Persian court poetry and troubadours’ lyrics: commune features poetics

Abstract

The first researchers of medieval poetry of the East and West made the same claims to the poetry of the Provencal troubadours and Persian court poets of the X-XII centuries, declaring both traditions of versification monotonous and boring. Only since the middle of the twentieth century, when the attitude towards the Medieval era radically changed, the process of serious study of the categories of medieval culture, the principles of artistic consciousness and normative poetics began. A comparison of the motives of the author's self-consciousness in the poetry of the Provencal troubadours and Persian court poets of the X-XII centuries gives a picture of the generality of the principles of creativity and the criteria for the perfection of poetic word.

This commonality is manifested not only in the competitive nature of poetic practice, but also in the specifics of the components of aesthetic impression. The report uses concrete examples of the use of similar motifs from Persian and Provencal lyrics to show the poets' attitude to their work as a craft, their awareness in the use of decorating techniques, their dialogue with each other. With all the difference between the two poetic traditions, they show common ways of learning and connecting to the chain of predecessors. The combination of normativity and individual authorial initiative inherent in both literary communities is dictated by common ideological attitudes characteristic of the entire medieval social order. The poetic schools are formed and function on the basis a single standard of poetic language, in which the prestige of education and elegance is high. In this context, the cult of the erudite poet develops with his high social status and the significance of his functions in the court universe. The discussion of poetics and style in poetry itself is a characteristic feature of both traditions.