A tenso (Old Occitan: [tenˈsu, teⁿˈsu]; French: tençon) is a style of troubadour song. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position; common topics relate to love or ethics. Usually, the tenso is written by two different poets, but several examples exist in which one of the parties is imaginary, including God ( Peire de Vic), the poet's horse ( Bertran Carbonel) or his cloak ( Gui de Cavalhon). ^[1] Closely related, and sometimes overlapping, genres include:

• the partimen, in which more than two voices discuss a subject
• the cobla esparsa or cobla exchange, a tenso of two stanzas only
• the contenson, where the matter is eventually judged by a third party.

Notable examples

• Marcabru and Uc Catola: Amics Marchabrun, car digam, possibly the earliest known example.
• Cercamon and Guilhalmi: Car vei finir a tot dia, another candidate for the earliest known example.
• Raimbaut d'Aurenga and Giraut de Bornelh: Ara·m platz, Giraut de Borneill, where major exponents of the two styles extol trobar clus and trobar leu, respectively.
• Raimbaut de Vaqueiras: Domna tan vos ai preiada, where an (imaginary) Genoese lady answers the poet in her own dialect, is the only early document written in it.
• Peire de Vic: L’autrier fui en paradis, a contrast with God
• Montan: Eu veing vas vos, Seingner, fauda levada, considered the most obscene of Old Occitan lyrics.
• Carenza and Iselda: Na Carenza al bel cors avenens, about whether a lady should get married, between two trobairitz.

Legacy

In Italian literature, the tenso was adapted as the tenzone. In Old French, it became the tençon.

In the Galician-Portuguese lyric, it was called tençom. ^[2]

References

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