Structure and process in the Old French jeu‐parti

Previous analytical studies of trouvère song have tended to focus on the structural aspects of the songs. This leaves little room for a consideration of text‐music relationships beyond the first stanza of a song. This article proposes that the analytical constructs of structure and process may be used to reach a wider range of analytical readings. The study focuses on the Old French corpus of jeux‐partis, sung debates composed by the trouvères (poet‐singers) in northern France in the thirteenth century. When a poet‐singer composed the first stanza of a jeu‐parti, they negotiated the stylistic conventions of the genre. These conventions are the first structure – a structure of expectation – with which trouvères are in dialogue in the process of composition. The first part of the article establishes what the stylistic conventions of the jeu‐parti are. After the first stanza of a jeu‐parti was composed, the two opposing trouvères negotiated the melodic and poetic structure that was established in the first stanza by exploiting the structures latent in the jeu‐parti melody, creating interlocking structures of music and text that change from one stanza to the next. The second part of the article analyses one jeu‐parti in detail to demonstrate how this was done