The Voice of the Trobairitz

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, southern France witnessed first a burgeoning, then a decline in the poetry of women troubadours--trobairitz. These women stood both within and outside the troubadour tradition, so their work is interesting for social and literary-historical reasons as well as for its aesthetic merit. Many of their twenty-eight surviving poems are love songs in which the trobairitz expresses her desire with a freshness that places her in startling contrast with the speechless, unresponsive lady depicted in the poetry of male troubadours.

The Voice of the Trobairitz includes eleven original studies by leading scholars in America and Europe. Approaching the trobairitz from varying perspectives, the authors ask such questions as: which poems are properly attributed to the women? Which poetic forms and techniques did they employ? Is there a distinctive feminine rhetoric in the poems, and do they attempt to mold the role offered them by the troubadours or do they subside into passivity? Paden's introduction describes the historical context of the trobairitz, and he includes a checklist of the poems, a meticulous bibliography, and an index.

The Voice of the Trobairitz will be a valuable resource for all medieval scholars and students and for those interested in ' women's history.

Author: William D. Paden
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press Anniversary
Published: 08/29/1989
Pages: 274
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.24lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9780812281675

About the Author
William D. Paden is Professor Emeritus of French at Northwestern University. He is editor of The Medieval Pastourelle and coeditor of Poems of the Troubadour Bertran de Born.