In the French region of Pays d'Oc (Occitania) , Trobar was a poetic art, a philosophy, but also - and above all - a new way of seeing and thinking. For the first time the female and carnal love are placed at the centre of a spiritual quest (codified by fin'amor, courtly love). And while the delights and torments of its epoch are reflected in the many aspects of Trobar's evolution, Trobar speaks of the vitality of Occitan societies in the Romance-language world; the spiritual momentum of the Cathars; and of a creative form of resistance to religious or political hegemonies. Certain authorities consider Trobar's birth the result of the encounter between the lords of Al Andalus (Islamic Spain) and the neighbouring Occitan principalities, from the end of the tenth century or start of the eleventh century. Others attribute its dawning to the desire of the clergy and church to appease the ardours of a chivalry that often demonstrated its power alone, by substituting the unleashing of military violence by that of lyric exaltation...Be that as it may, there's general agreement that Trobar is the first poetic expression in a Romance language (rather than Latin), and that it's one of the first European examples since Antiquity of the elaboration of a philosophy of love. For two centuries, wherever Trobar spreads its influence, it irrigates the whole literary world of the medieval West. From England to Italy, from Catalonia to Germany, there is a thirst to imitate Trobar and trouver ...However, neither the admiration of kings and princes in its heyday, nor the homage of poets like Dante and Boccaccio in its decline, will enable Trobar to ensure its posterity. With the arrival of Renaissance humanism, it is in Toulouse that the last Trobar zealots will draw their final breaths. Not until the nineteenth century is Trobar spoken of again: when the Romantics develop a passion for the medieval imagination.This unexpected interest, combined with the revival of the language and culture of Oc, makes possible the exhumation of many treasures of Occitan literature. Poets and authors draw extensively from this discovery. These literary figures include Frederic Mistral and the other members of the literary and cultural association Le Félibrige, as well, of course, but also, at random, Mallarmé, Ezra Pound, Jean Cassou, Tristan Tzara, Jacques Roubaud and many others. Sensitive to the clear brilliance of the troubadour-like verses, dexterity of the sound games, miraculous homogeneity of the symbolic, incredibly 'classical' lexical universe, such poets and authors find in Trobar the vivacity, grace and mysterious unity one can witness at a sunrise.

Additional Details

Label: Vox Populi

Genre: World

Region: 0

Release Date: 01/13/15

UPC: 3149028064223