  efimova-ms-vestnik-2026-2.pdf |
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- Religious tropes and motifs in the love lyrics of the troubadour Arnaut Daniel
- Efimova M.S. Religious tropes and motifs in the love lyrics of the troubadour Arnaut Daniel. Vestnik of Kostroma State University, 2026, vol. 32, № 2, pp. 97–103 (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.34216/1998-0817-2026-32-2-97-103
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.34216/1998-0817-2026-32-2-97-103
- УДК: 821(44).09”12”
- EDN: SXQPVN
- Publish date: 2026-03-24
- Annotation: This article examines religious motifs and expressive means in the lyrical legacy of Arnaut Daniel. The following examples of the medieval author’s references to the language and imagery of the Christian religion are relevant in the context of the study: the lyrical hero’s prayers to God for help in love, the idea of love as a source of moral perfection and virtues close to or identical to Christian ones, and an indication of the divine origin of the beloved’s beauty and the love itself. The tropes and motifs under consideration are used to enhance the artistic effect and create an additional play of meanings based on the use of familiar elements and formulas and their transformation: thus, Christian virtues are transformed, integrated into “courtly” ethics, without losing their original meaning; the formula of the “epic prayer”, common in chanson de geste, becomes the basis for a prayer for help in love using a complex system of references to characters from Sacred History, contrasting Mercy and Law. Such motifs also indicate how deeply formulas, images and motifs taken from religious sources were integrated into the secular lyrics of the troubadours, and reveal the consistent presence of ideas about “courtly love”, sometimes contradictory to the rules of religion, in the context of the Christian worldview of the medieval author.
- Keywords: troubadours, love lyric, Medieval literature, Medieval poetry, canso, Old-Provençal language, religious motifs, Christian influence, sacred and profane.
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