Song and the Soundscape of Old French Romance

This chapter examines the presence of song and sound in romance, with a particular focus on the traditions of Old French romance from its incarnation in the 1170s, in the works of Chrétien de Troyes, to the earliest examples of romances interpolated with song (romans à chansons) which date from the first decades of the thirteenth century. Romance’s emergence coincided with a period of extraordinary creativity in the realm of vernacular song, most notably with the emergence of a northern lyric tradition of the trouvères, with the continued cultivation of their Occitan inspiration in the lyrics of the troubadours, and with the earliest efforts at codification of both, in songbooks or chansonniers, the earliest examples of which date from the 1230s. Drawing on approaches from musicology, literary studies, and sound studies, my chapter explores how sound manifests in this tradition, and proposes ways to listen to romance. Listening to romance in turn permits new ways to reframe song culture, particularly in the period prior to its notated codification, and the chapter has implications, too, for what musicology may learn from the sonic aspect of romance.

‘Words Filled With Tears’: Amorous Discourse as Lamentation in the Palaiologan Romances

This chapter examines a particular way in which feelings of love are expressed in the Palaiologan romances (c. 1250–1350). This manner of expression is presented through the systematic use of an imagery and vocabulary of lamentation, that incorporates into these highly artful poetic narratives a discourse deriving from folk poetry. These amorous laments (moirologia), as they are sometimes called by the narrators or even the characters, are not direct quotations of actual folk laments or songs as folklorists in the early twentieth century believed. They are a way of presenting amorous feelings to Byzantine listeners or readers (initially within an aristocratic courtly milieu, later also within a bourgeois environment) in a manner attuned to their contemporary and specific socio-cultural context, yet structurally keeping to the conventions set by the ‘Hellenising’ novels of the Komnenian age. These folk-like songs reflect a new type of poetic and emotional sensibility in late Byzantium, partly in response to Old French romance as it was available in the thirteenth century (orally, at least), partly in response to a growing interest in ‘folk subjects’ as attested by the collections of vernacular proverbs and popular lore.

Paired Adjectives in the Middle Welsh Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn

One of the stylistic devices typical for Medieval Welsh literature is the usage of paired adjectives. It occurs not only in the native tales but also in the adaptations of Continental material, such as an Old French romance of chivalry Geste de Boeve de Haumtone. Predominantly, the paired adjectives in the Welsh source Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn neither have any equivalents in the French source nor correspond to “adverb mult, tut, si, plus, bien + adjective” construction. This fact is indicative of the translator’s independence in stylistic organization of the text; it also draws our attention to the emphatic nature of paired adjectives. An adjective pair usually consists of either two synonyms or two words denoting attributes of a certain character or object: cadarn-wychyr “strong and brave”. However, there can be more than two adjectives in a “pair”; this stylistic device also covers other parts of speech.