Lecturae Tropatorum (Aug 2015)
Anonyme, "L’autrier cuidai aber druda" (BdT 461.146)
Abstract
"L’autrier cuidai aber druda" is one of a small group of texts written in a mixed linguistic variety that has both French and Occitan features and which includes the lais "Markiol" and "Nompar," that are moreover transmitted by the same French manuscript, the so-called Chansonnier du Roi, among a collection of troubadour poems, most of which are also copied in a mixed variety. The accommodation of this kind of text in trouvère songbooks would seem to point to a specific tradition in which troubadour songs would circulate not in their original language, but in a gallicized version, which allowed for the prestige of the source language to be retained as well as maintaining the most important formal features of the poem: versification and sophisticated rhyme schemes. This tradition seems to have encouraged some trouvères – who remain anonymous – to compose poetry directly in this mixed variety, in forms that tend to be characteristic of trouvère poetry. The present text is a lyric adaptation of a parody of Ovid’s "Amores", known as "De Vetula", the interpretation of which has given rise to different opinions, which will be discussed here along with a closer study of the language.
