's play "Geoffroy Rudel, ou le Troubadour" (1825) Nineteenth-century
Romanticism found his legend irresistible. It was the subject of poems by
Ludwig Uhland,
Heinrich Heine,
Robert Browning (
Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli) and
Giosué Carducci (
Jaufré Rudel).
Algernon Charles Swinburne returned several times to the story in his poetry, in
The Triumph of Time,
The Death of Rudel and the now-lost
Rudel in Paradise (also titled
The Golden House). In
The Triumph of Time, he summarises the legend: There lived a singer in France of old By the tideless dolorous midland sea. In a land of sand and ruin and gold There shone one woman, and none but she. And finding life for her love's sake fail, Being fain to see her, he bade set sail, Touched land, and saw her as life grew cold, And praised God, seeing; and so died he. Died, praising God for his gift and grace: For she bowed down to him weeping, and said "Live"; and her tears were shed on his face Or ever the life in his face was shed. The sharp tears fell through her hair, and stung Once, and her close lips touched him and clung Once, and grew one with his lips for a space; And so drew back, and the man was dead. Sir
Nizamat Jung Bahadur, of
Hyderabad, also wrote an epic poem on the subject,
Rudel of Blaye, in 1926. The
French dramatist Edmond Rostand took the legend of Rudel and Hodierna as the basis for his 1895 verse drama
La Princesse Lointaine, but reassigned the female lead from Hodierna to her jilted daughter
Melisende, played by
Sarah Bernhardt. However, there are older mentions of Rudel loving Melisende, such as
Frederic Mistral's 1878 Provençal dictionary
Lou Tresor dóu Felibrige which states (translation): "Mélisende, Mélissande or Mélissène, countess of Tripoli, daughter of Aimeri de Lusignan, loved by the troubadour Geoffroi Rudel". More recently,
Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho has written an
opera about Rudel and Clémence (the name used for Hodierna) called ''
L'amour de loin'', with a libretto by
Amin Maalouf, which was given its world premiere at the
Salzburg Festival in 2000 and its US premiere at the
Santa Fe Opera in 2002. == References ==