In the troubadour tradition, love is both a thing that the poet pursues and a thing that pursues the poet. It can fulfill the poet and drive him crazy at the same time. The troubadour poem that I have chosen to help prove this is the poem, “On true love are all my thoughts bent. ” This poem is in the troubadour style of canso, or “love song,” as opposed to being a sirventes, or “political song. ” Like in minnesinger poems, many lines in this poem have rhymes, which means “the pattern of repeated sounds in a poem,” that contribute to the flow and the romanticism of the poem.
I believe that this poem expresses the idea that love is both a great and terrible thing in that it is great because love brings the poet honour and in him it brings out a true heart. But love is also terrible, as shown when the poet’s service to love brings him only pain and torment, and when the poet talks about how he sins in loving her for he can never be with her. In this poem, the poet goes on and on about the effects that his lady has on him, good and bad.
One that stood out was that, as he says in lines 9-12, “Yet to me love has such honour sent since my heart’s firmer truer in its ways than any other man; and if it seldom says who it loves that’s for fear of ill intent. ” These lines in the poem are saying how love has changed the poet for the better; it has given him honor that he has not had before. Though others may not be able to see it because he keeps his love for his domna, or “the lady-lord of the poet,” deep inside for fear of public wrath, the effect that love has on the poet in this case is one that has made him a better and more honorable man.
His heart, though wrought by the eager fury of love, has become firm and true in his love for the lady. This shows that even though the love itself can be detrimental and destructive to a person, the products of it and the lessons that can be learned from the experience of having so deep a love can, in the end be a good thing for the person. Though the poet could not be with his love, by loving her he became more honorable than he had been before.
Though it is shown that love, in the way that it is portrayed in the troubadour tradition, can be a good thing in the end, it can also be a taxing and painful thing for a person and their mental state. The poet has become love’s liege-man, or “poetic servant,” and it has brought him hurt and agony. This is shown expressly in lines 5-8, when the poet says, “And in simplicity I will serve him still though my service bring me only ill, since they are painful and dangerous the torments Love grants his followers. It is in these lines that the poet tells us of how love (which he references as a person) has become his master and has taken control of his life.
The poet talks of how Love leads his followers into torments that bring them pain and ill. Another example of Love’s pain is when, in lines 27-30, the poet says, “Alas! A man can not yearn and yet absent himself from where he would most deeply gaze, or throw off sorrow and his spirits raise, but swiftly seeks what his hope shall dent. ” This passage is saying that when a person is in love, they can not simply ignore the pain that they feel.
Love is always at the forefront of the lover’s mind and that can not change. Whatever kind of hurt that love is bringing them will not let itself be ignored, no matter how hard the lover tries. Another reason that love can be a bad thing in this poem is because the poet can never be with his love, so he sins in loving her. In the poem, it says in lines 22-26, “Through audacity, through pride I know full well I sin, in loving you: often my eyes must fill, with tears, for to direct my heart is ruinous towards one who is so high among the first. These lines in the poem tell us that the poet knows that loving her is wrong, and it causes him great distress.
The pain that love brings the poet, however, does not stop him from loving his lady more and more. In lines 31-37, when the poet says, “And know, lady, that the more my tears well, the more my love grows for you and my goodwill, a sweet pleasant thought’s born in my heart thus who, night and day, love’s thoughts can not disperse,” the poet is talking of how even though he knows loving her is wrong, and it brings him sorrow to think of it, the more longing for her and pain that he experiences, the stronger his love for her grows.
This is bad because it shows how unhealthily deep the poet’s love for his lady is. Love, as it has been shown in this poem, can be both a good and a bad thing. It can drive a man to madness and it can also teach him many things. Troubadour tradition is based around the idea of a love that is both good and bad, and that love should be filled with hopeless romantics and obstacles keeping lovers apart. Troubadour poetry is still relevant in on our society, and has influenced the work of poets and musicians from Dante Alighieri to Johnny Cash.
Love in these poems is a twisted, confusing concept that the poets and their readers alike struggle with understanding. In this poem, “On true love all my thoughts are bent,” love is illustrated as an internal struggle of the poet between despair and joy. Our poet’s concept of love is distorted to match the ideals of courtly love in that time, and though there may have been some good in his love, it was mostly bad. In conclusion, I believe that this poem expresses the idea that love is both a good and a bad thing, but I think that it puts more emphasis on the bad.
