Portuguese Cantigas - Essay Example

PORTUGUESE CANTIGAS Introduction In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the trovadorismo, or the Galician-Portuguese lyric reigned medieval Portugal and Galicia. The Galician-Portuguese lyric refers to movement or a lyric poetic school in which troubadours, or poets, dominated the royal courts and aristocratic circles of the two lands. The result was emergence of thousands of texts. As the movement grew, a new phase of poetry emerged around the thirteenth century. This time, the poems took the form of songs which were compiled in songbooks also known as the cancioneiros. The nature of these songs is that they would be introduced by a stringed instrument’s music, or they were done with the accompaniment of an instrument. These songs came to be branded as cantigas or cantares.The cantigas were partitioned into three parts: female-voiced cantigas (cantigas de amigo), male-voiced cantigas (cantigas d’amor), and mocking or insulting cantigas (cantigas d’escarnho e de mal dizer). The cantigas were mostly love lyrics, and in most cases were created from a woman’s perspective as she sought to express her innermost desires and love to her amigo. As such, it is sufficient to state that a woman was an integral part of the cantigas. The aspect of femininity stands out in the cantigas in that while most of them were female-voiced, they had been composed by men as insignificant evidence of female troubadours exists.In this study, the portrayals of femininity in the three cantigas will be discussed with regards to how they exalted or looked down on females. In cantigas de amigo, or “the songs of love”, all the songs were done in female voices although the entire cantigas history provides no evidence about the existence of female troubadours1. As such, we get the notion that only male troubadours created or composed the songs and then the females would be made to sing. Secondly, in analyzing the content of the cantigas de amigo songs, they were created from a woman’s perspective in that the composers made the songs to be such that a woman was describing that moment when she was deeply in love. This is evident in that the term amiga which refers to a friend is used in most of the songs as a reference to the man who the woman was probably in love with. In short, the songs were mostly meant to express a woman’s feeling of love. The femininity issue that emerges in this connect hints that the man in medieval Galician-Portuguese times had some expectations of what a woman in love was supposed to feel or express her emotions. In short, the woman did not have the freedom to express her genuine emotions because male composers came up with the content and then made the women to sing so that it appeared like they were genuine [female] feelings. As such, it is evident that there were reasons why female troubadours never existed, and that their male counterparts decided to compose the lyrics and direct the women in singing them. Thecantigas de amigo songs, in some cases, highlighted oppression of the woman during the Galician-Portuguese lyric. While most of them were sung about love, others were made to show the genuine status of the females at that point in time. In the songs, the woman played the role of the main character as well as the speaker. However, as Dodnam explains, the woman was only in charge of the narratives but never in charge of her emotions since the composing was done by men. As such, all she did was to act as per the troubadours’’ directions. Further, it is indicated that the songs “reordered” the defeat and chaos which defeated the [real] personal relationships of women2. Dodnam further reveals that the songs were not meant for the “cheerful but those who had suffered and are sad”. Therefore in these revelations, the real status of the women in medieval Galician-Portuguese time is evidenced to have been not so pleasant, contrary to what the cantigas de amigo songs portrayed. It further makes sense that women were not allowed to be troubadours because they would have expressed their plight. The woman was expected to be submissive to the man as shown in some cantigas de amigo songs. The following extract from Johan Zorro’s poem namorada justifies this statement: Tresses, my tresses, The king has sent for them! Mother, what shall I do with them? Daughter, give them to the king. Ringlets, my ringlets, The king has sent for them! Mother, what should I do with them? Daughter, give them to the king3. According to Klinck4, the physical appearance of women was highly incorporated in the poems, and her hair was one of the key elements mentioned. Hair, as it is revealed, said a lot about women. First, long, loose hair meant a lady was not married, and that she was a virgin. Married women and widows were expected to cover their hair behind headdresses. In the above excerpt, the words “tresses” and “ringlets” are symbolically used to symbolize virginity in the girl, and the king is requesting to have it. In this case, the term “king” is possibly used to give power to the man so as to show feminine inferiority. In addition, the mother, who is older than her daughter, hurriedly explains that she should submit to the king’s (man’s) demands. Again, rather than “request” for the lady as a whole, the king goes for her virginity, meaning it was all her wanted in her. In this, we get the notion that feminine inferiority and submissive cultureswere deeply rooted in the Galician-Portuguese norms. Cantigas d’escarnho poems, or songs of insult and mockery, also had within them concealed negative subtlety and brutality which was directed at women. These songs were based on the pastimes of men at Iberian courts during the Galician-Portuguese lyric era. Liu explains that prostitutes, courtesans, and sex-workers were the main targets of the mockery and jokes staged in cantigas d’escarnho poems. The term soldadeira refers to the economic valuation of the sex workers who the men used when they felt like it, and never minded sharing them5. Liu presents a case in one cantiga in which Maior Garcia, a soldadeira, engages in economic sexual affairs with Christian, Jewish, and Muslim men within a day. The mockery part is that sex was accepted as a tradable commodity, and there were receipts (records of acknowledgement) to show that a soldadeira had “sold” her services to so and so6. The men referred to the exchange as merchandia which referred to the woman as simply merchandise which men could purchase whenever they needed to7. The insult part suffices in that while men also participated in the trade, only women bore the shame and brutality that came with it. As such, being feminine meant that one could be perceived of as merchandise meant to excite and satisfy men’s desires. Additionally, being female meant one was vulnerable to insults and mockery by their male counterparts during their pastimes at the Iberian courts. Prostitutes were not the only portion of the females that was mocked or insulted; aged women too, were distanced from the Galician-Portuguese societies as shown bycantigas d’escarnho poems. One of the most popular subjects of multiple cantigas d’escarnho lyrics was the iconic Maria Balteira. She was featured in several of such poems such as the one by Pero da Ponte. Da Ponte mocks her while she is on her deathbed, in old age for losing “cosmic union with the sea”, lacking “fresh and fragrant flower”, and for not “locking her trunk8.” It was common for older women to be ridiculed when they married or remarried, and interestingly, the same was never seen in men. As Eyler9 adds; older women were twice oppressed than the young, and this trend had existed since the thirteenth to the seventeenth century and beyond. In fact, the rejection of old women through prose and poetry extended to the religious cantigas, cantigas de Santa Maria. It is said that during her young age, a woman at child-bearing age did not have much issues. However as she grew older and could neither be referred to or compared to the Virgin Mary, or Mary the Mother of Jesus, she was likely to become unacceptable. “With the passing of time, the wisdom of the Old Woman gets darker and she becomes a witch, associated with un-Christian rituals… she is stripped of her powers in the field of healing, medicine and chemistry10.” Collectively, these revelations show that the old woman was more vulnerable to insults and mockery; an occurrence which did not affect men. Therefore, femininity was not an admirable trait at the time as shown by the poems in that it was socially-created as an inferior gender subject to oppression, insults, and mockery. The cantigas de amor poems were secular and were male-voiced, in most cases were men expressing their sensual emotions. They can therefore be described as a direct opposite of cantigas de amigo. Femininity dominates this type of cantiga in that the men mostly described women’s physical beauty, making it the subject of most of them. Key terms indicating this include her descriptions as good- looking (de ben parecer), beautiful (fremosa), or nicely-shaped (ben talhda). Additionally, and although secular, it was common for the male trabadours to refer ladies to the Virgin Mary11. This is evident in cantigas such as Joao Airas Santiago’s: Senhorfremosa, de bon parecer Pero quemoyro, querendouos ben, Se uosdigoquemuyto mal mjven In the above opening lines of the cantiga, Santiago was praising the physical beauty of a woman and expressing how his love for her was causing him pain. Similarly, Martin Codax composed a cantiga praising a woman’s beauty: En no sagrad e[n] vigo Baylauacorpovelido Amor ey; En Uigo no sagradoBaylauacorpo Delgado Amor ey12 Translated, the above poem was describing a beautiful woman who was portrayed dancing outside a cathedral in Vigo. Her beauty, as it goes, was seen in her dance moves which made her slender body look beautiful. From these two cantigas, it is clear that the men admired women’s looks and they expressed it through the poems. The femininity image in this portrayal is that the woman was an icon of beauty and men sought to make it known to them by dedicating such cantiga de amor poems. In comparing the cantiga de amor and cantiga de amigo poems, a rather unfair portrayal of femininity is evident. The unfairness suffices in that both poems were composed and directed by male troubadours. In terms of the male’s expression of their feelings and sensuality, there was total freedom. However, when it came to women, they did not get to respond since their responses were designed by men, for men. Better put, when cantiga de amor poems were composed (men’s expressions), men also composed the responses in cantiga de amigo poems and used female voices to make it appear like the women themselves had responded. As such, it is sufficient to state that the men had the freedom of expression, whereas to the females, it was totally denied. Concisely, the men “responded” in the ways that best pleased them and possibly not how the women would have responded to the poems; therefore proving that the masculine dictated what the feminine could or could not do. Conclusion The Galician-Portuguese lyric constructed by several cantigas such as the cantigas de amigo, cantigas d’amor andcantigas d’escarnho e de mal dizer created different perceptions towards femininity. In as much as most of the poems were dedicated to, or based on female ideologies, they had so little to do with their good. The only good evident in them is that in cantigas de amor, the woman was praised for her uniqueness, beauty and allure to the man. All the other perceptions were negatively created; first, the woman was made to sing what the men had composed, she never got to compose her own poems, she became the subject of insults and mockery, and finally, she had her ways dictated by masculine ideologies. Therefore, as the discussion shows, the image of femininity in the Portuguese medieval culture was more of a curse than it was a blessing in that its downside outshines any good it had to offer. Bibliography Cancioneiro da BibliotecaNacional.Antigo Colocci-Brancuti.ElzaPaxeco Machado e Jose Pedro Machado.Vol 7.Revista de Portugal, 1949. Dodman, Maria. “(Mis)Fortunes and Perils of Beauty: the Women of BernardimRibeiro’sMenina e Moca”. eHumanista 19, 1. (2011): 390-407. Eyler, Joshua. Disability in the Middle Ages: Reconsiderations and Reverberations. Ashgate Publishing, 2013. Klinck, Anne, & Rasmussen, Ann. Medieval Woman’s Song: Cross-cultural Approaches. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania, 2002. Liu, Benjamin. “Joke Work and Sex Work: Courtiers and Soldadeiras”. Revista Electronica de EstudosLiterarios 1, 5 (2009): 1-9. Read More