Songbook

How Lyrics Became Poetry in Medieval Europe

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Medieval, Nonfiction, History
Cover of the book Songbook by Marisa Galvez, University of Chicago Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Marisa Galvez ISBN: 9780226280523
Publisher: University of Chicago Press Publication: June 19, 2012
Imprint: University of Chicago Press Language: English
Author: Marisa Galvez
ISBN: 9780226280523
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication: June 19, 2012
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Language: English

Today we usually think of a book of poems as composed by a poet, rather than assembled or adapted by a network of poets and readers. But the earliest European vernacular poetries challenge these assumptions. Medieval songbooks remind us how lyric poetry was once communally produced and received—a collaboration of artists, performers, live audiences, and readers stretching across languages and societies.

The only comparative study of its kind, Songbook treats what poetry was before the emergence of the modern category “poetry”: that is, how vernacular songbooks of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries shaped our modern understanding of poetry by establishing expectations of what is a poem, what is a poet, and what is lyric poetry itself. Marisa Galvez analyzes the seminal songbooks representing the vernacular traditions of Occitan, Middle High German, and Castilian, and tracks the process by which the songbook emerged from the original performance contexts of oral publication, into a medium for preservation, and, finally, into an established literary object. Galvez reveals that songbooks—in ways that resonate with our modern practice of curated archives and playlists—contain lyric, music, images, and other nonlyric texts selected and ordered to reflect the local values and preferences of their readers. At a time when medievalists are reassessing the historical foundations of their field and especially the national literary canons established in the nineteenth century, a new examination of the songbook’s role in several vernacular traditions is more relevant than ever.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Today we usually think of a book of poems as composed by a poet, rather than assembled or adapted by a network of poets and readers. But the earliest European vernacular poetries challenge these assumptions. Medieval songbooks remind us how lyric poetry was once communally produced and received—a collaboration of artists, performers, live audiences, and readers stretching across languages and societies.

The only comparative study of its kind, Songbook treats what poetry was before the emergence of the modern category “poetry”: that is, how vernacular songbooks of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries shaped our modern understanding of poetry by establishing expectations of what is a poem, what is a poet, and what is lyric poetry itself. Marisa Galvez analyzes the seminal songbooks representing the vernacular traditions of Occitan, Middle High German, and Castilian, and tracks the process by which the songbook emerged from the original performance contexts of oral publication, into a medium for preservation, and, finally, into an established literary object. Galvez reveals that songbooks—in ways that resonate with our modern practice of curated archives and playlists—contain lyric, music, images, and other nonlyric texts selected and ordered to reflect the local values and preferences of their readers. At a time when medievalists are reassessing the historical foundations of their field and especially the national literary canons established in the nineteenth century, a new examination of the songbook’s role in several vernacular traditions is more relevant than ever.

More books from University of Chicago Press

Cover of the book The Racial Order by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book Money in Historical Perspective by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book Capitalism and the Historians by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book Snowbird by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book The Hunter by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book Between History and Myth by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book Walter Benjamin's Grave by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book Birth of the Living God by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book Elephant Don by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book The Philosophy Scare by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book What the Anti-Federalists Were For by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book The Death Penalty, Volume I by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book Supreme Court Economic Review, Volume 20 by Marisa Galvez
Cover of the book How Does Analysis Cure? by Marisa Galvez
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy