Ever since Dante singled out the troubadours for their ‘vernacular eloquence’ the rhetorical artistry of these poets has been, on and off, in the spotlight. It has, in fact, become such a commonplace to speak of the rhetoric of troubadour poetry that a more compelling question is often overlooked, namely, why did the troubadours make their rhetoric evident at all? Why do so many of the poets draw attention to the fact that they are making poetry; why do many of them refer in explicitly technical ways to their ‘razos’ or the ‘art d'escriure’? These poetic works are not, or at least not primarily, didactic tracts where one might expect to find overt mention or explicit use of rhetorical techniques and strategies. Rather, the poems of the troubadours contain some of the most beautiful and lyrical verse of all time. Why, then, ‘spoil it’ with the metalanguage of rhetoric?

Linda Paterson and, more recently, Nathaniel Smith have each addressed the question of troubadour rhetoric. In Troubadours and Eloquence, Paterson sets out to discuss the nature of the eloquentia of five troubadours who made explicit mention of style in their poetry. Her project is to consider the literary terminology used by the poets themselves and to relate this terminology to their ‘methods of composition’.