Guiraut Riquier and The Study of Proverbs

Abstract

GUIRAUT RIQUTER AND THE STUDY OF PROVERBS It is a commonplace to say that GuirautRiquier grew increasingly aware with time that he was to be the last of the troubadours. Still, "from his earliest poem of 1254 to his latest, of 1292, one can trace his efforts to maintain . . . the traditions of troubadour lyric poetry" (Press 306). During the early part ofhis career, he sought patronage in Narbonne, probably near his place of birth. In 1270, he traveled to Spain, settling at the court ofAlfonso X, el Sabio. Alfonso had, however, "material, dynastic and political" problems (Press 307) and before the end of the decade Guiraut returned to France, to the court ofHenry II ofRodez. Henry's was "one ofthe last to maintain, albeit on a restricted scale," an active literary life, and "Guiraut's hopes (were] for a time revived" (Press 307). But in 1286, he lamented once more the absence of patronage and protection. His last poem is dated 1292; it is thought that he returned to Narbonne to end his days. The poet is the second most prolific of the Occitan troubadours, having left us a rich collection ofworks, works even more remarkable for the nature of their organization. For example. Guiraut composed six pastorelas, which are linked by their characters and by time (see Bossy, "Twin Flocks"). The pastorelas tell a story that takes place over time; first Guiraut meets a shepherdess, who rebuffs his advances but is happy to converse with him. Over the years, both poet and damsel grow old—she marries, has a daughter, travels to Compostella, returns to her home to acquire an inn which she manages with her now grown daughter. The poet's personal changes are also recorded in the six collected conversations—his lady, Bel Deport is gone and he ages too. Guiraut's cansos and vers are also collected in highly organized fashion, as Michel-André Bossy has recently demonstrated (see "Cyclical Composition"). The poet also composed sirventes, retroenchas, tensos, albas, and non-lyric verse epistles. Alan Press described Guiraut's verse in these terms: "The moral, religious, and literary advice and exposition to which his long verse epistles are devoted are as unrelievedly earnest and solemn as, in his lyrics, the more conventional laments of unrequited love, the protestations of unconditioned loyalty, the prayers to God and the GUIRAUT RIQUIER AND PROVERBS Virgin Mary, the complaints about the decline of courtliness and about his own failure to secure recognition" (Press 307). Press sees in Guiraut "a lack of genuine creativity" (308) and that "even his best work is distinguished by little more than adequate resolutions of unambitious technical problems and satisfactorily coherent formulations oflong-established themes" (308). Press goes on to suggest that Guiraut's success in religious lyrics explains why his love poetry was unrewarded, "religious lyrics . . . tend, by their very nature, at first to rival and ultimately replace the secular ideals on which the troubadour lyric had been founded" (308). "Both religious lyrics and long verse treatises, finally, while leaving far behind the art and inspiration of Guiraut's predecessors, already announce two distinctive features of later medieval poetry, be it that cultivated by the good burgesses ofToulouse in the Consistori del Gay Saber, or that of the professional writers labouring in the courts of northern France" (308). Press wrote his somewhat harsh judgment of Guiraut in the early 1970s; since then, the poet has merited new editions of his works, even ifthese have faults of their own, most notably to ignore in large part the unity the poet himself sought to give to his corpus (see Linskill, Longobardi, Molk and Paden). In the light of these new editions, more recent students of Guiraut have been more even in theirjudgments of the poet. Martin de Riquer, for example, praises Guiraut's musical talents and his abilities as a lyricist, "... sus rimas son perfectas y variadas ... y sin duda alguna fue un buen músico" (1611), though he continues, "Los vers morales de Guiraut Riquier son tediosamente sentenciosos y sin chispas de originalidad" (1611). My own angle of approach to Guiraut is through his use of proverbs and of proverbial materials. To consider his use of...