Jaufré Rudel, his ‘distant love’, and the death of the distant lover in his vida

Abstract

In the medieval textual tradition recording the songs of a troubadour named Jaufré Rudel, who dates back to the 12th century BCE, we read references in his Song 5 to ‘a distant love’, un amor de loing, experienced by the poet in the melancholy role of being in love—hopelessly but joyously—with an unidentified lady who is unattainable, beyond reach. Such an unreachable love, as we read in his Song 2, is ‘a love from a distant land’, amors de terra lonhdana. In a medieval text dating from a later period, the ‘distant love’ of the troubadour is explained in terms of a love story about the life and times of Jaufré Rudel himself in the role of the distant lover, who, as we will see, literally dies for love. But this death of the lover is a happy ending of sorts, since the story pictures the troubadour in a moment of rapture as he dies in the arms of his lady love. She had been unattainable in life but is now embracing him at the moment of his death. In the cover illustration for my essay here, I show a medieval illumination accompanying the relevant text and picturing the same story.