Lyric Voice and the Feminine in Some Ancient and Mediaeval Frauenlieder

In the study of mediaeval European literature, especially that of France and Germany, the terms chanson de femme and Frauenlied have come to be conventional designations for a distinct type of poem—more broadly defined than a genre: a female-voice love-lyric in a popular rather than a courtly mode. To use the language of Pierre Bec, femininity here is “textual” rather than “genetic.” Most of these “women’s songs” are attributed to male authors, although there has been a tendency to trace the type back to preliterate songs actually composed by women. Goethe, Jakob Grimm, and others saw in the early German and Balkan Frauenlieder and Frauenstrophen the traces of “das älteste Volkspoesie.” The use of this terminology to designate a lyric in the female voice—irrespective of its authorship—goes back to Alfred Jeanroy, at the end of the last century, who defined chanson de femme as a woman’s monologue, usually sad, relating to love (158). Theodor Frings, whose description of the Frauenlied is probably the one that has been the most influential, makes clear that it is a universal, not merely a mediaeval, type. Although he focusses on Middle High German, Provençal, and Old French poetry, he includes examples ranging from Greek to Chinese.