99, 138-45, 161; see also characterization Perugi, M. 66, 218-19 n. 32, 219-20 n. 36, 224 nn. 28, 30, 31,224-5 n. 32, 225 n. 35, 229 n. 14, 230 n. 25 Peters, U. 113, 241-2 n. 67 Pirot, F. 221 n. 7, 241 n. 66 Poly, J.-P. 242 n. 70 Poirion, D. 250 nn. 4, 6, 11, 251 n. 15 Press, A. R. 242 n. 71 rank 106, and status 111-15, 191-4 Regan, M.S. 221 n. 3, 227 n. 51, 230 n. 24, 247 n. 18 Rey-Flaud, H. 252 n. 28 Rieger, A. 233 n. 2, 247 n. 21 Rieger, D. 245 nn. 3, 4 Riquer, M. de 44, 226 n. 46, 245 n. 3, 248 n. 30 Robertson, D. W. Jr 221 nn. 7, 8, 229 n. 16

narrative 4, 9-10, 171-211 passim; narratives of two women 26-37; allegorical narrative 57-62; see also characterization Nelli, R. 234 n. 4, 238 n. 32 Neumeister, S. 217 n. 24, 238 n. 32 Nichols, S.G. Jr 24, 222 n. 13, 225 n. 36, 229 n. 10 nominalism and realism in allegory 52, in money 123-4 object (subject and) 31, 63-4, 174-9, 196-8, 213; of desire 96-101; in female-authored poetry 109-11; objective vs. subjective allegory 51-5; history as objective vs. desire as subjective 147-53; see also other, self other 55-6, 59-62, 63-4, 94-5, 174-9; lauzengeor as other, 131, 141; see also self Ourliac, P. 224 n. 29, 242 n. 70, 242-3 n. 74, 246 n. 9 Paden, W.D. Jr 101, 108, 230 n. 22, 234-5 n. 5, 236 n. 22, 240 nn. 53, 54, 56, 241 n. 60, 245 n. 94, 246 n. 15

Saiz, P. 246 n. 14 Sakari, A. 104-6, 226-7 n. 47, 239 nn. 46, 47, 240 n. 49, 241 n. 62, 243 n. 80 Sankovitch, T. 226 n. 46 Scheludko, D. 51, 228 n. 6 Schulze-Balsacker, E. 217 n. 24 Schutz, A.-H. 240 n. 57, 241 n. 58, 244 nn. 81, 87 Sedgwick, E.K. 236 n. 16 self 23, 50-80; fragmented 59-62, 66-8; and subject 50, 60-1, 65-9, 84, 213; and other 52-7, 59, 63-4, 174-9, 213; and other in relation to gender 91, 94-5; see also characterization, other, subject Shahar, S. 236 n. 20, 238 n. 33 Sharman, R. V. 248 n. 30, 249 n. 44 Shapiro, M. 239 n. 45, 243-4 n. 81 signature 146, 154, 247 n. 23, 247-8 n. 24 sincerity 139-41, 165-7, 200-3

264

Index Solterer, H. 252-3 n. 37 Spearing, A. C. 253 n. 43 status 119-28; see also rank Stevens, J. 246 n. 12 Stock, B. 133, 228 n. 5, 246 nn. 8, 9 Storme, J.A. 230-1 n. 27 Stronski, S. 247 n. 19, 248 nn. 26, 28, 30 subject 1-2; subject to vs. subject of 2, 4 2 - 3 , 61, 76-80, 167, 203-7, 212; split 2, 1 9 - 2 0 , 3 7 , 5 0 - 8 3 passim; and social control 76-7, 81-3; and language 2, hyperbolic language 26, ironic language 37, figurative language 3 8 - 9 , 48, referential language \1—49 passim; and desire 76-7, 8 1 - 3 ; and change 57-62, 6 5 - 6 , 74-7, 150-3, 174-5; and presence 132-70; as arbitrator 19-20, 37, 6 0 - 2 , 6 5 - 6 , 203, 213; as self, see self; as character, see characterization; female subjectivity 2, 101 -111; see also collective, domna, gender, individual, masculinity, object, other Suchier, H. 231 n. 29 supplement 86, 134-8, 235 n. 6, 237 n. 23

Sutherland, D.R. 246 n. 15 Switten, M. 126, 237 n. 29, 238 n. 31, 244 n. 88, 245 n. 91 Thiolier-Mejean, S. 216 n. 19 Todorov, T. 226 n. 45 Toja, A. 39, 218-19 n. 32, 224 nn. 28, 31, 224-5 n. 32, 225 nn. 34,35, 226 n. 42, 229 nn. 13,14, 230 n. 25 Topsfield, L.T. 98, 126, 127, 216 n. 12, 223 n. 24, 229 n. 16, 237 nn. 27, 29, 244 n. 88, 245 nn. 91,92, 250 n. 3, 251 n. 16, 252-3 n. 37 trobairitz 101-11, 127-8, 145-6 Tuve, R. 228 n. 4 Vance, E. 243-4 n. 81, 244 n. 82 Vitz, E. B. 216 n. 16 Vossler, K. 25, 222 n. 15, 233 n. 3 Walther, H. 228 n. 3 Zink, M. 3 - 4 , 185, 216 n. 15, 226 n. 40, 247 n. 18, 249 n. 43, 251 nn. 12, 17, 20, 252 nn. 29, 30 Zumthor, P. 3, 5-16, 133-8, 161, 167, 216 nn. 10, 14, 17, 18, 19,21, 218 n. 29, 220 n. 41,227 n. 51, 245 n. 2, 246 n. 5

265

Cambridge Studies in French General editor: MALCOLM BOWIE Also in the series J. M. COCKING

Proust: Collected Essays on the Writer and his Art

LEO BERSANI MARIAN HOBSON

The Death of Stephane Mallarme

The Object of Art: The Theory of Illusion in EighteenthCentury France

LEO SPITZER Essays on Seventeenth-Century French Literature, translated and edited by David Bellos NORMAN BRYSON

Tradition and Desire: From David to Delacroix

ANN MOSS Poetry and Fable: Studies in Mythological Narrative in SixteenthCentury France RHIANNON GOLDTHORPE Sartre: Literature and Theory DIANA KNIGHT ANDREW MARTIN

Flaubert's Characters: The Language of Illusion

The Knowledge of Ignorance: From Genesis to Jules Verne

GEOFFREY BENNINGTON Sententiousness and the Novel: Laying Down the Law in Eighteenth-Century French Fiction PENNY FLORENCE

Mallarme, Manet and Redon: Visual and Aural Signs and the Generation of Meaning

CHRISTOPHER PRENDERGAST The Order of Mimesis: Balzac, Stendhal, Nerval, and Flaubert NAOMI SEGAL

The Unintended Reader: Feminism and Manon Lescaut

CLIVE SCOTT A Question of Syllables: Essays in Nineteenth-Century French Verse STIRLING HAIG Flaubert and the Gift of Speech: Dialogue and Discourse in Four 'Modern'Novels NATHANIEL WING

The Limits of Narrative: Essays on Baudelaire, Flaubert, Rimbaud and Mallarme

MITCHELL GREENBERG

Corneille, Classicism, and the Ruses of Symmetry

HOWARD DAVIES

Sartre and 'Les Temps Modernes'

ROBERT GREER COHN Mallarme's Prose Poems: A Critical Study CELIA BRITTON Claude Simon: Writing the Visible DAVID SCOTT Pictorialist Poetics: Poetry and the Visual Arts in Nineteenth-Century France ANN JEFFERSON Reading Realism in Stendhal

266

Cambridge Studies in French DALIA JUDOVITZ

Subjectivity and Representation in Descartes: The Origins of Modernity

RICHARD D.E. BURTON Baudelaire in 1859: A study in the Sources of Poetic Creativity MICHAEL MORIARTY JOHN FORRESTER

Taste and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century France

The Seductions of Psychoanalysis: Freud, Lacan and Derrida

JEROME SCHWARTZ Irony and Ideology in Rabelais: Structures of Subversion DAVID BAGULEY LESLIE HILL F.W.LEAKEY

Naturalist Fiction: The Entropic Vision Beckett's Fiction: In Different Words

Baudelaire: Collected Essays,

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1953-1988