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Lyric Sequences in the Cantigas d'amigo

1988; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 65; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1475382882000365021

1469-3550

Julián Weiss,

Galician and Iberian cultural studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeBSS Subject Index: BRITEIROS, JOÃO MENDES DE (1270?–1320)CANTIGAS D'AMIGO/CANTIGAS DE AMIGOJUGLARES/MINSTRELS/TROUBADOURSLOVE [AS LITERARY/CULTURAL THEME]*PORTUGAL — LITERATURE — MEDIEVAL PERIOD — DRAMA/THEATRE & POETRY Notes 1. See, principally, the notes to his Cantigas d'amigo dos trovadores galego-portugueses, 3 vols. (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1926-28). 2. Lições de literatura portuguesa, época medieval, 9th ed. (Coimbra: Coimbra Editora, 1977), 167—71. 3. La narratividad de la lírica galaico-portuguesa, Problema Semiotica, 6 (Estudio analítico) and 7 (Antología narrativa), 2 vols. (Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1985). 4. See La poesia lirica galego-portoghese, in Grundriss der romaniscben Literaturen des Mittelalters, vol. II, Les Genres lyriques, 1, fascicule 6 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1980), 58-61. Tantalizingly, he cites only three examples: Codax, Camanês, and Fernan Velho. For his earlier utterances on the subject see the articles listed in the bibliography under Joam nunes camanês and martin codax. 5. On Martin Codax, see Oviedo y Arce, in the article cited in the bibliography; his views conflicted with those expressed by Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, who—rightly—described the seven poems as 'scenas isoladas e não de evolução progressiva', an opinion quoted and shared by J. J. Nunes, 'Cantigas de Martin Codax, presumido jogral do seculo XIII, Revista Lusitana, XXIX (1931), 5-32. Shortly before, however, he believed the contrary, and followed Oviedo y Arce: Cantigas d'amigo, I, 201, note 1. Much earlier, Alfred Jeanroy, Les Origines de la poésie lyrique en France au Moyen Age (Paris: Hachette, 1889), 315, had observed that the cantigas d'amigo 'se suivent souvent dans un certain ordre nécessaire, qu'elles forment comme les épisodes de petits romans' (for examples of which, see the bibliography). 6. 'The Interpretation of the Ripoll Love-Songs', RPh, XXXIII (1979-80), 14–42. Dronke observes that, although the religious lyric (e.g. Abelard's Planctus) shows occasional attempts at a 'cyclical unification and cohesion', there is nothing similar to these Ripoll songs in the Medieval Latin love-lyric. He emphasizes, however, that in spite of the continuities in tone and language, the narrative connections are never explicit and that these 'will depend on the way individual readers respond'. In 'The Provençal Trobairitz Castelloza', in Katharina M. Wilson (ed.), Medieval Women Writers (Manchester: Manchester U.P., 1984), 131–52, Dronke analyses the 'inner progressions' that link the four songs together, making them 'imaginatively richer' than when considered separately. But he adds that it 'cannot be demonstrated conclusively' that they were originally conceived as a lyric cycle (132). 7. Joseph Anglade, Le Troubadour Guiraut Riquier: étude sur la décadence de l'ancienne poésie provençale (Bordeaux: Albert Fontemoing, 1905), discusses Riquier's six pastourelles written between 1260 and 1282 which form 'une composition unique divisée en six parties'. He writes that 'l'ensemble forme un petit roman gracieux', with certain dramatic qualities and 'plot' (229–30); see also p. 229, n. 2 for Gavaudan, and pp. 237-39 for Cerverí. On these two see also: Martin de Riquer (ed.), Obras completas del trovador Cerverí de Girona (Barcelona: Instituto Español de Estudios Mediterráneos, 1947), nos. 11 and 12; and Saverio Guida, Il trovatore Gavaudan (Modena: STEM-Mucchi, 1979), nos. 1 and 2, and note on p. 197. Though they are not strictly narratives, see also the early Italian sonnet cycles, or collane, composed by, for example, Folgore da San Gimigniano (Sonetti de' mesi, della semana and per ¡'armamento di un cavaliere, all c. 1300). 8. See, for obvious examples, the Cent ballades d'Amant et de Dame by Christine de Pizan (1363-c. 1429) and the sonnet sequence by Lorenzo de' Medici (1449-92). The prose commentary accompanying the Rime suggests that Lorenzo drew his inspiration as much from Dante (Vita nuova, Convivio) as from Petrarch. 9. See Rafael Lapesa, 'De nuevo sobre las serranillas de Santillana', Libro-Homenaje a Antonio Pérez Gómez (Cieza: 'La Fonte que Mana y Corre', 1978), II, 43–50; also, the introduction by Miguel Ángel Pérez Priego to Marqués de Santillana, Poesías completas (Madrid: Alhambra, 1983), I, 15-21. 10. See, for example, the sections on equivocatio and seguir in the Arte de trovar, 11. 16–20 and 77–84 in the ed. of Jean-Marie d'Heur, 'L'Art de trouver du Chansonnier Colocci-Brancuti. Édition et analyse', Arquivos do Centro Cultural Português, IX (1975), 321–98. These theoretical concerns are reflected in the scorn for blatant personal invective expressed by, for example, Estevan da Guarda; see Manuel Rodrigues Lapa (ed.), Cantigas d'escarnho e de mal dizer dos cancioneiros medievais galego-portugueses (Vigo: Editorial Galaxia, 1970), no. 112. 11. For details of the MSS, and the controversy now surrounding their relationship, see Giuseppe Tavani, Poesia del duecento nella penisola iberica: problemi delta lírica galego-portogkese (Rome; Edizioni dell' Ateneo, 1969), 79-179; Jean-Marie d'Heur, 'Sur la tradition manuscrite des chansonniers galiciens-portugais: Contribution à la bibliographie et au corpus des troubadours', Arquivos do Centro Cultural Português, VIII (1974), 3–43; Tavani replied to the latter's critique of his MS stemma in 'A proposito della tradizione manoscritta della lirica galego-portoghese', Medioevo Romanzo, VI (1979), 372–418. Still of interest is Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, Cancioneiro da Ajuda, 2 vols. (1904; facs. rpt. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1980), II, 98-226; also, Anna Ferrari, 'Formazione e struttura del canzoniere Colocci-Brancuti', Arquivos do Centro Cultural Português, XIV (1979), 27–142. 12. Tavani, Poesia del duecento, 153–75. 13. See the article cited in the bibliography, under dinis, p. 121. 14. For examples of extant anthologies whose compilation was directly supervised by the author, see the two luxury cancioneros containing the work of Santillana and Gómez Manrique: Salamanca, Biblioteca Universitaria, MS 2.655, and Madrid, Palacio, II–1.250. For important case studies from fourteenth- and fifteenth-century France, see Sarah Jane Williams, 'An Author's Role in Fourteenth-century Book Production: Guillaume de Machaut's "livre ou je met toutes mes choses" ', Romania, XC (1969), 433–54; J. C. Laidlaw, 'Christine de Pizan—An Author's Progress', MLR, LXXVIII (1983), 532–50. Manuscript studies of this kind on Castilian cancionero verse have yet to be carried out. 15. La poesia lirica galego-portoghese, 56–58. 16. Sylvia Jean Huot, 'Lyric Poetics and the Art of Compilatio in the Fourteenth Century', Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Princeton University, 1982, especially Ch. 2. 17. In both cases, however, the MSS need not offer the definitive order. In the first group, leaving aside the fragmentary initial poem, the remaining three, nos. 461–63, offer different perspectives on the same event; consequently, although there is an emotional development, there is no clear chronological progression to fix the sequence in a particular order. The second group, based on the motif of San Leuter, seems more straightforward; but even here, the first poem is enigmatic and could occupy three different places in the sequence. As its stands, the scribe appears to have interpreted it as the girl's first confession of love. It could be placed second, or even last, and be interpreted as her lament on separation, or as an expression of despair for an irredeemably lost love. 18. Gerald Gybbon-Monypenny, 'Guillaume de Machaut's Erotic "Autobiography": Precedents for the Form of the Voir-Dit', in Studies in Medieval Literature and Languages in Memory of Frederick Whitehead (Manchester: Manchester U.P., 1973), 133-52; Alan Deyermond, 'Lyric Traditions in Non-Lyrical Genres', in Studies in Honor of Lloyd A. Kasten (Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1975), 39–52; Tony Hunt, 'Precursors and Progenitors of Aucussin et Nicolette', Studies in Philology, LXXIV (1977), 1–19. 19. The studies by these recent critics are listed in the bibliography; for Tavani's remark on Camanês, see La poesia galego-portoghese, 60. For other ways of discussing how the lyric crosses the boundaries of the narrative, see Próspero Saíz, Personae and Poiesis: The Poet and the Poem in Medieval Love Lyric (The Hague: Mouton, 1976); also, the essay by Alberto Limentani on Marcabru's 'A la fontana del vergier', included as Ch. 1 in his L'eccezione narrative: la Provenza medievale e I'arte del racconto (Torino: Guido Enaudi, 1977). 20. I will examine this issue in greater depth in a forthcoming study. For an example of this approach, see Nancy Freeman Regalado, Poetic Patterns in Rutebeuf: A Study in Noncourtly Poetic Modes of the Thirteenth Century (New Haven: Yale U.P., 1970). Also useful: Kevin Brownlee, Poetic Identity in Guillaume de Machaut (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1984), esp. 3–23. 21. See Joseph T. Snow, 'Self-conscious References and the Organic Narrative Pattern of the Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso X', in Joseph R. Jones (ed.), Medieval, Renaissance and Folklore Studies in Honor of John Esten Keller (Newark, Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta, 1980), 53-66; 'Alfonso X: Sus "Cantigas …": Apuntes para su (auto)biografía literaria', in Josep Maria Solà-Solé: Homage, homenaje, homenatge (Miscelánea de estudios de amigos y discípulos) 2 vols. (Barcelona: Puvill, 1984), I, 79–89. 22. See Ángel Gómez Moreno's ed. of the Proemio, included in Francisco López Estrada (ed.), Las poéticas castellanas de la edad media (Madrid: Taurus, 1984), 60; also López Estrada's note on p. 116. 23. For biographical details, see Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, Ajuda, II, 339-40, and Finazzi-Agrò's ed. listed in the bibliography, 37–39. 24. Finazzi-Agrò, 61. Lanciani expresses a similar view that the unique extant cantiga d'escambo by Fernan Velho is a contrafactum, or demythification, of his entire orthodox love lyrics: Il canzoniere, 30 and 34. 25. See the article by Fernández Pereiro, cited in the bibliography under Joan soayrez somesso; also Finazzi-Agrò, 119–20. 26. For the popularity of this scheme, see Giuseppe Tavani, Repertorio metrico della lirica galego-portoghese (Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1967), 154–99 (scheme no. 160). 27. See the sequences listed under ayras paes, pay de cana and rodrigo eanes de Vasconcelos. 28. Feyto corresponds to the final stage in the progress of love, according to certain medieval writers: visus, alloquium, contactus, osculum, factum. See Lionel J. Friedman, 'Gradus Amoris', RPh, XIX (1965-66), 167–77. 29. See the classification of dreams by Macrobius, the classic authority on the subject in the Middle Ages. As an example of the insomnium he cites 'the lover who dreams of possessing his sweetheart or of losing her'; see the Commentary on the 'Dream of Scipio', trans. William Harris Stahl (New York: Columbia U.P., 1952), 88. 30. 'Veera' = 3rd pers. sing. future ind. of ver and 3rd pers. imp. subj. of vir; 'vem', the 3rd pers. sing, present ind. of vir, recalls 'veem', the 3rd pers. plur. pres. ind. of ver; the 3rd pers. sing. preterite, 'veo' is similar to 'vejo', the 1st pers. sing. pres. ind. of ver. 31. Dronke, 'The Provençal Trobairitz', 132. 32. Early versions of this article were read at the annual meeting of the British Division of the ICLS in January 1986, and at Research Seminars in Westfield College and Manchester University, in March and May of that year; I am grateful for the many helpful comments I received from friends and colleagues on those occasions. I am also grateful to Professor J. T. Snow, Dr B. Taylor and Mr M. L. Reed for their bibliographical assistance, and to the University of Liverpool, whose scheme of Research Fellowships allowed me to complete this project. Since writing this, I learnt of the existence of a fourth, unpublished cancioneiro now in Berkeley, California. I have, however, no details of its date, contents, size or relation to the other three.