# Razo

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{{short description|Occitan preface to troubadour composition}}
{{italic title}}
A '''''razo''''' ({{IPA|pro|raˈzu|label=Old Occitan:}}, literally "cause", "reason") was a short piece of [Occitan](/source/Old_Occitan) [prose](/source/prose) detailing the circumstances of a [troubadour](/source/troubadour) composition. A ''razo'' normally introduced an individual poem, acting as a prose preface and explanation; it might, however, share some of the characteristics of a ''[vida](/source/Vida_(Occitan_literary_form))'' (a biography of a troubadour, describing his origins, his loves, and his works) and the boundary between the two genres was never sharp.

In the ''[chansonnier](/source/chansonnier)s'', the manuscript collections of medieval troubadour poetry, some poems are accompanied by a prose explanation whose purpose is to give the reason why the poem was composed. These texts are occasionally based on independent sources. To that extent, they supplement the ''vidas'' in the same manuscripts and are useful to modern literary and historical researchers. Often, however, it is clear that assertions in the ''razos'' are simply deduced from literal readings of details in the poems. Most of the surviving ''razo'' corpus is the work of [Uc de Saint Circ](/source/Uc_de_Saint_Circ), composed in Italy between 1227 and 1230.

In one case, a manuscript from [Bergamo](/source/Bergamo), there is an explanatory rubric preceding the Occitan [partimen](/source/partimen) ''Si paradis et enfernz son aital'' by [Girard Cavalaz](/source/Girard_Cavalaz) and [Aycart del Fossat](/source/Aycart_del_Fossat) is in [Latin](/source/Latin_language).

==Sources==
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite book |first=William E. |last=Burgwinkle |title=Razos and Troubadour Songs |year=2019 |orig-year=1990 |publisher=Routledge |location=London}}
* Boutière, Jean; Schutz, Alexander Herman. ''Biographies des troubadours: textes provençaux des XIIIe et XIVe siècle''. Paris: A. G. Nizet, 1964.
* Poe, Elizabeth W. [http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pao-us:&rft_dat=xri:pao:article:5262-1988-072-02-000016 "At the Boundary between ''Vida'' and ''Razo'': The Biography of Raimon Jordan."] ''Neophilologus'', 72:2 (Apr., 1988) pp. 316–319.
* Schutz, A. H. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/434128 "Where Were the Provençal ''Vidas'' and ''Razos'' Written?"] ''Modern Philology'', 35:3 (Feb., 1938), pp. 225–232.
{{refend}}

==See also==
*''[Linquo coax ranis](/source/Linquo_coax_ranis)'', a Latin equivalent

Category:Occitan literary genres

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