Machaut in three dimensions

Abstract

Elizabeth Eva Leach’s energetic new book brings into play three dimensions of Machaut’s life and work: his career as a courtier, his poetical writings and his musical compositions. It is a new departure in being the first attempt to bring them all into focus at the same time. No doubt wisely, it avoids a comprehensive coverage. Although its scope is broad, its treatment is selective, preferring to investigate in detail individual topics and areas rather than attempting to take in everything. The meat of the book is a series of thematically orientated chapters dealing with what might be broadly characterized as the ‘courtly experience’ of Machaut’s work. Accordingly, the first chapter (‘Living’) presents the little that is known of Machaut’s life, with an emphasis on his courtly connections as a secretary over his ecclesiastical ties, a counterbalance in this respect to Anne Walters Robertson’s Guillaume de Machaut and Reims (Cambridge, 2002). The second chapter (‘Resurrection’), dealing with the scholarly revival of interest in Machaut, seems, for all its points of interest, like a distraction from the main thrust, which is conveyed in the four subsequent chapters exploring ‘Creation’, ‘Hope’, ‘Fortune’ and ‘Death’.