The Troubadours
A History of Provençal Life and Literature in the Middle Ages

An informative English-language study of the history of medieval Provençal life and literature, offering insights into European musical culture.

Francis Hueffer (Author)

9781108060042, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 August 2013

390 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.2 cm, 0.5 kg

Born in Germany, where he studied music and philology, Francis Hueffer (1845–89) moved to London in 1869 to pursue a career as a critic and writer on music. He edited a series of biographies of notable musicians, served as music critic for The Times, contributed articles to Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and was an early advocate and interpreter to the British of Wagner. In 1872 he married Catherine, the younger daughter of the painter Ford Madox Brown. Their son was the writer Ford Maddox Ford. Provençal studies were an abiding interest of Hueffer's and he intended this work, first published in 1878, to be an approachable English-language study of medieval Provençal literary and musical culture. It won him membership of the Félibrige, the association of Provençal writers, and he gave lectures on the topic at the Royal Institution in 1880.

Preface
Part I. General: 1. The langue d'Oc
2. Early popular epics
3. The artistic epic
4. Other narrative and didactic poems
5. Apocrypha
6. Social position of Provençal poets
7. The joglar
8. Traces of popular song - the pastorella
9. Other popular forms
10. The balada
11. Artificial forms of poetry
12. The tenso
13. The sirventes
14. The canzo
Part II. Biographical: 15. Guillem de Cabestanh
16. Peire Vidal
17. Bertran de Born
18. Bertran and Richard count of Poitou
19. Siege of Autafort - Bertran's death
20. The monk of Montaudon
21. The reformation of the thirteenth century
22. The epic of the crusade
23. Folquet of Marseilles
24. Guillem Figueira and Peire Cardinal
25. Ladies and lady troubadours
26. Beatrice de Die
27. The courts of love
Part III. Technical: 28. The origin of rhyme
29. Rhythm
30. Rhyme
31. The stanza
32. Some interlinear versions.

Subject Areas: Music reviews & criticism [AVC]