Customer Reviews

Songs of a Friend: Love Lyrics of Medieval Portugal

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I picked up the book prepared to be blown away by the topic, yet suffered a huge disappointment. Keep in mind that I am a Portuguese woman majoring in Medieval Studies, so I assumed I would fall in love with this book.

On page 32 of a Calheiros poem (CV 234, CB 632, N 67), Fowler states "'Mother of God' was not in the original text. I added it for the sake of the meter."

Once I read that and similar "additions", I restlessly skimmed the remainder of the book and became increasingly disenchanted.

While the author does a decent job adding her own lines based on her rich background of translation and scholarship, much of the original beauty of the poetry was depleted.

As Fowler states in the Introduction, a compendium like this really does need to be read in its original language; otherwise, it appears monotonous and bastardized. Makes me wonder why she bothered at all.

Guys, get someone to read the original Portuguese text to you; believe me, you will not be as disappointed as I was here.

A for topic, B for effort.

"Songs of a Friend" is both fantastically written and translated. One of the relatively undiscovered treasures from the late Middle Ages in Portugal, it serves as a looking glass into the literature and political climite of the time, esp. during the reign of Dom Dinis. Very much worth the investment for the better picture of troubadour Europe.