Two initial monuments of Romanesque poetry (VIII–IX centuries): verse forms and genre features

https://doi.org/10.20339/PhS.6-17.055

Semyonov Vadim B.,

PhD, associate professor of the Department of Theory of literature,

Philological faculty,

Lomonosov Moscow State University

e-mail: vadsemionov@mail.ru  

M.L. Gasparov called the initial stage of the development of poetry in the Romance languages “elusive” because it’s almost overlooked in the Russian literary criticism and is not considered as a whole in the European literary criticism. Meanwhile, there are a number of poetic texts prior to the well-studied poetry of the troubadours of Provence, the texts from which a truly Romanesque history of poetry begins. These texts are made on different Romance dialects of VIII—XI centuries, and our particular interest belongs to two poetic monuments, which are by far the absolute beginning of the Romanesque poetic tradition: the Italian riddle “Indovinello Veronese” and the Occitan charm “Tomida femina”.

The history of interpretations of these texts (actual look into the 1^st text) and also consideration of the background for the pan-European traditions of a particular folk genre (actual look into the 2^nd text) help in correct understanding and interpretation of both monuments. A fundamentally new one is the conclusion about the nature of the verse forms of these texts: both opuses are classified as examples of accentual versification, which opens up a new perspective on the history of European poetry in its Romanesque part.

Keywords: accentual verse, riddle poem, medical charm, Medieval poetry, homoioteleuton, anadiplosis.

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