Wine, Women, and Song: Mediaeval Latin Students' Songs; Now First Translated into English Verse
1940
Wine, Women, and Song: Mediaeval Latin Students' Songs; Now First Translated into English Verse
1940
Translated by John Addington Symonds
These are the original party songs, written eight centuries before rock and roll. The wandering students of medieval Europe the goliards were traveling scholars who rejected the cloistered life for roads, taverns, and the company of working women. They composed Latin verses celebrating wine, women, and wild living with an irreverence that would have scandalized the church. This collection gathers their most spirited songs, translated into English verse for the first time, accompanied by an essay that reveals who these rebels actually were: educated men who chose poverty and freedom over the constraints of feudal society. Their poetry overflows with clever wordplay, double meanings, and a defiant joy that challenges everything we think we know about the Middle Ages. These are not mere drinking songs. They are a window into a forgotten counterculture that valued pleasure, friendship, and the open road above all else.
About Wine, Women, and Song: Mediaeval Latin Students' Songs; Now First Translated into English Verse
Chapter Summaries
- I
- Symonds challenges common perceptions of the Middle Ages as uniformly dark and ascetic, introducing the surprising existence of bold, pagan-spirited Latin songs from the Crusades era.
- II
- The author argues that Goliardic literature reveals the persistence of natural human appetites and instincts throughout the supposedly repressive medieval period.
- III
- These 12th-century songs anticipate both Renaissance humanism and Protestant Reformation critiques, expressing delight in physical pleasure and revolt against papal corruption.
Key Themes
- Rebellion Against Religious Authority
- The Goliardic poems represent a bold challenge to medieval ecclesiastical power, satirizing corruption in the Roman Curia and celebrating worldly pleasures forbidden by the Church.
- The Renaissance Spirit in Medieval Times
- These 12th-century songs anticipate Renaissance humanism with their pagan outlook, celebration of the body and senses, and rejection of ascetic tyranny centuries before the actual Renaissance.
- Youth and Transience
- The poems repeatedly emphasize the brevity of youth and life, urging readers to seize pleasure while they can before age and death inevitably arrive.
Characters
- John Addington Symonds(protagonist)
- The translator and scholar who presents these medieval Latin student songs to English readers. He serves as the analytical voice guiding readers through this literature.
- Golias(major)
- The legendary father and master of the Goliardi, the wandering students' order. He may be a real person or invented figure who represents the spirit of the vagrant scholars.
- The Archipoeta(major)
- The head-bard of the wandering students' guild, credited with the famous Confession of Golias. Possibly the same person as Golias under different titles.
- Walter Map (Mapes)(major)
- English writer to whom many Goliardic poems were attributed, though Symonds argues this attribution is likely false. A contemporary satirist of monastic orders.
- Walter of Lille(major)
- French poet and satirist, also known as Walter of Chatillon. Some Goliardic satires are genuinely attributed to him.
- The Wandering Students (Goliardi)(major)
- Young men traveling from university to university seeking knowledge, living as vagabonds. They formed a guild-like order devoted to wine, women, and song.
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