aubade

Look up aubade in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

An aubade is a poem or song of or about lovers separating at dawn.

Aubade has also been defined as "a song or instrumental composition concerning, accompanying, or evoking daybreak."

The form has some dramatic elements, since the poem is often a dialogue between the lovers, one saying that dawn is near and they must part, and the other answering no. There is often a refrain, in which the watchman, or occasionally the jealous husband, warns the lovers of the approaching dawn. Aubades were in the repertory of troubadours in Europe in the Middle Ages. An early English example is in Book III of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. The love poetry of the 16th century dealt mostly with unsatisfied love, so the aubade was not a major genre in Elizabethan lyric.

The aubade gained in popularity again with the advent of the metaphysical fashion; John Donne's poem "The Sunne Rising" is one of the finest examples of the aubade in English. Aubades were written from time to time in the 18th and 19th century, although none of them quite up to metaphysical standards.

There have been several notable aubades in the 20th century, such as a major poem titled "Aubade" by Philip Larkin in which the lover can be seen as either life or death. French composers of the turn of the century wrote a number of aubades. In 1883, the French composer Emmanuel Chabrier composed an "Aubade" for piano solo, inspired by a four-month visit to Spain. Maurice Ravel included a Spain-inspired aubade entitled Alborada del gracioso in his 1906 piano suite Miroirs. The composer Francis Poulenc later wrote (in concerto form) a piece titled Aubade; it premiered in 1929.

One example of a modern aubade is William Empson's poem "Aubade". Other contemporary aubades include Eagle-Eye Cherry's 1997 single "Save Tonight" and Jack Johnson's "Banana Pancakes."

See also

• Alba
• Tagelied
• Lyric poetry
• Serenade

External links

• 'Aubade' - a poem by Philip Larkin
• 'Aubade' - a poem by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill