Poetry and Music in Medieval France: From Jean Renart to Guillaume de Machaut

by Ardis Butterfield

Overview

Ardis Butterfield examines the relationship between the poetry and music of medieval France. Beginning when French song was first set into writing in the early thirteenth century, Butterfield describes the wide range of contexts in which secular songs were quoted and copied. Including narrative romances, satires and love poems, the book reveals the development of French song and narrative genres during a significant period of history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521622196
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/30/2003
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature , #49
Pages:	398
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.98(d)

About the Author

Ardis Butterfield is a Lecturer in English at University College, London. She has published widely on French and English literary and musical history. Her articles have appeared in Medium Aevum and Plainsong and Medieval Music.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; List of tables; List of music examples; Acknowledgments; Bibliographical note; List of abbreviations; Prologue; Part I. Text and Performance: 1. Song and written record in the early thirteenth century; 2. The sources of song: chansonniers, narratives, dance-song; 3. The performance of song in Jean Renart's Rose; Part II. The Boundaries of Genre: 4. The refrain; 5. Refrains in context: a case study; 6. Contrafacta: from secular to sacred in Gautier de Coinci and later thirteenth-century writing; Part III. The Location of Culture: 7. 'Courtly' and 'popular' in the thirteenth century; 8. Urban culture: Arras and the puys; 9. The cultural contexts of Adam de la Halle; Part IV. Modes of Inscription: 10. Songs in writing: the evidence of the manuscripts; 11. Chante/fable: Aucassin et Nicolette; 12. Writing music, writing poetry: Le Roman de Fauvel in Paris BN fr. 146; Part V: Lyric and Narrative: 13. The two Roses: Machaut and the thirteenth century; 14. Rewriting song: chanson, motet, salut, and dit; 15. Citation and authorship from the thirteenth to the fourteenth century; Part VI. Envoy: The New Art: 16. The Formes fixes: from Adam de la Halle to Guillaume de Machaut; Epilogue; Glossary; Appendix; Bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

"An immensely useful and illuminating study...going well beyond what others have done." French Studies

"Ardis Butterfield has created a profoundly incisive text exploring the relationship between poetry and music in thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century France. The beautifully illustrated volume has much to offer: thorough scholarship in the text, a fine appendix, glossary, and bibliography, as well as an index." Arthuriana

"Ardis Butterfield's new book on poetry and music in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century France gives one hope for the bright future of medieval studies. Not only does it act upon the interdisciplinarity its title preaches, but it also builds and improves on an already venerable musico-philological study [...] Butterfield's new book has shown us the rich musico-literary potential of these late French medieval repertories by offering up a model of the kind of interdisciplinary study required from now on." Notes and Queries

From the Publisher