Recommended Books
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The “Cort d’Amor”: A Thirteenth Century Occitan Allegorical Art of Love
With the exception of the romance of Flamenca, and to a lesser extent, the Arthurian romance of Jaufre. the medieval Occitan narrative poems of the thirteenth century have attracted very little scholarly attention, and among the shorter novas, only one, the Castla-gllos by Raimon Vidal, has been published recently. No full length study of Occitan allegory has yet appeared, al though one scholar,. Marc-RenS Jung, did devote one chap te r to th is topic in a broad survey of the medieval allegorical poem: Etudes sur le poeme allégorlque en France au rao.yen age. Unfortunately, nearly all studies of medieval allegory that have appeared In the last two decades take one or another of the great epic allegories like The Romance of the Rose. The Divine Comedy, or The Canterbury Tales, as. either point of departure or point of arrival, and as a result, the ensuing source studies or definitions are inevitably distorted by the magnetic field that such masterpieces ordinarily deploy. This tendency is particularly disappointing (in view of the fact that the Occitan allegories are, for the most part, earlier than the Romance of the Rose of Guillaume de Lorris, the first of these epic allegories. For this reason, if for no other, they deserve to be considered for and .by themselves.
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Minority Literatures and Modernism: Scots, Breton, and Occitan, 1920-1990
A quiet renaissance has been unfolding in certain parts of Europe – a renaissance of literature written in minority languages. In this book, William Calin explores the renaissance through an examination of twentieth-century works in Scots, Breton, and Occitan minority languages flourishing inside the borders of the United Kingdom and France.
For each of the three bodies of literature Calin considers major authors whose works include novels, poetry and plays, and shows that all three literatures have evolved in a like manner, repudiating their romantic folk heritage and turning instead to modern and postmodern concerns. Drawing on current critical theories in periodization, postcolonialism and cultural studies, Calin raises a range of comparative questions: Is there a common form of narrative prevalent in minority cultures that is neither realism nor metafiction? Is the minority-language theatre limited to plots treating past history and the rural present? What is the relationship between the minority literature and literature in the national language? What kind of history should be written on the literatures of Scotland, Brittany and the South of France, manifest in their several languages?
Calin’s pioneering study is the first comparative scrutiny of these minority literatures and the first to bring all three together into the mainstream of present-day criticism. His work demonstrates the intrinsic importance in their twentieth-century renewal, as well as their contribution to global culture, in both aesthetic and broadly human terms.
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The Troubadours
Combining extraordinary learning with grace of style, this volume provides the first comprehensive work in English on the poetic heritage of the medieval troubadours and the particular impact of the troubadour tradition on Italian and English verse. The songs of the troubadours with their intense lyricism “answered the mood of a feudal society newly awakened to a sense of its native uncouthness by contact with the luxury of the Orient.”
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Troubadours and Irony
From Petrarch and Dante to Pound and Eliot, the influence of the troubadours on European poetry has been profound. They have rightly stimulated a vast amount of critical writing, but the majority of modern critics see the troubadour tradition as a corpus of earnestly serious and confessional love poetry, with little or no humour. Troubadours and Irony re-examines the work offiveearly troubadours, namely Marcabru, Bernart Marti, Peire d’Alvernha, Raimbaut d’Aurenga and Giraut de Borneil, to argue that the courtly poetry of Southern France in the twelfth century was permeated with irony and that many troubadour songs were playful, laced with humorous sexual innuendo and far from serious; attention is also drawn to the large corpus of texts that are not love poems, but comic or satirical songs. New interpretations of many problematic troubadour poems are offered; in some cases the received view of a troubadour’s work is questioned. New perspectives on the tradition as a whole are suggested, and consequently on courtly culture in general. The author addresses the philological problems, by no means negligible, posed by the texts in question, and several poems are re-edited from the manuscripts.
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Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry
The medieval troubadours of the South of France profoundly influenced European literature for many centuries. This book is the first full-length study of the first-person subject position adopted by many of them in its relation to language and society. Using modern theoretical approaches, Sarah Kay discusses to what extent this first person is a “self” or “character,” and how far it is self-determining. Kay draws on a wide range of troubadour texts, providing many close readings and translating all medieval quotations into English. Her book will be of interest both to scholars of medieval literature, and to anyone investigating subjectivity in lyric poetry.
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Les troubadours et les Bretons
Joseph Anglade siguec professor ena Universitat de Tolosa.
L’idée du présent travail date de plus de vingt-cinq ans..
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La langue occitane
La langue d’oc ou occitan représente, à coté du catalan, du français, du francoprovencal, du castillan, [.] une des grandes langues romanes ou néo-latines qui se sont développées a partir d’une symbiose entre le latin populaire.
Pierre Bec ei professeur à l’Université de Poitiers, ancien Président de l’Institut d’Etudes Occitanes, ancien Directeur du Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale.
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An Introduction to Old Occitan
An Introduction to Old Occitan is the only textbook in print for learning the language used by the troubadours in southern France during the Middle Ages. Each of the thirty-two chapters discusses a subject in the study of the language (e.g., stressed vowels, subjunctive mood) and includes an exercise based on a reading of an Occitan text that has been edited afresh for this volume. An essential glossary analyzes every occurrence of every word in the readings and gives cognates in other Romance languages as well as the source of each word in Latin or other languages. The book also contains a list of prefixes, infixes, and suffixes and a dictionary of proper names. An accompanying compact disc includes discussion of the pronunciation of the language, with illustrations from the texts in the book, and musical performances by Elizabeth Aubrey, of the University of Iowa.
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Drets e privilègis dera Val d’Aran
En 1944, Manuel Abizanda e Broto deth Servicio de Defensa del Patrimonio Artístico Nacional publique era transcripcion e studi d’un manscrit titolat Índice Privilegios. Abizanda conde que dit manuscrit siguec amagat tà liurar-le deth perilh des “hodas rojas y marxistas” pendent era epòca Republicana e Guèrra Civila.
En 1938, un còp liberada era Val d’Aran pes nacionaus, er avocat Jaume Sala entreguèc dit manuscrit ath Servicio. Abizanda qu’ère agent d’aguest servici hec er estudi comentat adès.
En sòn trabalh ditz qu’un còp estudiat, eth manuscrit serà restituït entar Archiu Notariau, mès non especifique s’ei er archiu notariau deth districte de Vielha o parle d’un aute districte. Actuaument se desconeish a on se trape dit manuscrit e sonque auem notícies d’eth pera publicacion de 1944.
Pera descripcion hèta per Abizanda sabem qu’et manuscrit cònste de 50 fuelhs escrits e 40 fuelhs en blanc. Ei enquadernat en pergamin e mesure 14x10cm.
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Er escut d’Aran
Aran ath long dera sua millenària existéncia a anat configurant ua simbologia pròpia, uns senhaus d’identitat, ua istòria e un patrimòni d’identificacion collectiua.
Auem er escut qu’ei reflèxe e expression dea nòsta istòria. Sintèssis de toti es elements: Lengua, Istòria, Art, Territòri e Volentat collectiua; Diuersitat e convivéncia. Er escut sintetise toti aguesti element d’arraötz popular e eth pòble les identifique coma pròpis.
Angel Claveria a sabut articular tot eth contengut simbolic en aguestes quate planes, Mos cau emplegar e mantier es simbèus entà permanéisher coma pòble.
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Nomenclator dera Val d’Aran – Coordenades
Es nòms que designes es lòcs d’un territòri an ua foncion tecnica e culturau ath madesih temps. Tecnica perqué les referéncien geograficament, e culturau perqué veïculen ifnromacion sus era cultura, era lengua o es costums d’aqueri que les meteren eth nòm. En aguest sens, era toponímia aranesa ei un patrimòni collectiu que cau sauvagardar com a par der auviatge lingüistic e culturau dera Val d’Aran.
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Nomenclator dera Val d’Aran
Era publicacion deth Nomenclator dera Val d’Aran represente ua hita importanta ena normalizacion des sòns nòms de lòc der aranés e, donques, dera lengua madeisha. Ei un esturment basic de consulta entara Administracion e eth mon empresariau entà designar, etiquetar e fixar es nòms de lòc de manèra normativa.
Aguest nomenclator permet era localizacion dera toponimia aranesa en ua cartografia de detalh, a on practicament toti es nòms de lòc d’Aran son recuelhuts e tanben normalizadi. Atau, eth Nomenclator dera Val d’Aran amasse un totau de 3 450 toponims de tot tipe que provien dera Basa toponimica a escala 1:5000 der Institut Cartografic e Geologic de Catalonha (ICGC), era mès detalhada que corbís actuaument tota era Val d’Aran.
Era òbra qu’auetz enes mans ei frut d’un convèni de collaboracion entre er Institut d’Estudi Aranesi-Acadèmia aranesa dera lengua occitana, coma autoritat lingüistica dera lengua occitana en Catalonha, e er Institut Cartografic e Geologic de Catalonha, coma generador de cartografia e d’informacion geografica.
Eth nau Nomenclator ei un esturment de referéncia que contribuirà, d’un costast, ara coneishença e era difusion des formes adequades des nòms de lòc e era sua localizacion sus eth territòri e, der aute, ara preservacion dera toponimia coma auviatge intangible, coma testimòni des eveniments istorics e coma reflèxe d’ua cultura viua que contunharà evolucionant.
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Estudio sobre el dialecto aranés
El Valle de Arán, tan caracterizado geográficamente por sus verdes praderas, sus tupidos bosques, sus arriscadas cimas, tiene también un habla que lo define: el aranés, que, como se nos dice en la introducción de este libro, no es propiamente un dialecto catalán, sino que está emparentado con el gascón, que se conserva todavía vivo entre las gentes del pueblo de los lugares del sur de Francia, que constituyen las históricas tierras de la Gascuña.
Casimiro Ademá, el autor de este estudio, aparte de poseer unos conocimientos poco comunes en la materia –aún no siendo un especialista en filología–, nos da de este fenómeno lingüístico un testimonio vivo y directo adquirido esencialmente en las conversaciones y convivencia con las gentes de su tierra.