Vida (Occitan literary form)

{{Short description|Vida: short biography Occitan literary form}}{{italic title}}

File:BnF ms. 854 fol. 105v - Guilhèm de Cabestanh (1).jpg accompanies his vida in the chansonnier. He is apparently leaving.]]

Vida ({{IPA|pro|ˈvida|label=Old Occitan:}}) is the usual term for a brief prose biography, written in Old Occitan, of a troubadour or trobairitz. {{Citation needed|date=September 2023}}

The word vida means "life" in Occitan languages; they are short prose biographies of the troubadours, and they are found in some chansonniers, along with the works of the author they describe. {{Citation needed|date=September 2023}}Vidas are notoriously unreliable: Mouzat, while complaining that some scholars still believe them, says they represent the authors as "ridiculous bohemians, and picaresque heroes"; Alfred Jeanroy calls them "the ancestors of modern novels".{{cite book|last=Mouzat|first=Jean|title=Les Poèmes de Gaucelm Faidit|year=1989|publisher=Slatkine Reprints|location=Geneva-Paris|isbn=2-05-101037-4}} Most often, they are not based on independent sources, and their information is deduced from literal readings of the poems details. Most of the vidas were composed in Italy, many by Uc de Saint Circ. {{Citation needed|date=September 2023}}

Additionally, some individual poems are accompanied by razos, explanations of the circumstances in which the poem was composed. {{Citation needed|date=September 2023}}

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