ABSTRACT
The Carmina Burana is the stepchildren of European literature. The latter part of the monastery name supplies the Latin adjective “Burana” that describes these carmina or songs. The authors of the Burana lyrics were by no mean necessarily the monks who transcribed the words. They were clerics or laymen drawn from many parts of Europe. As an entity, the Burana celebrates nature, love, and fortune in a way that runs directly counter to the supernatural doctrines of the Church. As the Burana themselves remark in a pithy epigram: “in all that is/It is good to have a mean.” The Carmina Burana travesty classical rhetoric as well as Christian. The earlier ones tend to view man’s life in terms of the flowers, as the late classical poets did, but they blend Christian assurance and even assumption with their pagan acceptance of nature. The third stanza of 34 is a marching song, with the vigor of a Christian hymn.
