A ''tenso'' (; ) is a style of
troubadour song. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position; common topics relate to love or ethics. Usually, the tenso is written by two different poets, but several examples exist in which one of the parties is imaginary, including God (
Peire de Vic), the poet's horse (
Bertran Carbonel) or his cloak (
Gui de Cavalhon).
Closely related, and sometimes overlapping, genres include:
* the ''
partimen'', in which more than two voices discuss a subject
* the ''
cobla esparsa'' or ''
cobla exchange'', a tenso of two stanzas only
* the ''contenson'', where the matter is eventually judged by a third party.
Notable examples
*
Marcabru and
Uc Catola''Amics Marchabrun, car digam'' possibly the earliest known example.
*
Cercamon and Guilhalmi
''Car vei finir a tot dia'' another candidate for the earliest known example.
*
Raimbaut d'Aurenga and
Giraut de Bornelh''Ara·m platz, Giraut de Borneill'' where major exponents of the two styles extol
trobar clus and
trobar leu, respectively.
*
Raimbaut de Vaqueiras''Domna tan vos ai preiada'' where an (imaginary)
Genoese lady answers the poet in her
own dialect, is the only early document written in it.
*Peire de Vic
''L’autrier fui en paradis'' a contrast with God
*
Montan''Eu veing vas vos, Seingner, fauda levada'' considered the most obscene of Old Occitan lyrics.
*Carenza and Iselda
about whether a lady should get married, between two trobairitz.
Legacy
In
Italian literature, the tenso was adapted as the ''tenzone''. In
Old French
Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th [2-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...
, it became the ''tençon''.
In the Galician-Portuguese lyric, it was called ''tençom''.
References
Western medieval lyric forms
Occitan literary genres
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