SOURCE: Ferrante, Joan M. “Notes toward the Study of a Female Rhetoric in the Trobairitz.” In The Voice of the Trobairitz: Perspectives on the Women Troubadours, edited by William D. Paden, pp. 63-72. Philadelphia, Penn.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989.

In the following essay, Ferrante analyzes differences between troubadour poetry written by women and that written by men.

Is there a female rhetoric in the poetry of the trobairitz? When I first considered this question, I expected the answer to be no. But when I went over the material I had collected in order to begin to answer the question, I discovered that the answer seemed to be yes, albeit a hesitant yes. One would have to make a far more extensive survey than I have done to be able to draw such a conclusion, and even then the available material is so sparse that such a conclusion would...