Gui d’Uisel, “Ja non cujei qe·m desplagues amors” (BdT 194.11)

This paper offers a new critical edition with commentary of Gui d’Uisel’s ‘mala canso’ against Love, Ja non cujei qe·m desplagues amors, a poem that is less well-known and has received less critical attention compared to the other, better known, ‘mala canso’ addressed to the ‘mala dompna’ by the same author, “Si be·m partetz, mala dompna, de vos” (BdT 194.19). The paper will investigate all those aspects of the text – vocabulary, style, themes – that enable it to be classified as a song against love. As far as this is concerned, a number of features would appear to be of particular interest, such as the use of the rhyme-word “fais”; the equivalence of love service and feudal service that justifies abandoning Love, seen as a bad lord; the motif of ladies who have become “chamjaritz”; the theme of the decadence of courtly values; the poet’s need to place limits on his complaint faced with the corruption of ‘fin’amor’. Although the archetypes of many of the poem’s themes and motifs may be found already in the earliest troubadours, Gui d’Uisel’s songs, and this one in particular, stand out because their author is well aware that he is adopting a classic genre while at the same time attempting to renew it from the point of view of content.