Troubadour / Trobairitz Poetry

From the women trobairitz songs I choose "I." to speak about. What I find most interesting about this song is that the poet compliments her love so much before revealing at the very end that her love has betrayed her. It is interesting that although it seems as if her love has cheated on her, she still desires him and compliments him so much. Does she feel as if she has less power compared to him, so she sugarcoats her complaints, or does she truly love him so much that she is really that forgiving? There seems to be some sort of class difference here too. She mentions how her love is the noblest of men. Perhaps she feels powerless to a man of a higher social status, so she continues to compliment him. At the end she begs for help. It seems she has been taken advantage of by a "higher up" who she continues to compliment out of fear.

From the men troubadour songs I choose "26" to speak about. This song is about a man who falls in love with a women who refuses to love him back. Once again, I get the impression that this women is of a higher class status then the man, so there is a literal social awkwardness between them. The women has all of the power in this situation. The man is lost in her, and she seems to see the man simply as an annoyance and nothing more. He mentions that he is giving up on women, and he says he knows that they are all the same. He says he will run away, but will still be in pain. He almost seems suicidal. It is interesting how much power this woman has over a man she may not even recognize as existent. He makes a reference to narcissist mentioning that he saw him self in her eyes which then made him go mad. I wonder if there could also be a possibility of sexual innuendo when he says "I beheld myself in you."

Over all between the male and female songs, there are mostly similarities. It seems as if both write about unrequited love, and while both are extremely upset, they each gain happiness just from thinking of their love. It seems that they all have intense mood swings, and that they are all a bit crazy. There also seem to be class structure disputes throughout. Overall the men seem more dramatic. They seem more like "I am going to kill my self for this women," while the women seem more like "I'm pretty sad."