A ''cobla esparsa'' ( literally meaning "scattered stanza") in
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 ...
is the name used for a single-stanza poem in
troubadour
A troubadour (, ; ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female equivalent is usually called a ''trobairitz''.
The tr ...
poetry. They constitute about 15% of the troubadour output, and they are the dominant form among late (after 1220) authors like
Bertran Carbonel and
Guillem de l'Olivier.
[Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay, edd. (1999), ''The Troubadours: An Introduction'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ).] The term ''cobla triada'' is used by modern scholars to indicate a ''cobla'' taken from a longer poem and let stand on its own, but its original medieval meaning was a ''cobla esparsa'' taken from a larger collection of such poems, since ''coblas esparsas'' were usually presented in large groupings.
Sometimes, two authors would write a cobla esparsa each, in a ''cobla'' exchange; this corresponds, in a shorter form, to the earlier ''
tenso'' or ''
partimen''.
Martín de Riquer Martin may refer to:
Places Antarctica
* Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land
* Port Martin, Adelie Land
* Point Martin, South Orkney Islands
Europe
* Martin, Croatia, a village
* Martin, Slovakia, a city
* Martín del Río, Aragón, Spain
* M ...
(1964), Història de la Literatura Catalana, vol. 1 (Barcelona: Ariel), 509ff. Whether such exchanges should be regarded as a "genre" unto themselves, as a type of short ''tenso'', or as ''coblas esparsas'', one of which happens to be written in response to the other, is debated. The
Cançoneret de Ripoll distinguishes between the ''cobles d'acuyndamens'', which bonds of vassalage, love, or fidelity, and ''cobles de qüestions'', which posed dilemmas. The ''acuyndamentum'' was a special bond of vassallage-fidelity in medieval
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...
.
Sources
{{Western medieval lyric forms
Old Occitan literature
Poetic forms
Western medieval lyric forms
Occitan literary genres