Cantigas

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"Cantigas are lyric poems in Galician-Portuguese, a language of the Iberian Peninsula, written and performed during the 13th and early 14th centuries. They are divided into three major genres: cantigas de amigo (songs in the voice of women), cantigas de amore (courtly love songs in the voice of men), and cantigas de escarho e mal dizer (joke and insult poetry). The cantigas de amigo, thought to be inspired by popular and indigenous women's songs, represent the largest body of woman-voiced poetry in Europe, although the surviving compositions are attributed to male poets. In this book, the award-winning translator Richard Zenith has revised, expanded, and retitled a volume of cantigas he first published in 1995, in the UK only, with Carcanet Press (113 Galician Portuguese Troubadour Poems, now OP). The new book includes 122 cantigas, including several new translations, with the original text on facing pages, and a new introduction to provide background and context"-- Provided by publisher