Ebook: The troubadours and the crafting of literary authority

This dissertation examines practices and theories of vernacular authorship in the works of the troubadours of southern France, and the influence these practices had on later poets of Catalonia and Italy. It examines how developing notions of vernacular authorship represent both a rupture with and a continuation of Latin definitions of the auctor.

The first chapter examines the poetry of Guilhem IX, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitiers, and evaluates the importance of Guilhem's political authority in his development of new categories of vernacular authorship that go beyond Latin definitions of the auctor. The second chapter is an analysis of vernacular and Latin references made to Guilhem's vassal and rival, the troubadour Eble II of Ventadorn, and how, although none of his poems have survived today, his status as literary authority in the poetry of the troubadours of the second and third generations served as a sort of pole star by which future troubadours oriented and authorized their own vernacular poetic projects. The third and fourth chapters study how the Catalan troubadour, Raimon Vidal, and the Occitan-born troubadour, Uc de Saint-Circ, introduce the works of the "classical" troubadours to foreign audiences in Catalonia and Italy, respectively. Chapter three focuses on Vidal's comparison of Old Occitan with Latin in his grammatical treatise, the Razos de Trobar, and his treatment of the troubadours of southern France as quotable literary authorities in his narrative works. Chapter four evaluates Uc de Saint-Circ's use of the Latin grammar-school texts, the accessus ad auctores, as literary models for his vidas (biographies) and razos (commentaries), which he uses to introduce the Occitan troubadours to a foreign Italian audience.

In each of these troubadours' works, there is a discernible influence of medieval definitions of the Latin auctor upon perspectives on vernacular authorship. Conversely, each of these troubadours' works displays an acute anxiety in its relationship to the Latin definitions of the author. The space in between these two reflexes of imitation and differentiation provides us with a framework in which the outlines of the vernacular author can be discerned. This dissertation is a contribution to that outline.