MEDIEVAL MUSIC

•         Music has always been part of everyday life since antiquity. In my life it is important because it comes along with most moments of my life and it can change my emotions.

•         Yes, I have. Medieval music could be religious or secular. Religious music was monophonic and consisted mainly in plainsongs, while secular music was polyphonic and was played with the accompaniment of a lute, a vielle or a kithara. Both the forms tended to contrast sounds rather than to merge them.

•         Istampita Parlamento: Les Menestrels

•         I like it for its melody and rhythm.

•         Yes, I can. Maybe they are dancing in a square or in the street during a popular festivity. There is smell of food, people wear brighter colours than usual and the village is in a holiday mood.

•         I would like to be there as an external viewer, in order to find out how people lived in the Middle Ages.

LADY DIAMOND

•         The ballad is made up of 13 four-line stanzas.

•         The rhymes are not always regular, but most of the times they are alternated.

•         The story is told by an external and omniscient narrator. However, dialogs are frequent. Descriptive passages are synthesizes as much as possible.

•         The language is concrete and the style is simple, in order to make also less-cultured people understand and memorize the song.

•         The start of James Thurber's novel is the one typical of fairy tales, which sets the situation in an indefinite space-temporal context. The topic of the introduction is the same as the one of the first stanza of the ballad. They both state the existence of a famous king and his beautiful daughter.

•         Line 8 refers to autumn, when corn is harvested and grass can grow freely.

•         Line 13 refers to winter, because the situation is set twenty weeks after autumn.

•         Lady Diamond's hands are described as lily, pale, to make her noble origins more evident. The boy's breast is depicted white to underline the purity of his soul.

•-         Lady Diamond knows that she has disobeyed her father and therefore she prays him humbly not to block their love.

•         The singer's attitude seems to stand by lady Diamond's view: indeed, he focuses on her reactions and thoughts and narrates the king's actions in a negative perspective,

•         "Father, forgive me. Forgive me for having disobeyed you. Forgive me for having betrayed my royal blood and my fair skin. Forgive me for having shamed the family. But I couldn't and can't help be away from him. I'll go with him."

DENOTATIVE ANALYSIS

Once upon a time, a famous king ruled in a remote land. He had an only daughter called Lady Diamond and he cherished her. One day, the daughter fell in love deeply with one of the king's servant who worked in the kitchen. However, she would not have been allowed to love him and therefore they kept the relationship in secret. After twenty weeks Lady Diamond noticed her dresses did not fit any more; she was pregnant. The king noted Lady Diamond's worry and during a wintry night he went into the room of his daughter, worried in turn. He asked her what was troubling her; she told him all the truth, and prayed him not to stop their love. After leaving Lady Diamond's room, the king ordered thirty three men to kill the kitchen boy secretly, and that's what was done. They took his heart out of the corpse, put it into a golden bowl and gave it to Lady Diamond. She despaired and cried until she had washed the blood from the heart by her salted tears; then, she died. In the end, the king despaired too and blamed his servants for having not stopped him.

THE HOUSE CARPENTER

The man is a sailor who claims to be very rich and is fallen in love with the wife of a house carpenter. Their relationship is temporary and ephemeral.

 The man claims to have given up the possibility to marry the King's daughter and to become rich for the love of the carpenter's wife.

 The man wants the woman to leave her husband, her son and her house and to go away with him.

She needs to know whether the man is rich or not; he claims he is.

After the leaving, the woman regrets and misses her baby.

Suddenly the ship sinks and the two lovers die drowned.

The typical features of the ballads are:

•         repetition, incremental repetition, alliteration, rhyme, to help memorization

•         use of concrete language

•         indefinite space-temporal collocation, sketchy characterization and description

•         theme of the tragic love and religion

•         The sea captain is the tempter devil. Like the snake tempted Eve and induced her to eat the apple, the seaman deceived her to go with him, promising richness and happiness.

•         Heaven is described as a fair and high place, while Hell is the direct opposite, with its dark and low hills.

•         Marriage is a religious pact and violating it meant to violate the religion; therefore, lovers had to go to hell.

•         I prefer the title "The Daemon Lover", because it focuses directly on the topic of the ballad. The title "The house carpenter" is less consistent.

•         One day a sailor went to a wife of a house carpenter. He turned to her and prayed her to go with him; he promised her marvellous lands, wealth and happiness. "I could have married the King's daughter, but I have forsaken her crowns of gold for the love of thee!" said the sailor; "Don't leave me alone! You're married, you have a child!" said the house carpenter. "Six ships and one hundred and ten brave sailor men will be at your command!" said the sailor. "You have a piece of bread and a bowl of milk, a happy family and your honour to defend!" said the house carpenter.

Despite the carpenter's efforts, the woman went away in the seaman's ship; however, after only two weeks, she was not happy any longer and missed her baby.

A week had passed, the ship sank and both the woman and the sailor died. She hoped to reach Heaven, but she soon realized she had missed it.