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Les hayrēns arméniens comparés aux albas des troubadours occitans (The Armenian Hayrens Compared with the Albas of the Occitan Troubadours)

Yeghiazaryan, Vano and Marutyan, Tehmina · 2024

The hayrens, Armenian poetic couplets in a popular style, were attributed to Nahapet Kuchak by their first publisher in 1882, but as Manuk Abeghyan recognized they are in reality anonymous folk works, or the work of authors whose names were lost. Kuchak is therefore not the author but the heir to a line of bards and itinerant singers who transmitted them across generations. The authors show that certain hayren types resemble the albas of the French and Occitan troubadours, which stage lovers forced to part at dawn. Where the troubadours blame social etiquette, the hayrens instead blame the dawn itself, the birds, or the crowing of the cock.

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Published in
Revue des Études Arméniennes, Vol. 42 (2023-2024), pp. 145–154 (Peeters); DOI 10.2143/REA.42.0.3293641
Year
2024
Language
French
DOI
10.2143/REA.42.0.3293641

Citation

Yeghiazaryan, Vano and Marutyan, Tehmina 2024. Les hayrēns arméniens comparés aux albas des troubadours occitans (The Armenian Hayrens Compared with the Albas of the Occitan Troubadours). Revue des Études Arméniennes, Vol. 42 (2023-2024), pp. 145–154 (Peeters); DOI 10.2143/REA.42.0.3293641. https://doi.org/10.2143/REA.42.0.3293641

What this offers a reader

For students

Corrects a persistent myth about who wrote the hayrens, and places them in European company.

For academics

Comparative literature; both authors Armenian, in the flagship European Armenological journal.

For the community

Our love poetry is folk poetry, and it stands beside the troubadours.

For a general reader

Who really wrote the Armenian hayrens? Not the man they are named for.

Topics

medieval Armenian literaturehayren poetryNahapet Kuchakoral traditioncomparative literaturetroubadour lyric

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