Les Troubadours dans leur vie et dans leurs œuvres by Ernest HœpffnerReview by: Grace FrankModern Language Notes, Vol. 71, No. 2 (Feb., 1956), p. 148Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3043584 .

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Ernest Hcpffner, Les Troubadours dans leur vie et dans leurs muvres (Paris: Arinand Colin, 1955. 224 pp. 250 fr.). THIS is a convenient and unpretentious little book written by a specialist for non-specialists that admirably serves to give a valid understanding of its subject. Eclectic, it avoids taking an arbitrary stand on certain controversial problems, while at the same time approaching them in a sane and judicial fashion. After a helpful general introduction, it divides the Provengal lyric into periods, each one of which is repre- sented by the more significant troubadours of the time. The works of some fifteen poets are analyzed in detail with copious citations and translations.

The poets range from those of the first and second generations- G-uillaume d'Aquitaine, Jaufre' Rudel, Marcabru-through those of the transition and golden age, to the troubadours of the last sad stages of the decline. The analyses not only characterize the lyrics of the in- dividual troubadours, but indicate their varying attitudes toward their art, the different types of poetry cultivated by them and the material conditions of their professional lives. Ho-lpffner's critical judgments are conservatively sound, and the estimates of the poets' own contempo- raries are often contrasted to good purpose with those of posterity. The vidas are employed with proper scepticism and the hopeless task of trying to identify the poets' loves is for the most part abandoned. Bibliographical material is restricted to a relatively few general volumes and to the naming in each instance of the best available edition for the poet under consideration.

In short, for a vue d'ensemble and for an excellent introduction to a more detailed study of the troubadours this small volume can be read with pleasure and used with confidence.

Baltimore GRACE FRANK

Nan Cooke Carpenter, Rabelais and Music. (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1954. xiii -+ 149 pp.). LE gofut de la musique etait fort repandu au XVIe siecle, et les allusions que Rabelais a faites a la musique, dans son oeuvre litteraire, sont tres importantes. Miss Carpenter 'etudie successivement les allusions qui se rapportent aux instruments de musique, a la chanson, a la musique liturgique, aux "musical ideas;" et elle conclut par un chapitre sur Rabelais et la musique. Elle a utilise ce qu'a dit L. Sainean sur les

148 Modern Language Notes

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