Tornada (Occitan literary term)

The tornada became a hallmark of the language's lyric poetry tradition which emerged c. 1000 in a region called Occitania that now comprises parts of modern-day France, Italy and Catalonia (northeastern Spain).

Under the influence of the troubadours, related movements sprang up throughout medieval Europe: the Minnesang in Germany, trovadorismo in Galicia (northeastern Spain) and Portugal, and that of the trouvères in northern France.

[3] The tornada has been used and developed by poets in the Renaissance such as Petrarch (1304–1374) and Dante Alighieri (c.1265–1321),[4] and it continues to be invoked in the poetic forms that originated with the Occitan lyrical tradition that have survived into modernity.

By c. 1170 the Occitan lyric tradition had become a set of generic concepts developed by troubadours, poets who composed and performed their poetry;[5] the majority of their poems can be categorised as cansos (love songs), sirventes (satires), and the cobla (individual stanzas).

[14] Comparatively, the Sicilian tornada was larger, forming the entire last strophe of the song or ballad being performed (canzone), and varied little in terms of its theme—typically a personification of the poem, with a request for it to deliver instructions from the poet.

Sonetto, se Meuccio t’è mostrato, così tosto ‘l saluta come ‘l vedi, e ‘ va’ correndo e gittaliti a’ piedi, sì che tu paie bene accostumato.