canso

(canzo, chanso, chanson)

   The canso was the most important poetic genre among the Provençal TROUBADOURS: a love lyric. It was through the canso that the vernacular poets of Occitan influenced the entire subsequent course of Western literature by introducing the conventions of fin amor or COURTLY LOVE into the European literary tradition. In addition, the troubadours passed on through their cansos a practice of technical virtuosity and lyrical innovation that was characteristic of their songs.

   The word canso means “song” in Provençal, and it is important to remember that troubadour lyrics were performed as music. Poets strove for originality of form both in music and versification, and ideally each canso was expected to have a unique tune and verse form. Such an expecta-tion led to incredible variety and virtuosity among the lyrics: At one end of the spectrum is the relatively simple eight-line stanza in regular octosyllabic lines of BERNART DE VENTADORN’s poem “Non es mervelha s’eu chan” (“Of course it’s no wonder that I sing”) (Goldin 1973, 127), which has a rather straightforward abbacddc rhyme scheme; at the other end is something like the 10-line stanza from PEIRE D’ALVERNHE’s lyric “Rossinhol, el seu repaire” (“Nightingale, you will go for me”) (Goldin 1973, 163) that intersperses lines of seven, three, and six syllables in a complex ababccdccd rhyme scheme.

   As for the tradition of fin amor that the troubadour cansos establish, one convention is that the lady is described in such general terms in the poetry that all are essentially interchangeable. Bernart describes his lady thus:

   I do not think you can see a nobler body in the world:

   she is beautiful and white, young and gay and soft,

   (Goldin 1973, 135, ll. 16–17)

   Of his lady, CERCAMON says:

   The most beautiful lady a man ever saw

   is not worth a glove next to her;

   when the whole world grows dark,

   where she is—see, there is light.

   (Goldin 1973, 97, ll. 19–22)

   And ARNAUT DANIEL says:

   When I look at her golden hair, her soft,

   young spirited body,

   if someone gave me Luserna, I’d still love

   her more.

   (Goldin 1973, 217–19, ll. 19–21)

   The women in these three poems are indistinguishable enough that all three poets could easily be in love with the same person. Typically, though, the canso focuses not on the lady but on her effects on the poet.When Bernart sees his beloved, he says:

   I shake with fear

   like a leaf in the wind.

   I don’t have the good sense of a child,

   (Goldin 1973, 129, ll. 43–45)

   Cercamon is similarly overcome by love:

   I start, I burn, I tremble all over,

   sleeping and waking, for love of her.

   (Goldin, 1973, 97, ll. 25–26)

   But Arnaut stresses the ennobling effect love has on the lover:

   Each day I am a better man and purer,

   for I serve the noblest lady in the world,

   and I worship her, I tell you this in the open.

   (Goldin 1973, 217, ll. 8–10)

   These are the conventions typically communicated in the canso. In form, the canso generally contained five or six stanzas in identical rhyme scheme, and ended in a tornada or shorter closing verse (called an envoi in northern France). The tornada often made a direct address by the author to the audience, and sometimes revealed the senhal, or pseudonym for the lover’s lady, as in this tornada from one of Arnaut Daniel’s songs, where he simply makes the adjective “Desired” the secret name for his lady:

   Arnaut sends his song of the nail and the uncle,

   to please her who rules his soul with her rod,

   to his Desired, whose glory in every

   chamber enters.

   (Goldin 1973, 223, ll. 37–39)

   Bibliography

   ■ Goldin, Frederick, ed. and trans. Lyrics of the Troubadours and Trouvères: An Anthology and a History. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1973.