WHAT IS LOVE'S TROUBADOURS?

Love's Troubadours is a healing fiction series that features stories told by people who are learning and living as they love. The healing fiction series is deeply rooted in the storytelling traditions of the West African griot and troubadours of the French Middle Ages. To learn more about these traditions, read the sections below.

Senegalese Griot, 1890


WHAT IS A GRIOT?

A griot is a West African poet, storyteller, historian, advisor, arbitrator, and wandering musician who serves as a repository of oral history tradition. Griots are walking history books who memorize traditional songs and teachings, folktales, cultural history, and family relationships. This information is passed down through generations. Griots also marry them with current events and chance incidents to create praise songs and stories with wisdom teachings, comic relief and satire, political commentary, and gossip. Today, griots live in Senegal, Mali, Gambia, and Guinea. They are present among the Wolof, Serer, Mande, Malinke, Bambara, Fula, Tukuloor, Wolof, and Mauritanian people. There are several African names for griots including jeli (a word that means "blood in the Manika language that is derived from ; northern Mande areas), jali (southern Mande areas), guewel (Wolof), gawlo (Pulaar, a Fula language), and igiiw (Hassaniyya, an Arabic language).

WHAT IS A TROUBADOUR?

Troubadour is derived from an Old French word "trobador" which comes from the verb "trobar" that means to invent or compose. When you put it all together, troubadour refers to a composer and performer of lyric poetry. The French Middle Ages (1100-1350) gave birth to the troubadour tradition in the eleventh century. The tradition defined troubadour lyric as poetical, rhetorical, and musical fiction. They dealt mainly with themes of courtly love, chivalry, nature, life, and death. Most troubadour lyrics were metaphysical, intellectual, and formulaic. They also included many genres including alba (morning song - the song of a lover as dawn approaches, often with a watchman warning of the approach of a lady's jealous husband), canso or canço (the love song, usually consisting of five or six stanzas), dansa or balada (a dance song with a refrain) ensenhamen (a long didactic poem, usually not divided into stanzas, teaching a moral or practical lesson), enuig (a poem expressing indignation or feelings of insult), escondig (a lover's apology), partimen (a poetical exchange between two or more poets in which one is presented with a dilemma by another and responds), planh (a lament, especially on the death of some important figure), salut d'amor (a love letter addressed to another, not always one's lover), and tenso (a poetical debate which was usually an exchange between two poets, but could be fictional).