The ''arlabecca'' () was a
genre
Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...
of
Old Occitan
Old Occitan (, ), also called Old Provençal, was the earliest form of the Occitano-Romance languages, as attested in writings dating from the 8th to the 14th centuries. Old Occitan generally includes Early and Old Occitan. Middle Occitan is some ...
lyric poetry
Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.
The term for both modern lyric poetry and modern song lyrics derives from a form of Ancient Greek literature, t ...
. First mentioned in an ''
ensenhamen
An (, or ) was an Old Occitan didactic (often Lyric poem, lyric) poem associated with the troubadours. As a genre of Occitan literature, its limits have been open to debate since it was first defined in the 19th century. The word has many varia ...
'' by
Peire Lunel Peire Lunel de Montech (fl. 1326–1384), also known as Cavalier Lunel or Peire de Lunel, was a lawyer, politician and author of Toulouse. His name indicates he was a knight (''cavalier'' in Occitan) from Montech.Also spelled Monteg. Occitan "c ...
, the genre was supposed by
François Raynouard to be a lament or dirge, and Emil Levy thought it a "kind of poetry". It may derive from the
Galician-Portuguese term for a
rebec, ''arrabecca''. The term ''rebec'' (plural ''rebecz'') can be found in Old Occitan references to both an instrument and a genre (as in the ''
Leys d'amors'', where it is undefined). Possibly the ''rebec'' is the same genre as the ''arlabecca''. Lunel defined his ''arlabecca'' by its
metre
The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of of ...
, and thus his ''ensenhamen'' was an ''arlabecca'' as well.
Sources
*Frank M. Chambers. ''An Introduction to Old Provençal Versification''. DIANE Publishing, 1985. See pp. 256–7.
{{Western medieval lyric forms
Western medieval lyric forms
Poetic forms
Occitan literary genres
Medieval poetry