Occitan literature
from southern France, mostly in Occitan
Occitan literature (referred to in older texts as Provençal literature) is a body of texts written in Occitan, mostly in the south of France. It was the first literature written in a Romance language and inspired the rise of vernacular literature throughout medieval Europe. Occitan literature's Golden Age was in the 12th century, when a rich and complex body of lyrical poetry was produced by troubadours writing in Old Occitan, which still survives to this day. Although Catalan is considered by some a variety of Occitan, this article will not deal with Catalan literature, which started diverging from its Southern French counterpart in the late 13th century.
Introduction
Occitan literature started in the 11th century in several centres. It gradually spread first over the greater portion (though not the whole) of southern France, into what is now the north of Italy and into Spain (Catalonia, Galicia, Castile), and Portugal.
In its rise, Occitan literature stands completely by itself, and in its development, it long continued to be highly original. It presents at several points, analogies with French literature; but these analogies are due principally to certain primary elements common to both and only in a slight degree to mutual reaction.
Origin
Occitan poetry first appeared in the 11th century. The oldest surviving text is the Provençal burden (Fr.
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This entry incorporates text from “Occitan literature” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.