The Troubadours

Poetry and music define a world at war in this meticulous study of the troubadours, the poet-musicians active in the Occitan region (now southern France) from the 11th through the 13th centuries. Historian Paterson (Singing the Crusades) shows that during a period riven by local conflicts and crusades, the troubadours were purveyors of social cohesion; by blurring the region’s many dialects into one common literary language, they bolstered Occitan identity, articulated resistance to French incursion from the north, and critiqued and promoted the policies of lords and kings. These political themes are lightly touched on, however, as the narrative is divided into mini-biographies of various troubadours accompanied by analysis of their lyrics. Subjects include Guilhem IX, a nobleman whose verse played with “social propriety and hierarchy”; Jaufre Rudel, who “sings of love alone” and was said to have fallen in love with the Countess of Tripoli during the Second Crusade; and the “trobairitz,” or women troubadours, who wrote surprisingly candidly about erotic longing. The poetry alone is worth the price of admission (“I am pretty, so I’m much troubled/ by my husband whom I neither want nor desire”; “No-one knows.../ how things work in a song/ if he does not understand the theme within himself”). It’s a lively and rewarding account. (Aug.)