FREN-GA 2244: Medieval Lyric Poetry / COLIT-GA 3954: Topics in Poetics / MEDI-GA 2200: Topics in Medieval and Renaissance Media
Troubadour Lyric: Rethinking NatureCulture
Wednesday 3:30-6:00pm 19 University Place #225
Instructor Sarah Kay
The portmanteau formation natureculture (or nature-culture) is used by Latour and Haraway, among others, to dismantle what once appeared a foundational opposition that served to demarcate and shore up the category of “the human” vis-à-vis that of “nature.” In modernity, this opposition has been used to drive a wedge between the discourses of the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, thereby insinuating a distinct ontology to each of the three. In premodernity in general, however, and in particular in the twelfth- and thirteenth-century culture in which the troubadours composed, all three of these modern discourses fell within a field of “clergie,” however defined, and however received by the corresponding world of the secular laity.
In this class, we will consider how the relationship of nature and culture operates in the lyric production of the troubadours. In their songs, troubadours claim to draw their inspiration from such “natural” elements as breath, air, breeze, natural sounds, bird song, “harmony,” and a love that is in line with nature. Sometimes these features of the natural order appear compatible with, indeed foundational of, such “cultural” elements as the systems of spiritual or social law or other refined and codified formal structures like grammatical, poetic and musical artes, mechanical contrivances, networks of production, or techniques of transmission. But at other times actual behaviors are understood as falling short of ideals incarnated in nature; nature itself can appear as fallen with only humans having the possibility of escaping the limitations afflicting the rest of the physical world; the non-natural mechanical can appear not as an expression of art and means to harmony but as their debasement.
The syllabus is divided into three sections. Following an introductory session, the first four weeks concern ways of thinking about the large-scale connections between God, nature, and art as they affect poetic composition, music and language. The second group, made up of 6 sessions, looks at particular interactions among the terms human-natural-physical-mechanical, and at the ways these combine. The image above, from the troubadour songbook known for short as N, encapsulates just such an interaction between natural landscape (the tree, sun and hill), built structures (the tower), scientific knowledge (the lover, the leftmost figure of the couple, is demonstrating the effects of a mirror), love, and song. The final group of three sessions will inquire into the status of “form” in light of the fluidities existing among these categories and the networks of transmission and reception.
Together we will read songs by many of the important early troubadours – Guilhem IX, Jaufre Rudel, Cercamon, Peire d’Alvernha, Marcabru, Rigaut de Berbezilh – as well as several by famous slightly later ones -- Bernart de Ventadorn, Raimbaut d’Aurenga, Giraut de Bornelh, Bertran de Born, Arnaut Daniel, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, Albertet. Occitan arts of poetry by Raimon Vidal and others will also be discussed. Philosophical and theoretical readings will include Aristotle, Heidegger, Agamben, Latour, Haraway, and Bennett.
The class will include a visit on October 24 [new revised date] to see the only manuscript of troubadour song in the Americas, the magnificent M.819 (songbook N), housed in the Pierpont Morgan Library. There will, in addition, be a number of guest speakers specializing in various of the areas covered on the syllabus, including musical performance. Students will have the opportunity to study the Occitan language in a series of additional, optional classes led by an advanced graduate student.