Songs of the Women Troubadours (review)

Abstract

REVIEW Songs ofthe Women Troubadours, edited and translated by Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, Laurie Shepard, and Sarah White. Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Series A, Vol. 97. New York: Garland, 1995. Pp. 194 + lxxvii. $46.00. Favored in recent years by an ample stream ofconference papers and articles, the trobairitz (the women counterparts of the troubadours) are on center stage. They are also increasingly featured in general courses of medieval literature and women's studies. Yet a trobairitz anthology that is both reliable and compact has not existed until today. Schultz-Gora's 1888 edition tackled only about halfofthe trobairitz corpus and has long been outdated. Bogin's 1976 edition sold well, and drew attention to the trobairitz through its lively (ifoften naïve) literary commentary. But Bogin did not re-edit the works: her book merely reproduced Schultz-Gora's twenty-three texts along with often unreliable English translations. In 1991, Rieger at last brought out a comprehensive and authoritative anthology, which includes 46 texts, expertly edited and accompanied by accurate German translations, a vast scholarly apparatus, and splendidly thorough commentaries. That volume is a monumental achievement, a treasure of information for scholars—but it is very bulky (766 pages, 2 1/2 pounds). What most readers require is a middle path between the slender, rather amateurish paperback (Bogin) and the massively learned tome (Rieger). That need is now admirably met thanks to Bruckner, Shepard, and White: their anthology provides rigorously accurate texts and translations, plus a fine introduction, bibliography, and notes—an ensemble which helpfully guides newcomers and informs scholars. Thetrobairitzare indeed unique. Workscomposed by twenty ofthem have come down to us, along with several anonymous pieces: no other medieval European literature boasts a legacy oftexts created by as large a group of women literary artists. The corpus comprises close to four 61 REVIEW dozen pieces—including 26 verse debates (tensos, partimens, plus shorter dialogic exchanges), 11 cansos, 3 sirventes, 2 baladas, and specimens of other genres (dansa, cobla, coblas doblas, salut, planh, alba).1 All told, this corpus amounts to less than a fifth of the total troubadour production (2,542 poems). Songs ofthe Women Troubadours comprises 36 texts, each edited by Shepard from a single base manuscript. She corrects flaws of grammar and meter and always signals her emendations by means of italics.2 Notes at the back indicate important variant readings from other manuscripts, in addition to providing judicious literary and historical information.3 The selection of texts is broader than in Schultz-Gora and Bogin, but less extensive than in Rieger. The 11 cansos of the trobairitz are all present, but only 16 of the 26 verse dialogues are included.4 The collection begins with the cansos; then come the debates; the remaininggenres bringup the rear. Thecanso section opens with the songs ofthe Comtessa de Dia and Castelloza, the only trobairitz from whom we have more than one extant piece. The Comtessa's four are given in the same sequential order as in Bogin and Rieger. However, Castelloza's three songs, which appear as a fixed sequential cluster in all five of their manuscripts (AlKNd) as well as in Bogin and Rieger, are slightly re-shuffled (Songs 1 and 2 switch places). The translations by White, printed on facing pages, are lucid and flow well. Theirplain style is appealing, although it occasionally flattens the diction or weakens a startling turn of thought. For example, the translation of "Per ioi que d'amor m'avegna" (an anonymous song, possibly by Castelloza, PC 461,191) brilliantly renders the first two stanzas, but then falls short of the dramatic energy and paradoxical reasoning with which the singer keeps beseeching her fickle lover. Yet, on balance, these are very trustworthy and elegant translations of the trobairitz. 62 REVIEW The introduction by Bruckner is in three parts. The first discusses how the trobairitz interacted with the "troubadour poetic system." Bruckner lucidly sketches out the song conventions and love polemics that make up that system. She shows how it promotes artifice ("the paradox of private feelings publicly performed" [xxi]), while also sharpening the ingenuities ofpoets, each ofwhom "reinvents situations and arguments within a common scenario" (xxxii). The trobairitz, she concludes, "explore...