Overview

The Poetry of the Medieval Troubadour, William IX of Aquitaine: The Songs that Built Europe offers a new edition, translation, and critical discussion of the songs of the first European troubadour, William IX, Duke of Aquitaine. This book argues that William and his poetic works manifest the economic, political, and cultural forces that laid the foundations of modern Europe, including the subjectivities of modern westerners and the concerns and motifs of what later became the national literatures of France, Spain, England, Germany, and Italy. Encouraging personal freedoms, self-definition, and the pursuit of love and happiness, the culture of courtly love that William initiated is distinctly modern but can also be seen to have played a key role in the subjection of medieval Europeans to the then-emergent market economy, imperialist ambitions of the Church, and authority of proto-national kingdoms. As such subjection affected even the highest-ranking aristocrats, such as William, the road of liberation of desire appears to have been a fast lane to serfdom for everyone, perhaps the most pre-modern feature of the modern and postmodern conditions.

Full Product Details

Author:   Fidel Fajardo-Acosta
Publisher:   Lexington Books
Imprint:   Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Dimensions:   Width: 15.80cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 23.70cm
Weight:   0.617kg
ISBN:  

9781666926934

ISBN 10:   1666926930
Pages:   314
Publication Date:   15 August 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgments Preface and Disclaimer Introduction. William IX of Aquitaine, the Premodern and Postmodern Conditions William IX, First of the Moderns The Dialectic of Unreason: Romans, Christians, and Germanic Barbarians The New Subjects of Love Traveling to the Past Neither Past, Nor Other Women, Wealth, and Power Courtly Culture The Divinity of Love: Dante as a Troubadour Caveat Evangelista Chapter 1. The Life of William IX of Aquitaine Carolingian Period Capetians, Church, and Empire Aquitaine William IX of Aquitaine Crusade of 1101–1102 Robert d’Arbrissel Anjou and Other Affairs Two-Faced William Chapter 2. The Songs of William IX Manuscripts Manuscript C Manuscript D Manuscript E Manuscript I Manuscript K Manuscript N Manuscript R Manuscript V Manuscript a1 Song 1: “Companho, farai ieu un vers covinen” (My friends, I will make a proper song) Standard Bibliographic Text Identification Topic/Argument Date of Composition Primary Sources Genre Form and Versification Other Editions Base Manuscript Song 1 Text Song 2: “Companho, non puosc mudar qu’ieu non m’esfrei” (My friends, I cannot help but be upset) Standard Bibliographic Text Identification Topic/Argument Date of Composition Primary Sources Genre Form and Versification Other Editions Base Manuscript Song 2 Text Song 3: “Companho, tant ai agutz d’avols conres” (My friends, I have suffered so much ill treatment) Standard Bibliographic Text Identification Topic/Argument Date of Composition Primary Sources Genre Form and Versification Other Editions Base Manuscript Song 3 Text Song 4: “Farai un vers de dreit nien” (I will make a song exactly about nothing) Standard Bibliographic Text Identification Topic/Argument Date of Composition Primary Sources Genre Form and Versification Other Editions Base Manuscript Song 4 Text Song 5: “Farai un vers, pos me somelh” (I will make a song, since I am sleepy) Standard Bibliographic Text Identification Topic/Argument Date of Composition Primary Sources Genre Form and Versification Other Editions Base Manuscript Song 5 Text Song 6: “Ben vueill que sapchon li pluzor” (I very much want for most people to know) Standard Bibliographic Text Identification Topic/Argument Date of Composition Primary Sources Genre Form and Versification Other Editions Base Manuscript Song 6 Text Song 7: “Pos vezem de novel florir” (Since we see the flowers blooming again) Standard Bibliographic Text Identification Topic/Argument Date of Composition Primary Sources Genre Form and Versification Other Editions Base Manuscript Song 7 Text Song 8: “Farai chansoneta nueva” (I will make a new little song) Standard Bibliographic Text Identification Topic/Argument Date of Composition Primary Sources Genre Form and Versification Other Editions Base Manuscript Song 8 Text Song 9: “Mout iauzens me prenc en amar” (Full of joy, I give myself over to loving) Standard Bibliographic Text Identification Topic/Argument Date of Composition Primary Sources Genre Form and Versification Other Editions Base Manuscript Song 9 Text Song 10: “Ab la dolchor del temps novel” (With the sweetness of the new season) Standard Bibliographic Text Identification Topic/Argument Date of Composition Primary Sources Genre Form and Versification Other Editions Base Manuscript Song 10 Text Song 11: “Pos de chantar m’es pres talenz” (Since I feel a desire to sing) Standard Bibliographic Text Identification Topic/Argument Date of Composition Primary Sources Genre Form and Versification Other Editions Base Manuscript Song 11 Text Chapter 3. The Economy of Love All in Love: Production and Reproduction, Commerce and Capitalism Women as Capital Courtly Love and the Medieval Economy Love is Green and Natural Desiring Freedom, Choosing Subjection All the Lord’s Horses, and All the Lord’s Women and Men Too The First and One Thousand Other Nights: The Real Rights of the Lord Nothing’s Not for Sale Inexhaustible Resources: Drill, Baby, Drill Private Property but Profitable Use: The Strange Communism of Capitalism The Leis de Con: Demand and Supply Modern Capitalism in Premodern Times The Downsides of Economic Progress Self-Interest in Disguise The Cheater Cheated Chapter 4. The Red Cat of Desire The Taming of the Lord Cat Disciplines Varieties of Courtly Cats Cat Caveats How England Got its Royal Arms Chapter 5. Riddles of Self and Others A Riddle at Heart Agnes and Ermessen Geographical Riddles Mon Esteve The Ring of Love The Sign of the Cross The Riddle of the Self At the Crossroads Conclusion. The Legacy of William IX Glossary Bibliography

Reviews

"Half ingenious scholarly commentary, half disquisition on the rot of modernity (which, of course, extends through to the Middle Ages and beyond), this book takes aim at contemporary political discourse which ridicules the medieval period as irrelevant, celebrates it as racist and homophobic, or makes it a strategically child-like evocation of the American dream. Taking Guilhem IX as a figure through whom to examine the universal appeal and message of Occitan poetic production as well as the tragic ironies of modern subjecthood, Fajardo-Acosta finds early vestiges of capitalism and the current debased view of the past, of truth, and of literature in the cynical and theatrical 12th-century comtal court of Guilhem IX in Poitiers. Fajardo-Acosta offers us in this study a refreshingly polemical intervention into cultural studies and an altogether exhilarating read.--Bill Burgwinkle, University of Cambridge-King's College In lucid, often eloquent prose, Fajardo-Acosta takes up the challenge of understanding Europe's millennium-long articulation of its identity through erotic writing -- so-called ""courtly love"" -- beginning with the poems of William IXth of Aquitaine in the early 12th century. He unmasks this identity as a politics of power through a process of ""civilizing"" otherwise rogue agents and their petty states constantly jockeying for wealth and influence under the guise of serving the Lady, ""midons,"" who is frequently a cipher for controlling the bodies and property not only of women but also the populace of local subjects. His research is extensive and his arguments penetrating. I recommend this book enthusiastically for all that it can teach us.--R. Allen Shoaf, University of Florida This is a quite remarkable study of the ideological origins of modern love, which Fidel Fajardo-Acosta locates in the poetry of the earliest poet--William IX of Aquitaine--in the earliest European literary tradition in a modern language, Old Occitan troubadour lyric. This fearlessly contrarian, cynical, and brutally polemical broadside provides a strikingly new paradigm for understanding the significance of fin'amor (so-called ""courtly love""--more accurately, ""refined love""); at the same time, the book asserts that we who live in the 21st century are incarcerated in the same political/ideological prison-house that generated troubadour love lyric around 1100 CE. With a relentless, unpredictable, idiosyncratic, and amusing prose style reminiscent of Nietzsche's, Fajardo-Acosta launches a fierce attack--fortified by superlative philological expertise--on our current way of living.--Gregory B. Stone, Louisiana State University"

"Half ingenious scholarly commentary, half disquisition on the rot of modernity (which, of course, extends through to the Middle Ages and beyond), this book takes aim at contemporary political discourse which ridicules the medieval period as irrelevant, celebrates it as racist and homophobic, or makes it a strategically child-like evocation of the American dream. Taking Guilhem IX as a figure through whom to examine the universal appeal and message of Occitan poetic production as well as the tragic ironies of modern subjecthood, Fajardo-Acosta finds early vestiges of capitalism and the current debased view of the past, of truth, and of literature in the cynical and theatrical 12th-century comtal court of Guilhem IX in Poitiers. Fajardo-Acosta offers us in this study a refreshingly polemical intervention into cultural studies and an altogether exhilarating read. In lucid, often eloquent prose, Fajardo-Acosta takes up the challenge of understanding Europe's millennium-long articulation of its identity through erotic writing -- so-called ""courtly love"" -- beginning with the poems of William IXth of Aquitaine in the early 12th century. He unmasks this identity as a politics of power through a process of ""civilizing"" otherwise rogue agents and their petty states constantly jockeying for wealth and influence under the guise of serving the Lady, ""midons,"" who is frequently a cipher for controlling the bodies and property not only of women but also the populace of local subjects. His research is extensive and his arguments penetrating. I recommend this book enthusiastically for all that it can teach us. This is a quite remarkable study of the ideological origins of modern love, which Fidel Fajardo-Acosta locates in the poetry of the earliest poet--William IX of Aquitaine--in the earliest European literary tradition in a modern language, Old Occitan troubadour lyric. This fearlessly contrarian, cynical, and brutally polemical broadside provides a strikingly new paradigm for understanding the significance of fin'amor (so-called ""courtly love""--more accurately, ""refined love""); at the same time, the book asserts that we who live in the 21st century are incarcerated in the same political/ideological prison-house that generated troubadour love lyric around 1100 CE. With a relentless, unpredictable, idiosyncratic, and amusing prose style reminiscent of Nietzsche's, Fajardo-Acosta launches a fierce attack--fortified by superlative philological expertise--on our current way of living."

Author Information

Fidel Fajardo-Acosta is professor of English at Creighton University.

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