Alfonso X: A New Troubadour

Joseph T. Snow notes that Alfonso X most likely grew up in a courtly environment that cherished the poetic traditions of Southern France. But instead of simply copying the styles and conventions of the troubadours, Alfonso X adapted their poetry to create a style appropriate for his purposes. I would like to argue that he thus fundamentally transformed core aspects of troubadour poetry. At the very beginning of this course, we observed that one of the key innovations of the troubadours with respect to earlier poetic traditions was to place the lyrical subject at the center of attention. The work of the poem became to negotiate the status of its speaker. In Alfonso X’s poetry, however, the focus of attention radically changes. The troubadour interest in the lyrical subject is displaced by Alfonso’s examination of subject matter. This shift away from the speaker to the spoken produces changes in form. In contrast to troubadour lyrics, Alfonso’s Cantigas de Santa Maria are highly narrative--clearly structured into beginnings, middles and ends. Unlike in troubadour lyrics, the role of the speaker in these poetic narratives is principally to vouchsafe the truth of the account. In song 28, for example, the speaker introduces elements of the story by referencing the context of his knowledge of the events with phrases like “according to the written account which I found” or “according to what I heard.” On the one hand, the transformation of poetic speaker into a witness gives ample space to the story matter, but, on the other hand, Alfonso’s technique also creates the illusion of an immediate relationship between the story which is told and the audience. It is as if they too were witnessing the unfolding narrative. This immediacy is only possible because the lyrical subject is no longer a creator but a “transmitter.” He transmits the miracles of the Virgin Mary and thus implicitly incites the audience to undergo the same conversion as the characters he invokes.