The canso was the most important poetic genre
among the Provençal TROUBADOURS: a love lyric.
It was through the canso that the vernacular poets
of Occitan influenced the entire subsequent
course of Western literature by introducing the
conventions of fin amor or COURTLY LOVE into the
European literary tradition. In addition, the troubadours passed on through their cansos a practice
of technical virtuosity and lyrical innovation that
was characteristic of their songs.
The word canso means “song” in Provençal,
and it is important to remember that troubadour
lyrics were performed as music. Poets strove for
originality of form both in music and versification, and ideally each canso was expected to have
a unique tune and verse form. Such an expecta-
tion led to incredible variety and virtuosity among
the lyrics: At one end of the spectrum is the relatively simple eight-line stanza in regular octosyllabic lines of BERNART DE VENTADORN’s poem “Non
es mervelha s’eu chan” (“Of course it’s no wonder
that I sing”) (Goldin 1973, 127), which has a
rather straightforward abbacddc rhyme scheme; at
the other end is something like the 10-line stanza
from PEIRE D’ALVERNHE’s lyric “Rossinhol, el seu
repaire” (“Nightingale, you will go for me”)
(Goldin 1973, 163) that intersperses lines of seven,
three, and six syllables in a complex ababccdccd
rhyme scheme.
As for the tradition of fin amor that the troubadour cansos establish, one convention is that the
lady is described in such general terms in the poetry that all are essentially interchangeable. Bernart
describes his lady thus:
I do not think you can see a nobler body in
the world:
she is beautiful and white, young and gay
and soft,
(Goldin 1973, 135, ll. 16–17)
Of his lady, CERCAMON says:
The most beautiful lady a man ever saw
is not worth a glove next to her;
when the whole world grows dark,
where she is—see, there is light.
(Goldin 1973, 97, ll. 19–22)
And ARNAUT DANIEL says:
When I look at her golden hair, her soft,
young spirited body,
if someone gave me Luserna, I’d still love
her more.
(Goldin 1973, 217–19, ll. 19–21)
The women in these three poems are indistinguishable enough that all three poets could easily
be in love with the same person.
Typically, though, the canso focuses not on the
lady but on her effects on the poet. When Bernart
sees his beloved, he says:
I shake with fear
like a leaf in the wind.
I don’t have the good sense of a child,
(Goldin 1973, 129, ll. 43–45)
Cercamon is similarly overcome by love:
I start, I burn, I tremble all over,
sleeping and waking, for love of her.
(Goldin, 1973, 97, ll. 25–26)
But Arnaut stresses the ennobling effect love has
on the lover:
Each day I am a better man and purer,
for I serve the noblest lady in the world,
and I worship her, I tell you this in the
open.
(Goldin 1973, 217, ll. 8–10)
These are the conventions typically communicated in the canso. In form, the canso generally
contained five or six stanzas in identical rhyme
scheme, and ended in a tornada or shorter closing
verse (called an envoi in northern France). The tornada often made a direct address by the author to
the audience, and sometimes revealed the senhal,
or pseudonym for the lover’s lady, as in this tornada from one of Arnaut Daniel’s songs, where he
simply makes the adjective “Desired” the secret
name for his lady:
Arnaut sends his song of the nail and the
uncle,
to please her who rules his soul with her
rod,
to his Desired, whose glory in every
chamber enters.
(Goldin 1973, 223, ll. 37–39)
Bibliography
Goldin, Frederick, ed. and trans. Lyrics of the Troubadours and Trouvères: An Anthology and a History.
Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1973.