Middle English Lyric

Abstract

Middle English lyrics (c 1200–1500) are short, emotive poems that take up sacred or profane topics, usually in relation to themes of love and death. Some scholars widen the genre to involve shorter historical and political poems. This widening, however, is problematic: it ignores the density of emotional expression that for most readers is typical of lyric poetry and renders the term “lyric” unnecessarily vague. The term derives from a Greek word for a stringed musical instrument and was not applied to medieval poetry until the sixteenth century. Only a few Middle English lyrics survive with musical accompaniment, although some were written to be sung. Many of the poems exhibit musical qualities—for example, lively or incantatory rhythms. They acquire these from ingenious combinations of simple sound effects, such as alliteration, assonance, and rhyme, as well as from repetition, including regular patterns of stresses in short lines and stanzas that end in refrains. Such features make the poems memorable, if not singable. By numbers, lyric is the largest genre of Middle English writing. Over two thousand lyrics survive, in single and multiple versions, across all the Middle English dialects and primarily in manuscript copies. Lyrics survive less often in other material contexts, too—as inscriptions on walls, in stained glass, or on pottery. New lyrics continue to be discovered by scholars. By a ratio of about five to one, the vast majority of lyrics are religious rather than secular. Their poets, who are learned, emphasize feelings about ideas rather than ideas themselves, although some religious lyrics engage points of theology in sophisticated ways. There are more named authors of religious than of secular lyrics, but most lyrics are anonymous. This circumstance lends an air of mystery to their verses and encourages sometimes conflicting interpretations of unambiguous poems. Several canonical Middle English authors wrote lyrics of distinction: for instance, the Yorkshire hermit Richard Rolle (d. 1349) and the author of the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400). Whether anonymous or named, the poets adopt personas whose moods become the focus of their poems. These are subtle in lyrics where superior poets master the challenge of using conventional meters, diction, and imagery in distinctive ways. Overall, the quality of the Middle English lyric corpus is highly uneven. The best lyrics command attention because they sustain an impression of affective immediacy that exceeds the constraints of simple verse. Accomplished lyrics suggest a reflective interiority and deep engagement with oft-pondered subjects. Middle English lyrics cover a wide stylistic range, from plain through decorated verse. Dating of the poems is approximate: the lyrics themselves provide scant internal evidence of when they were composed. Manuscript date, where this is known, should not be mistaken for date of composition.