What is an Aubade?

Writing about the morning may be the easiest thing to write about. Many write about how they do not want to wake up in the morning or how they don’t want to leave their love ones to go to work or school. All of these written works are aubades. Aubades are a very interesting mode of poetry that is very loosely defined. They only have one criterion to be considered an aubade, but have no techniques that are unique to it. Aubades have been around since the middle ages and are still written till this day.

The aubade is a mode of poetry that is a poem about the arrival of dawn. It flourished in France in the late Middle Ages ("Glossary Terms."). The aubade was originally sung outside in the morning at dawn (Wheeler). Some forms are about two lovers separating at dawn ("Aubade"). The aubades that are about two lovers separating in the morning can be a complicated poem to write. It is a poem about the ending of the night together but the beginning of the next day apart. Some are a happy tone about how the lovers may be separating but they have another day to be together. Others have a sad tone about the lovers separating and being alone the next day. Whether the poem is just about the coming of dawn or lovers departing each other, neither one has to have a certain line length or number of lines, a specific amount of stanzas or syllable count , or fixed meter ("Aubade”). Some authors do decide to use a rhyme scheme, but that is up to the author as it is not a criteria for writing an aubade. The only criteria for classifying a poem as an aubade is that the poem is about dawn.

There is very little history on the aubade. It is known to originate in France around 1307-1485 and then spread to Germany by Wolfram von Eschenbach and to England ...

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...www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/serenade>.

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MacCallum, Mungo William. "The Minnesong." Studies in Low German and High German Literature. London: K. Paul, Trench, 1884. 206. Print.

Shakespeare, William. "Aubade." PoemHunter.com. N.p., 04 Jan. 2003. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.

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