Occitan Literature - Origin

Origin

Occitan poetry first appeared in the 11th century. The oldest surviving text is the Provençal burden (Fr. "refrain") attached to a 10th-century Latin poem. The text has not yet been satisfactorily interpreted. The quality of the earliest remaining works suggest earlier work was lost.

The earliest Occitan poem is a 10th-century, seventeen-line charm Tomida femina probably for dispersing the pain of childbirth. Much longer is an 11th century fragment of two hundred and fifty-seven decasyllabic verses preserved in an Orléans manuscript, first printed by Raynouard. It is believed to have come from Limousin or Marche in the north of the Occitan region. The unknown author takes Boethius's treatise De consolatione philosophiae as the groundwork of his composition. The poem is a didactic piece composed by a clerk. The Cançó de Santa Fe dates from 1054–76, but probably represents a Catalan dialect that evolved into a distinct language from Occitan. From the same century there is Las, qu'i non sun sparvir, astur, a secular love poem.

From the next century are the poems of William (Guilhem) IX, the grandfather of Eleanor of Aquitaine. They consist of eleven diverse strophic pieces, and were consequently meant to be sung. Several are love songs. The only one which can be approximately dated was composed around 1119, when William was setting out for Spain to fight the Saracens. It expresses the writer's regret for the frivolity of his past life and his apprehensions as he bade farewell to his country and his young son. We also know from Ordericus Vitalis that William had composed various poems on the incidents of his ill-fated Crusade of 1101. In one of his pieces he makes an allusion to the partimen.

The origins of this poetry are uncertain. It bears no relation to Latin poetry, nor to folklore. Vernacular compositions seem to have been at first produced for the amusement, or in the case of religious poetry, for the edification, of that part of lay society which had leisure and lands, and reckoned intellectual pastime among the good things of life.

In the 11th century, vernacular poetry served mainly the amusement and edification of the upper class. By the 12th and 13th centuries, historical works and popular treatises on contemporary science were composed in the vernacular.

Occitan poetry may have originated amongst the jesters. Some, leaving buffoonery to the ruder and less intelligent members of the profession, devoted themselves to the composition of pieces intended for singing. In the north, the jesters produced chansons de geste full of tales of battle and combat. In the courts of the southern nobles they produced love songs.