SOURCE: Klassen, Norman. “Self-Reflexiveness and the Category of the Will in Early Troubadour Poetry of Fin' Amors.” Forum for Modern Language Studies 34, no. 1 (January 1998): 29-42.

In the following essay, Klassen examines the complex relationship between the poet's “I” and the lover's “I” in troubadour poetry.

A number of recent studies have drawn fresh attention to the complexity of twelfth-century troubadour poetry. Linda Paterson's recent comprehensive introduction to Occitan society highlights the linguistic diversity of the region given that name;¹ she and others have also explored the subtle variations in troubadour poetry that accompany differences in poetic taste, political pressures, and local rivalries from Limoges to Aix.² In spite of this diversity, and in some ways because of it, poetic self-reflexiveness recurs insistently as a common theme. The troubadours of southern France set an important precedent in drawing attention to their own creativeness, in competing in a contest of...