Arnaut Daniel (Arnautz Daniel)

ARNAUT DANIEL (ARNAUTZ DANIEL). - Provençal troubadour of the second half of the 12th century. From a short contemporary biography in the Provençal language, and from his eighteen poetic compositions, all of an abstract and amorous character, only a few facts can be gathered: born at Ribérac in the Dordogne (the date is unknown); he took part in the ceremony of the coronation of Philip Augustus (21 May 1181); he was at the court of Richard the Lionheart at Poitiers. He sang "courtly love" for imaginary women or, in any case, women named, in the Provençal manner, only by the senhal (a charming pseudonym; literally "signal"). He was the foremost exponent of the so-called "trobar clus" (closed or hermetic speech), a poetic style common to a group of Provençal troubadours, which took pleasure in an ingenious obscurity of expression, rich in vivid images. Dante held A. in high esteem, and to his favorable judgments is due the fame that the Provençal poet enjoyed in Italy from the 14th century onward. Dante admired him in particular as the inventor of the sestina and as a master of complex and elaborate technical devices (cf. De Vulg. Eloq., II, 2, 6, 10, 13); in canto XXVI of the Purgatorio, after exalting him, through the mouth of Guido Guinizzelli, as the greatest Provençal poet (vv. 118-19), he has him speak in his own language (vv. 140-47). Petrarch, in the Trionfo d'Amore, IV, begins with A. the series of the great troubadours ("Fra tutti il primo Arnaldo Daniello - Gran maestro d'Amor, ch'a la sua terra - Ancor fa onor col suo dir strano e bello").