Descriptive poetics and the Arte de trovar in the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional

Abstract

ABSTRACT Critics have long evaluated the anonymous treatise on versification nestled in the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional—often called the Arte de trovar—against the roughly contemporaneous artes poeticae composed in langue d’oc. While our understanding of the treatise undoubtedly benefits from comparative readings, I argue that its perceived deficiencies, including its sui generis approach to poetic genres, may reflect specific late medieval literary-critical considerations. By emplacing generically, socially, or sonically aberrant compositions within practices of performance, reading, and anthologization, the treatise helps legitimate the cancioneiro in which it appears and perhaps the cancioneril enterprise writ large. In the appendix, I provide the first full-length translation of the Arte de trovar into English.