Elias Fonsalada

Elias (de) Fonsalada (fl. late 12th/first quarter of the 13th century) [His two "cansos" have been assigned to the last years of Peter II of Aragon by Manfred Raupach (Jewers, 200 n29).] was a troubadour from Bergerac in the Périgord (the Diocese of Périgueux according to his "vida").Egan, 32. His entire "vida", in original Occitan, goes: "N'Elias Fonsalada si fo de Bragairac, del avesquat de Peiregors. Bels hom fo molt de sa persona, e fo fils d'un borges que se fetz joglar; e n'Elias fo joglars atressi. No bon trobaire mas noellaire fo; e saup benestar entre la gen."] Only two "cansos" of his survive.

His "vida" goes further in describing him as a handsome man of the middle class, the son of a burgher and jongleur, who himself became a jongleur.Jones, 309.] The biographer did not regard him as an accomplished "trobaire" (troubadour/composer/inventor of poetry) but as a "noellaire". This word has been open to interpretation. Boutière and Schutz in there French compilation of the "vidas" of the troubadours translate it as "auteur d'un genre particulier" (author of a particular genre) or "beau parleur" (good conversationalist). Later Levy traced its etymology to "novelador", "auteur de novelles" (author of "novas", novels), and Egan, in her English translation, has taken this up as "storyteller". A "nova" was probably a narrative, as opposed to lyric, work.Jewers, 195.] Thus Elias' "vida" provides a rare glimpse of narrative vernacular writing in Occitan at the height of the troubadour art.

The poem "En Abriu" is assigned to Elias in manuscript "C" (a 14th-century work now known as f.f. 856 in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris). [Gaunt et al., 324.] This attribution, however, is contradicted by other sources and the poem is usually given to Marcabru.

Notes

ources

*Egan, Margarita (ed. and trans.) "The Vidas of the Troubadours". New York: Garland, 1984. ISBN 0 8240 9437 9.
*Gaunt, Simon; Harvey, Ruth; and Paterson, Linda M., edd. "Marcabru: A Critical Edition". Boydell & Brewer, 2000.
*Jewers, Caroline. "The Name of the Ruse and the Round Table: Occitan Romance and the Case for Cultural Resistance." "Neophilologus". Vol. 81, No. 2 (Apr., 1997), pp. 187–200.
*Jones, W. Powell. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0030-8129%28193106%2946%3A2%3C307%3ATJTOP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-5 "The Jongleur Troubadours of Provence."] "Publication of the Modern Languages Association", Vol. 46, No. 2. (Jun., 1931), pp. 307–311.