I found the Troubadour selection to be quite beautiful. The lush imagery really stood out to me, especially in poem 20 by Jaufré Rudel. The poem is about a long-distance relationship of sorts. The poem is odd to me because it never talks about whether or not the poets "love far away" feels the same way about him, but still he longs to travel to be with her. I couldn't help but wonder what was keeping him from going to be with her? Why can't he make the pilgrimage? could it be that she has refused him? This poem of unrequited love has a hopeful tone to it that contrasts with the Trobairitz piece that i'm going to be talking about.
The first thing i noticed about the Trobairitz is that their poetry tended to be darker and sadder. While the Troubadour pieces sometimes dealt with sad topics, they always had a hint of optimism. In most of the Trobairitz poems, there isn't really hope. This is most apparent with the Countess of Dia's second poem in which she laments an unrequited love. It is a very bitter poem, she even says "so bitter do i feel toward him, / whom i love more than anything." I think that the reason the Trobairitz poems tend to be more bitter is because of the gender-dynamics of Islam. Men were probably the ones who choose their spouse, so if a man is refused by a potential mate, he can always try again, but a woman probably could not choose her husband, so if the object of her affection refused her, it would probably hold a lot more finality.
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