The ''descort'' () was a form and

genre Genre () is any form or type 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 ...

Old Occitan Old Occitan ( oc, occitan ancian, label= Modern Occitan, ca, occità antic), also called Old Provençal, was the earliest form of the Occitano-Romance languages, as attested in writings dating from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries. Ol ...

lyric poetry Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...

used by

troubadour A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) 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 troubadour is usually called a '' trobai ...

s. It was heavily discordant in verse form and/or feeling and often used to express disagreement. It was possibly invented by

Garin d'Apchier Garin d'Apchier was an Auvergnat castellan and troubadour from Apcher in the Diocese of Mende in the Gévaudan. His life cannot be dated with precision. According to his ''Vida (Occitan literary form), vida'' he was "a valiant and good warrior ... ...

when he wrote ''Quan foill'e flors reverdezis'' (only the first two lines survive); the invention is credited to him by a vida, and these are unreliable.

Gautier de Dargies Gautier de Dargies (ca. 1170 – ca. 1240) was a trouvère from Dargies. He was one of the most prolific of the early trouvères; possibly twenty-five of his lyrics survive, twenty-two with accompanying melodies, in sixteen separate ''chansonn ...

imported the ''descort'' into

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligi ...

and wrote and composed three. Unlike the canso, the most common open poetic form of the troubadours and the template upon which most genres were built, the descort is made of stanzas with a variable number of lines, and of lines with a variable number of syllables. Whereas the different stanzas of a canso usually share at least some of the rhymes, the rhymes of a descort are usually used within a single stanza and then discarded. Raimbaut de Vaqueiras brings this to the extreme by actually using different languages in each stanza. This made the descort a more challenging piece to write, as its irregular nature forced the troubadour to always write a new melody.

List of ''descorts''

References

{{authority control Occitan literary genres Western medieval lyric forms Old Occitan literature