ABSTRACT

We have conceived of this edition as the script for a performance: a printed version of a script written six hundred years ago for performances in great halls, chambers and gardens, and a script for performance by our readers, in the imagination, in the classroom or among friends. As the editor of the Occitan texts, I have tried to mediate between the demands of past and present. On the one hand, the version of a poem or song that is found in a single manuscript is presented as faithfully as possible. On the other, we have printed texts in the Occitan language that are grammatically correct (which is not always the case in the manuscripts) and that can be read and performed in a fair approximation of the medieval song. Alas, we are not able to convey the musical tradition that must have been part of a medieval performer's formation.