Song of love

The cantiga de amor is a type of literary composition from the Middle Ages, typical of Galician-Portuguese poetry. It derives from the cançó of troubadour literature in Occitan. It is a composition focused on the theme of courtly love; It talks about the amorous passion of a gentleman for his lady (a senhor ), which is almost never reciprocated.

As for the theme, almost all the compositions deal with the theme of the poet's coita (sadness), caused by the disdain or rejection (sanha) of his lady, who is called senhor, which at that time had both a masculine and feminine meaning. The terms of feudalism are transferred here, as in the Provencal cansó, to the love experience.

The troubadour owes fidelity and loyalty to his senhor, and describes it by praising his physique and his virtues (with adjectives such as ben talhada, bon parescer...). However he does not delve much into the description, because he must keep the identity of his lady a secret (this is known as restraint).

From a metrical point of view, it usually has the structure typical of the so-called master's cantiga: four stanzas of seven octosyllabic or decasyllabic verses, with the structure abbaccb, abbacca, ababcca, ababccb. Parallelism is of great importance to them.

In Castile, they are called song; in Catalonia, from cansó; and, in Provence, of cause.

Some notable cultivators of love songs were the King of Portugal Don Dinís, Pero da Ponte, Martim Soares and Paio Soares de Taveirós.