Anne L. Klinck – författare

What was the medieval English lyric? Moving beyond the received understanding of the genre, The Voices of Medieval English Lyric explores, through analysis, discussion, and demonstration, what the term "lyric" most meaningfully implies in a Middle English context. A critical edition of 131 poems that illustrate the range and rich variety of lyric poetry from the mid-twelfth century to the early sixteenth century, The Voices of Medieval English Lyric presents its texts - freshly edited from the manuscripts - in thirteen sections emphasizing contrasting and complementary voices and genres. As well as a selection of religious poetry, the collection includes a high proportion of secular lyrics, many on love and sexuality, both earnest and humorous. In general, major authors who have been covered thoroughly elsewhere are excluded from the edited texts, but some, especially Chaucer, are quoted or mentioned as illuminating comparisons. Charles d''Orléans and the Scots poets Robert Henryson and William Dunbar add an extra-national dimension to a single-language collection. Textual and thematic notes are provided, as well as versions of the poems in Latin or French when these exist. Adopting new perspectives, The Voices of Medieval English Lyric offers an up-to-date, accessible, and distinctive take on Middle English poetry.

The nine elegies have all been edited separately between 1933 and 1983. Klinck builds on the extensive previous scholarship in the field and also draws on recently available materials - notably the microfiche Concordances, the first letters of the new Old English Dictionary, and Bruce Mitchell's Old English Syntax - to make new suggestions about problematic words and passages. Going beyond an exploration of the literary potential of individual poems, Klinck examines them as separate manifestations of a common generic impulse: she moves from palaeographical and philological detail to broader literary and cultural considerations and, finally, to a definition of Old English elegy.

What was the medieval English lyric? Moving beyond the received understanding of the genre, The Voices of Medieval English Lyric explores, through analysis, discussion, and demonstration, what the term "lyric" most meaningfully implies in a Middle English context. A critical edition of 131 poems that illustrate the range and rich variety of lyric poetry from the mid-twelfth century to the early sixteenth century, The Voices of Medieval English Lyric presents its texts - freshly edited from the manuscripts - in thirteen sections emphasizing contrasting and complementary voices and genres. As well as a selection of religious poetry, the collection includes a high proportion of secular lyrics, many on love and sexuality, both earnest and humorous. In general, major authors who have been covered thoroughly elsewhere are excluded from the edited texts, but some, especially Chaucer, are quoted or mentioned as illuminating comparisons. Charles d'Orléans and the Scots poets Robert Henryson and William Dunbar add an extra-national dimension to a single-language collection. Textual and thematic notes are provided, as well as versions of the poems in Latin or French when these exist. Adopting new perspectives, The Voices of Medieval English Lyric offers an up-to-date, accessible, and distinctive take on Middle English poetry.

The nine elegies have all been edited separately between 1933 and 1983. Klinck builds on the extensive previous scholarship in the field and also draws on recently available materials - notably the microfiche Concordances, the first letters of the new Old English Dictionary, and Bruce Mitchell''s Old English Syntax - to make new suggestions about problematic words and passages. Going beyond an exploration of the literary potential of individual poems, Klinck examines them as separate manifestations of a common generic impulse: she moves from palaeographical and philological detail to broader literary and cultural considerations and, finally, to a definition of Old English elegy.

Through a balanced discussion of poetry as performance, relevant kinds and genres of poetry, the definition and scope of "woman''s song" as a mode, partheneia (maidens'' songs) and the girls'' chorus, lyric in the drama, echoes and imitations of archaic woman''s song in Hellenistic poetry, and inferences about the differences between male and female authors, Klinck demonstrates that woman''s song is ultimately best understood as the product of a male-dominated culture but that feminine stereotypes, while refined by skilful male poets, are interrogated and shifted by female poets.

The number of surviving medieval secular poems attributed to named female authors is small, some of the best known being those of the trobairitz the female troubadours of southern France. However, there is a large body of poetry that constructs a particular textual femininity through the use of the female voice. Some of these poems are by men and a few by women (including the trobairitz); many are anonymous, and often the gender of the poet is unresolvable. A "woman's song" in this sense can be defined as a female-voice poem on the subject of love, typically characterized by simple language, sexual candor, and apparent artlessness.The chapters in Medieval Woman's Song bring together scholars in a range of disciplines to examine how both men and women contributed to this art form. Without eschewing consideration of authorship, the collection deliberately overturns the long-standing scholarly practice of treating as separate and distinct entities female-voice lyrics composed by men and those composed by women. What is at stake here is less the voice of women themselves than its cultural and generic construction.