12 Facts About Occitan literature

Occitan literature is a body of texts written in Occitan, mostly in the south of France.

The troubadours used a standardized form of Old Occitan literature, sang their pieces to music and generally used complex and elaborate meters.

Occitan literature was a Gascon, and composed, says his old biographer, pastorals according to the ancient custom.

Specimens which we possess of Occitan literature drama are, comparatively few; but researches in local archives, especially in old account books, have brought to light a considerable number of entries concerning the acting, at public expense, of religious plays, called, in Latin documents, historia or moralitas, most of which seem to be irretrievably lost.

Occitan literature had a good classical education, traces of which appear in all his poetry, his language and his manner being always admirable, even where his matter is lacking in depth.

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Occitan literature is often called the Malherbe of the South, but resembles that writer only in form: his poetry, taken as a whole, has far more sap.

Occitan literature enjoyed enormous popularity, but never prostituted his art to cheap effects.

Occitan literature composed a pastoral idyll, which, though too long and inclined to obscenity, contains much tender description.

Occitan literature wrote a successful mock-heroic poem travesties of Homer and Virgil, a prose novel depicting the country manners of the time, and two comedies, which likewise give a vivid picture of the village life he knew so well.

Occitan literature it was who in 1852 collected and published Li Prouvencalo, an anthology in which all the names yet to become famous, and most of those famous already, are represented.

Occitan literature's is, without a doubt, the deepest nature and temperament among the felibres, and his lyrics are the most poignant.

Occitan literature has a keen sense of physical beauty in woman, and his verse is replete with suppressed passion, but he never sinks to sensuality.