The Troubadour Tensos and Partimens

Best known for their love-songs and their invention of Courtly Love, the troubadours were fascinated by debate and devised their entire, multifaceted lyric production on the basis of dialogue. This debating process is nowhere more in evidence than in the tensos and partimens. This three-volume critical edition makes available for the first time the entire corpus of 160 tensos and partimens involving real, as opposed to fictive, speakers. It is a massive undertaking, representing a major contribution to scholarship. The material is of compelling relevance to linguists, cultural historians and literary historians, offering a mine of largely untapped information on the medieval Occitan language, on contemporary politics, courtly and judicial mores, and on attitudes to gender, class, and ethnic stereotypes. The edition meets the highest standards of scholarly rigour and accuracy: the notes and critical apparatus are as minimal as scholarly probity allows but always helpful and well-argued, taking due account of previous scholarship, and the translations are clear, accurate and elegant. A cumulative index, bibliography and glossary aid access to these volumes which fill one of the last major gaps in our knowledge of medieval Occitan literature. RUTH HARVEY is Professor of medieval Occitan literature at Royal Holloway, University of London and LINDA PATERSON is Professor Emerita of French at the University of Warwick. They were assisted by Anna Radaelli.