Comprehensive survey of the Middle English lyric, one of the most important forms of medieval literature.
Winner of a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award
The Middle English lyric occupies a place of considerable importance in the history of English literature. Here, for the first time in English, are found many features of formal and thematic importance: they include rhyme scheme, stanzaic form, the carol genre, love poetry in the manner of the troubadour poets, and devotional poems focusing on the love, suffering and compassion of Christ and the Virgin Mary. The essays in this volume aim to provide both background information on and new assessments of the lyric. By treating Middle English lyrics chapter by chapter according to their kinds – poems dealing with love, with religious devotion, with moral, political and popular themes, and those associated with preaching – it provides the awareness of their characteristic cultural contexts and literary modalities necessary for an informed critical reading. Full account is taken of the scholarship upon which our knowledge of these lyrics rests, especially the outstanding contributions of the last few decades and such recent insights as those of gender criticism. Also included are detailed discussions of the valuable information afforded by the widely varying manuscript contexts in which Middle English lyrics survive and of the diverse issues involved in editing these texts. Separate chapters are devotedto the carol, which came to prominence in the fifteenth century, and to Middle Scots lyrics which, at the end of the Middle English lyric tradition, present some sophisticated productions of an entirely new order.
Contributors: Julia Boffey, Thomas G. Duncan, John Scattergood, Vincent Gillespie, Christiania Whitehead, Douglas Gray, Karl Reichl, Thorlac Turville-Petre, Alan J. Fletcher, Bernard O’Donoghue, Sarah Stanbury and Alasdair A. Mac Donald.
THOMAS G. DUNCAN is Honorary Senior Lecturer, School of English, University of St Andrews
Table of Content
Introduction – Thomas G. Duncan
Middle English Lyrics: Metre and Editorial Practice – Thomas G. Duncan
The love lyric before Chaucer – John Scattergood
Moral and Penitential Lyrics – Vincent Gillespie
Middle English Religious Lyrics – Christiania Whitehead
Middle English Courtly Lyrics: Chaucer to Henry VIII – D Gray
The Middle English Carol – Karl Reichl
Political Lyrics – Thorlac Turville-Petre
The Lyric in the Sermon – Alan J Fletcher
‘Cuius Contrarium’: Middle English Popular Lyrics – Bernard O’Donoghue
Gender and Voice in Middle English Religious Lyrics – Sarah Stanbury
Lyrics in Middle Scots –
About the author
JULIA BOFFEY is Professor of Medieval Studies in the Department of English at Queen Mary University of London.
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