Alba dworska trubadurów (rozstanie o świcie)
Abstract The Courtly Alba of Troubadours (Parting at Dawn)

Summary/Abstract: The second in the series of studies devoted to the genre of love songs, which combines the motif of lovers parting or meeting at dawn, presents the most canonical form of the genre, i.e. the courtly alba of the Occitan (Provençal) troubadours. Chapter 1. Courtly alba (knightly, learned, aristocratic) presents the definition of the genre according mainly to Elizabeth Wilson Poe. It then introduces a classification of the varieties of the genre following Christopher Chaguinian’s critical edition (alba de séparation, alba formelle érotique, alba religieux) enriched by the division into two types of mixed albas (presented in the previous paper) that are on the borderline of courtly and traditional forms. Additionally, following Toribio Fuente Cornejo, the collection of Occitan albas is supplemented with French and Galician-Portuguese examples, all created between the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 14th century. Chapter 2.1. Traditional alba versus knightly guard song presents—following Chaguinian—a falsification of Alfred Jeanroy’s hypothesis that assumes the existence of an intermediate link between two preserved Latin guard songs from the 10th and 11th centuries and the troubadour alba, indicating the latter’s origin in the traditional form. This hypothesis is corroborated by the oldest definition of the genre in the treatise Doctrina de compondre dictats. Chapter 2.3. The Arabic hypothesis presents the motif of ibtakara (the parting of co-nomadising peoples or the morning parting of lovers from two different peoples), often referred to in Andalusian courtly poetry. The example of Ibn Zaydūn’s qaṣīda (10th/11th century) shows motifs that are intrinsic to the troubadour alba. Chapter 3. Types of Occitan amorous alba. Analysis of texts presents the further varieties of the genre: 3.1. Alba de sépartion (example—Rimbaut de Vaqueiras, Gaita be), 3.1.1. Alba de sépartion, type: a courtly version of chanson de malmariée (Cadenet, S’anc fui belha), 3.2. Alba formelle érotique (Uc de Bacalaria Per grazir).

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