Lai (poetry)

The term Lai was used in the European Middle Ages for verses of various types and has been used in Provençal as lais , in Old French as lai , in Middle English as lay and in Middle High German as leich since around 1140. The various phenomena, which only the vernacular is common, are differentiated and designated according to poetic characteristics. The lai lyrique , the lai breton and the lai arthurien are the most common ; other forms are known.

etymology

There are various controversial theories about the etymology of the term. Ferdinand Wolf derives it from the old Irish loid / laid , which means "song". G. Paris makes the connection to the Anglo-Saxon laic / lac ("gift"), while R. Baum sees the Latin laicus / laice as a starting point. Even Hugo Kuhn comes from the Germanic root laik from what says something like "dance" or "game", appears in Anglo-Saxon but also in the importance of "victim". Hermann Apfelböck refers to the Old High German leih ("song", "melody").

In all the theses on etymology, Christoph März criticizes the mixing of word and factual history, which theoreticians indulge in. Although the etymon and the thing do not have to have gone the same way, the etymon is claimed for the history and definition of the content of the thing.

Lai lyrique

The French lai lyrique is closely related to the German Leich . This term is used to summarize monodic (meaning “ unanimous ”) works in the vernacular, which defy the principle of equal strophy and have both lyrical , epic and dramatic elements. As a relatively long and complex genre, the lyric lais already occupy a special position among the trouvères , troubadours and minstrels and were considered the supreme discipline of song poetry, especially in the 13th century.

Ferdinand Wolf advocates the thesis that the Lai is essentially a genre of folk poetry that only later developed into a courtly art form. This is supported by the fact that the Provencal Lais, which are considered particularly old, have been handed down anonymously and have titles that refer to Breton mythology (e.g. Lai Markiol ). These Lais show the greatest possible variety of forms, are less long, but more repetitive and metric, and melodically more simply built than their Provencal and Old French successors, which have been handed down with "author names". Only in the course of time did a tendency towards pattern formation develop until the lais was given its final, normative form by Guillaume de Machaut in the 14th century .

The early Provencal and French Lais have been handed down in sources of northern French provenience. Its origin is dated to before 1250. The chansonniers who keep them come from the 13th, possibly 14th century. After 1300 there are only a few French lais left, including four pieces from a manuscript of the Roman de Fauvel with musical interpolations , as well as 19 pieces by the French poet-composer Guillaume de Machaut .

Principles of the design

There is almost no Lai that is like the other, each one impresses with its individual design and creates its own rules, so to speak. The generic principle that connects them all with one another is the "individual physiognomy of form", which finds its expression in a renunciation of strophic and other regular recurrences. Each verse has a different length and uses different rhyming words , but smaller motifs and phrases are constantly repeated and varied before new material is incorporated, which leads to an often complex, metrical internal structure. This is the second basic principle, which research describes as “progressive repetition”. (Although there are no verses in the sense that it is formally to anything but "prose". Larger catastrophe similar mold sections are vesicles called.) It also often leads to concealment of turning points and cadences and enjambement beyond Versikelgrenzen. The final differentiation into ouvert and clos cadences, the formation of paired complexes (double verses), the resumption of the beginning at the end and the 12- "strophicity" become form-determining in the course of time. In the melodies of the lais, the G mode dominates , while in the mhd. Corpses a third structure above D or F can often be found. (Melodies for 43 French lais have survived.)

With increasing historical development, the heterogeneous lais strives for a formal stabilization, which Guillaume's student, the writer Eustache Deschamps , describes as follows: 12 parts of which the first and last are identical in form and rhyme without repeating rhyming words, while the others ten are individual in this respect, but each part must have four quarters. With Machaut, the last verse repeats not only the form and rhyme, but also the music of the first verse, but this usually sounds a fourth or fifth higher or lower.

Related forms

Closely related to the French lay lyrique are not only the vernacular, monodic corpse , but also the Latin sequence, the Latin planctus and conductus. The French descort is a special form of lais that exclusively deals with fabrics from the amours courtoise . Dance forms such as the Estampie or Ductia are also used for comparison.

Lai breton

The lai breton is a short epic poem and one of the medieval forerunners of the novella . The contents of the poems come from Celtic legends . The most important collection of preserved Breton lais is written in the Anglo-Norman language (the French dialect of Normandy used at the English court) and is attributed to Marie de France .

The Lais of Marie de France date to around 1160 and are written in eight-syllable rhyming verses. No music has been passed on to these, but notes in the text and an empty notation system in one of the sources refer to the existence of related music. According to her own statements, Marie wrote down (orally handed down) Breton sources, which is why these are called Lais lai Breton . Another name is lai narrative .

No lais of this type have come down to us from the German-speaking area, the corpse corresponds to the phenomenon called lai lyrique here .

Lai arthurien

A third form of the lais is the lai arthurien , a simple verse song . It appears in various medieval novels (e.g. Tristan en prose ) as a song put in the mouth of the hero of the story. It also refers to Breton fabrics and the legends of King Arthur , from where it gets its name. It probably serves to represent the hero's cultural education.

One reason for the metrical and melodic simplicity of this stanza lais could be in the performative: a reciting epic singer is u. U. not versed enough to convincingly perform a lais like the lai lyrique of a highly complex design.

literature

Hermann Apfelböck: Tradition and genre awareness in the German corpse. Tübingen 1991

David Fallows: "Lai". In: New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , 2nd ed., 2001.

Christoph March: "Lai, Leich". In: The music in past and present , Sachteil Vol. 5, 2nd edition 1996.

John Stevens: "Rhythm and Genre, V. The Lai". In: Words and Music in the Middle Ages. Song, Narrative, Dance and Drama, 1050-1350. Cambridge 1986