Troubadours' lyric poetry

Troubadours' poetry is considered as lyric poetry because it shares the basic concept of conveying the poet's personal emotions with musical rhythms. 

First thing that came into my mind is that troubadours write “songs.” The musical component of the poem is what makes poetry “lyric,” as its name shows. Many troubadours specifically states in their poems that they write “songs.” One example is found in the poem “The Ladies with the Cat,” by Peiteus:

While sound asleep, I’ll walk along

In sunshine, making up my song.

Some ladies get the rules all wrong;

I’ll tell you who:

The ones that turn a knight’s love down

            And scorn it, too (1-6).

In this poem, the poet says that he is making his “song.” While he is saying that, he uses rhyming words such as “song” and “wrong,” and “who” and “too” to make the poem sound more beautiful, like a song.

Also, in this poem, Peiteus is displaying his emotion as he criticizes the ladies who “turn a knight’s love down and scorn it.” Where he says, “I’ll walk along,” and “I’ll tell you who,” he writes in first person, just like many Greek lyric poets do. He explicitly displays his dislike toward certain kind of ladies by saying, “Some ladies get the rules all wrong.”

The theme of love is widely discusses by many Greek lyric poets such as Sappho, Anarcreon, and Archilochus. By looking at the last two lines of the previous poem, readers can see how Peiteus values love. The fact that many other troubadours, such as Bernart de Ventadorn and Comtessa de Dia, write heavily about love remind me of the Greek lyric poems that also discuss about love a lot.

Therefore, by looking at the musical component, content, and theme, it is not difficult to say that Troubadours’ poems are described as lyric poems.