“La Princesse Lointaine”. Between literary image and historical character

Abstract

This article attempts to reconstruct the historical context in which the well-known verses on “distant love” (amor de lohn), composed by the Provençal poet Jaufré Rudel, gave rise to a legend that became popular in medieval literature. A romantic story about a troubadour who fell in love with a Beautiful Lady gained extraordinary popularity among the romantics of the 19^th century. It was used in a number of literary works of various genres – from the poems of Francesco Petrarca, Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Uhland, to Edmond Rostand’s play “The Distant Princess” (La Princesse Lointaine). For the first time the Distant Princess, with whom the troubadour supposedly fell in love without ever seeing her, was identified with the Countess of Tripoli in the legendary vida of the troubadour dating from the mid-13^th century. Later, we see the story repeated many times in the literary monuments including the works of romantics of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Traditionally, literary scholars debate the question whether the Countess of Tripoli should be considered as a fictitious character or a historical figure. Avoiding that dispute, the author seeks to single out those events and facts in the history of the house of Tripoli and its members that could be reinterpreted in the folk imagination and historical memory.