A contribution towards the study of the origins of troubadour poetry

Abstract

After a critical assessment of the main thesises concerning the origins of troubadour lyric poetry from Diez to contemporary theorists, the author develops her Occitoniac thesis which she founds on historical and socio-civilizational phenomena characteristic for Southern France or Occitania, the homeland of the troubadours in the XII century. Pointing out grosso motto the essential features of the Occitaniac spirit and mentality that can be recognized and reconstructed in troubadour poetry, the author reaches these conclusions: - according to its origins, troubadour poetry is the authentic poetic art of Southern France, originating in Occitania, the troubadours being its authentic offspring; - this original art is marked by all the influences with which it not only could but with which it must have had come into contact: the influence of Arabic-Andalusian lyric poetry, the folklore of Southern France, Latin liturgie rituals and the Catharist conception of the world; - within this art the cosmopolitan, international and interracial Occitaniac spirit is preserved in an authentic, original, pure and above all poetically sublimated fashion.