Nature vocabulary in the Troubadour Poetry

Abstract

Two problems are treated: one lexicological, and the other a general medieval problem of the relation of man to nature during the Middle Ages. The first part presents lexical components in the nature vocabulary of the most famous 12th century troubadours: the key words and other individual characteristic lexemes referring to the kinds of birds, flowers, trees, animals, etc. The question of originality of this type of vocabulary is treated as an exceptionally specific problem. The selection of examples show that the lexical material is classified into three cycles: spring, autumn-winter, and elemental all-time nature. The basic conclusion is that the vocalbulary of the description of nature in the poetry of the troubadours is not an imitation of a long poetic and rhetorical tradition but an original creation, in spite of the influence of Spanish-Arabic and Gallego-Portuguese lyric poetry which is noticeable with a certain number of troubadours. But the masters of the trobar clus had created a new vision of nature, of convincing originality and had linked its renewed, luxurious metaphorical vocabulary with the court vocabulary in a common expression of a dominant thematic unity of love and nature.