Home » Introduction to Middle English Lyrics
Product Image

Introduction to Middle English Lyrics

William A. Quinn
€84.99
Quantity:
In stock with our UK publisher. 14-28 days
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days
14 days return policy Shipping & Delivery
A01=William A. Quinn
Alterity
Author_William A. Quinn
Category=DSBB
Category=DSC
courtly love
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
gender studies
Genre Studies
History of Emotion
history of English poetry
lyric poetry
Middle English
Middle English Lyrics
Paratextual Studies
performance
Popular Song
Prosody
Renaissance
rhetoric
Sexual Conflict

Product details

  • ISBN 9780813079431
  • Dimensions: 216 x 140mm
  • Publication Date: 07 Oct 2025
  • Publisher: University Press of Florida
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
Secure checkout Fast Shipping Easy returns
Description

Understanding a medieval poetry genre through modern translations, commentary, and the role of performance

Middle English lyrics are anonymous short poems that were composed between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. They address a range of themes, both secular and religious, and usually emphasize the author’s personal relationship to the subject matter. In this introduction to the genre, William Quinn offers an overview of the large body of work, identifying common features and trends over time and discussing select examples in detail.

Quinn argues that Middle English lyrics are best understood when read as emotional performances and guides readers through the poems’ expressions of joy, sorrow, anger, fear, compassion, spiritual devotion, romantic attraction, erotic frustration, and gender-targeted contempt. For the poems he considers in detail, Quinn provides line-for-line modern renditions of the Middle English texts. The book also includes commentaries keyed to the original texts, intended to prompt interpretations and enrich understandings of the lyrics. Quinn concludes by tracing the later development of versification from medieval to Renaissance lyrics, looking at work by Chaucer, Hoccleve, Petrarch, Wyatt, Surrey, and Shakespeare.

An Introduction to Middle English Lyrics encourages readers to appreciate this literary genre on its own terms and to reconsider modern ideas of what makes a “good” poem. With a deeper knowledge of how lyrics functioned in their historical settings, this book fosters a reassessment of their significance to the broader history of English poetry.

A volume in the series New Perspectives on Medieval Literature: Authors and Traditions, edited by R. Barton Palmer and Tison Pugh
About William A. Quinn
William A. Quinn is distinguished professor of English at the University of Arkansas. He is the author of Olde Clerkis Speche: Chaucer’s “Troilus and Criseyde” and the Implications of Authorial Recital.

More from this author