Middle English Lyric 1100-1500

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

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“Lyric” is not a medieval term, but one that entered English critical discourse in the sixteenth century from classical genre theory and was later assimilated to Romantic theories of art as personal expression. The term now conventionally “signifies either a poem expressing personal emotion, or the words of a song” (see the

Literary Encyclopedia

entry on “Lyric”), but it is used more loosely in discussing medieval English literature to refer to any relatively short poem of the period, whether or not it expresses personal emotion and regardless of whether we know it was set to music. Only a very small number of lyrics from before ca.1400 survive with music, but it is possible that some of those that do not were once sung. More musical settings survive from the fifteenth…

1595 words

Citation: Phelpstead, Carl. "Middle English Lyric 1100-1500". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 November 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1414, accessed 29 March 2024.]

1414 Middle English Lyric 1100-1500 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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