 | This article includes alist of references,related reading, orexternal links,but its sources remain unclear because it lacksinline citations. Please helpimprove this article byintroducing more precise citations.(August 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
In theMiddle Ages, theGalician-Portuguese lyric, also known astroubadorism, fromtrovadorismo inPortuguese andtrobadorismo inGalician, was alyric poetic school or movement. All told, there are around 1680 texts in the so-called secular lyric orlírica profana (seeCantigas de Santa Maria for the religious lyric). At the timeGalician-Portuguese was the language used in nearly all ofIberia for lyric (as opposed to epic) poetry. From this language derives both modernGalician andPortuguese. The school, which was influenced to some extent (mainly in certain formal aspects) by theOccitantroubadours, is first documented at the end of the twelfth century and lasted until the middle of the fourteenth, with its zenith coming in the middle of the thirteenth century, centered on the person ofAlfonso X,The Wise King. It is the earliest known poetic movement in Galicia or Portugal and represents not only the beginnings of but one of the high points of poetic history in both countries and in medieval Europe. Modern Galicia has seen a revival movement calledneotrobadorismo.
The earliest extant composition in this school is usually agreed to beOra faz ost' o senhor de Navarra byJoão Soares de Paiva, usually dated just before or after 1200. Traditionally, the end of the period of activetrovadorismo is given as 1350, the date of the testament of D. Pedro,Count of Barcelos (natural son ofKing Dinis of Portugal), who left aLivro de Cantigas (songbook) to his nephew,Alfonso XI of Castile.
The troubadours of the movement, not to be confused with the Occitan troubadours (who frequented courts in nearbyLeón andCastile), wrote almost entirelycantigas (although there were several kinds ofcantiga) with, apparently,monophonic melodies (only fourteen melodies have survived, in thePergaminho Vindel and thePergaminho Sharrer, the latter badly damaged during restoration by Portuguese authorities). Their poetry was meant to be sung, but they emphatically distinguished themselves from thejograes who in principle sang, but did not compose (though there is much evidence to contradict this). It is not clear if troubadours performed their own work.
Beginning probably around the middle of the thirteenth century, the songs, known ascantares,cantigas ortrovas, began to be compiled in collections known ascancioneiros (songbooks). Three such anthologies are known: theCancioneiro da Ajuda, theCancioneiro Colocci-Brancuti (orCancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa), and theCancioneiro da Vaticana. In addition to these there is the priceless collection of over 400 Galician-Portuguesecantigas in theCantigas de Santa Maria, which tradition attributes to Alfonso X, in whose court (as nearly everywhere in the Peninsula) Galician-Portuguese was theonly language for lyric poetry (except for visiting Occitan poets).
The Galician-Portuguese cantigas can be divided into three basic genres: male-voiced love poetry, calledcantigas de amor (orcantigas d'amor) female-voiced love poetry, calledcantigas de amigo (cantigas d'amigo); and poetry of insult and mockery calledcantigas d'escarnho e de mal dizer. All three are lyric genres in the technical sense that they were strophic songs with either musical accompaniment or introduction on a stringed instrument. But all three genres also have dramatic elements, leading early scholars to characterize them as lyric-dramatic.
The origins of thecantigas d'amor are usually traced to Provençal and Old French lyric poetry, but formally and rhetorically they are quite different. Thecantigas d'amigo are probably rooted in a native song tradition (Lang, 1894, Michaëlis 1904), though this view has been contested. Thecantigas d'escarnho e maldizer may also (according to Lang) have deep local roots. The latter two genres (totalling around 900 texts) make the Galician-Portuguese lyric unique in the entire panorama of medieval Romance poetry.
For further bibliography seeGalician-Portuguese.
.svg)