Time for a slice of poetry history! Reader, may I introduce you to one Arnaut Daniel, a late 12th-century troubadour from Provençe in southern France, and most likely candidate for the invention of the _sestina_? This image is from a 13th-century manuscript, which is as contemporary as we can get.
Admittedly, neither Daniel nor the sestina are well known today, but this was not always the case. Dante in his writings has a character claim “whether in verse of love or prose . . . He (Daniel) surpassed all.” The American Poet Ezra Pound thought he was the greatest poet in all history. Few of Arnaut’s works survive, but the ones that do deal with many themes typical among the troubadours: yearning and idealized love for a particular woman. In Daniel’s case, this love makes him more virtuous. And all this virtue is intermixed with hot erotic desire. For instance:
“I miss, and love’s fire seizes me,/ A penetrating, sweet desire./ I feel a most delicious pain,/ Sweeter the flame, the more it burns./ Love makes his own in this similitude,/ Frank, truthful, humble, loyal, merciful;/ For at his court pride fails and kindness wins.”
Indeed, the troubadours often featured sexual, ribald, and otherwise not-very-Godly poetry and songs, which might surprise some readers who think of the writing of Middle Ages as “all about God all of the time.” In the comments I shall tell Readers Who Wish To Know about Daniel’s most sexually explicit poem, which would rival some of the lyrics of Cardi B’s songs.
But Daniel’s most long lasting contribution to the genre of poetry is his (likely) invention of the sestina, which follows a mathematical structure using six stanzas that have six lines each, with six rhyming words ending every line in a specific pattern. Poets have made a game of composing these, but they are on the whole boring to read (IMHO). A fun game that you can play is to make ChatGPT write some. It’s the sort of thing that matches up with AI capabilities quite well.
Source(s): “Dante and Arnaut Daniel” by Maurice Brown, _Speculum_ vol 27, no 4 Oct 1952, pp 459-474. In general, see trobar.org about the troubadour poetry of Arnaut Daniel and also the sestina. Image wikipedia commons, BnF MS 854 fol 65. http://trobar.org/troubadours/arnaut_daniel/arnaut_daniel_07.php This poem is one of a triad among three separate troubadours arguing about whether or not to turn down a lady’s request for anilingus. If you go to the website, you can find the Provençal word for rimming. There. I warned you.
