What shall we make of medieval English lyrics? They have no fixed line or meter, no consistent point of view, and their content may seem misaligned with the other texts in manuscripts in which they are found. Yet in Lyric Tactics, Ingrid Nelson argues that the lyric poetry of later medieval England is a distinct genre defined not by its poetic features-rhyme, meter, and stanza forms-but by its modes of writing and performance, which are ad hoc, improvisatory, and situational. Nelson looks at anonymous devotional and love poems that circulated in manuscripts of practical, religious, and literary material or were embedded in popular, courtly, and liturgical works. For her, the poems' abilities to participate in multiple modes of transmission are "lyric tactics," responsive and contingent modes of practice that emerge in opposition to institutional or poetic norms.Working across the three languages of medieval England (English, French, and Latin), Nelson examines the tactics of poetic voice in the trilingual texts of British Library MS Harley 2253, which contains the well-known English "Harley lyrics." In a study of the English hymns and French lyrics of the commonplace book of William Herebert, she unearths the moral implications of lyric tactics for the friars who produced and disseminated them. And last, she examines the work of Geoffrey Chaucer and shows how his introduction of Continental poetic forms such as the balade and the rondeau suggests continuity with rather than a break from earlier English lyric. Combining literary analysis, manuscript studies, and cultural history with modern social theory, Ingrid Nelson demonstrates that medieval lyric poetry formed a crucial part of the fabric of later medieval English society.

What shall we make of medieval English lyrics? They have no fixed line or meter, no consistent point of view, and their content may seem misaligned with the other texts in manuscripts in which they are found. Yet in Lyric Tactics, Ingrid Nelson argues that the lyric poetry of later medieval England is a distinct genre defined not by its poetic features-rhyme, meter, and stanza forms-but by its modes of writing and performance, which are ad hoc, improvisatory, and situational. Nelson looks at anonymous devotional and love poems that circulated in manuscripts of practical, religious, and literary material or were embedded in popular, courtly, and liturgical works. For her, the poems' abilities to participate in multiple modes of transmission are "lyric tactics," responsive and contingent modes of practice that emerge in opposition to institutional or poetic norms.Working across the three languages of medieval England (English, French, and Latin), Nelson examines the tactics of poetic voice in the trilingual texts of British Library MS Harley 2253, which contains the well-known English "Harley lyrics." In a study of the English hymns and French lyrics of the commonplace book of William Herebert, she unearths the moral implications of lyric tactics for the friars who produced and disseminated them. And last, she examines the work of Geoffrey Chaucer and shows how his introduction of Continental poetic forms such as the balade and the rondeau suggests continuity with rather than a break from earlier English lyric. Combining literary analysis, manuscript studies, and cultural history with modern social theory, Ingrid Nelson demonstrates that medieval lyric poetry formed a crucial part of the fabric of later medieval English society.

What shall we make of medieval English lyrics? They have no fixed line or meter, no consistent point of view, and their content may seem misaligned with the other texts in manuscripts in which they are found. Yet in Lyric Tactics, Ingrid Nelson argues that the lyric poetry of later medieval England is a distinct genre defined not by its poetic features-rhyme, meter, and stanza forms-but by its modes of writing and performance, which are ad hoc, improvisatory, and situational. Nelson looks at anonymous devotional and love poems that circulated in manuscripts of practical, religious, and literary material or were embedded in popular, courtly, and liturgical works. For her, the poems' abilities to participate in multiple modes of transmission are "lyric tactics," responsive and contingent modes of practice that emerge in opposition to institutional or poetic norms.Working across the three languages of medieval England (English, French, and Latin), Nelson examines the tactics of poetic voice in the trilingual texts of British Library MS Harley 2253, which contains the well-known English "Harley lyrics." In a study of the English hymns and French lyrics of the commonplace book of William Herebert, she unearths the moral implications of lyric tactics for the friars who produced and disseminated them. And last, she examines the work of Geoffrey Chaucer and shows how his introduction of Continental poetic forms such as the balade and the rondeau suggests continuity with rather than a break from earlier English lyric. Combining literary analysis, manuscript studies, and cultural history with modern social theory, Ingrid Nelson demonstrates that medieval lyric poetry formed a crucial part of the fabric of later medieval English society.

Traces the development of media concepts across scientific, legal, and devotional knowledge domains to offer a coherent theory of premodern mediaWere there media before the printing press? Although medieval culture lacked the machine technologies that we conventionally associate with the idea of media, medieval thinkers developed extensive scientific, legal, and devotional discourses of media and mediation. Ingrid Nelson draws on contemporary media theory to explain how premodern media—including not only easily recognizable media forms like books and paintings but also bodies and environmental elements that mediate perception—served as essential materials of communication between self and world.Tracing the development of medieval media from the rediscovery of Aristotle's work on sense perception to post–Magna Carta legal forms and Christian devotional practice, Medieval Media synthesizes these diffuse discourses to present a coherent theory of premodern media. Turning her focus to literature, Nelson shows how Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales draws on medieval media theory to express an aesthetic materialism that emphasizes relation and network over mimesis and representation. In exploring how literature shapes and is shaped by medieval media, The Canterbury Tales articulates a poetics of media that seeks to unite the perceptual, social, and spiritual capacities of human experience, even as it encodes emerging exclusions and restrictions of bodies marked by race and gender in medieval Western culture.Bringing medieval studies and media studies into conversation with one another, Medieval Media uncovers concepts and theories of premodern media that expand our understanding of media history and open new avenues for medieval literary studies.

Over the course of her career, Elizabeth Robertson has pursued innovative scholarship that investigates the overlapping domains of medieval philosophy, literature, and gender studies. This collection of essays, dedicated to her work, examines gender as a construct of language, a mode of embodiment, and a critical framework for thinking about the past. Its eleven contributors approach the figure of the gendered body in medieval English writing along several axes: poetic, philosophical, material-textual, and historical. The volume focuses on the ways that the medieval body becomes a site of inquiry and agency, whether in the form of the idealized feminine body of secular and religious lyric, the sexually permissive and permeable body of fabliau, or the intercessory body of religious devotional writing. The essays span a broad range of medieval literary works, from the lais of Marie de France to Pearl to Piers Plowman and the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer, and a broad range of methodological approaches, from philosophy to affect and manuscript studies. Taken together, they celebrate the scholarly career of Elizabeth Robertson while also presenting a coherent and multifaceted investigation of the intersections of gender and medieval literary practice.

What shall we make of medieval English lyrics? They have no fixed line or meter, no consistent point of view, and their content may seem misaligned with the other texts in manuscripts in which they are found. Yet in Lyric Tactics, Ingrid Nelson argues that the lyric poetry of later medieval England is a distinct genre defined not by its poetic features-rhyme, meter, and stanza forms-but by its modes of writing and performance, which are ad hoc, improvisatory, and situational. Nelson looks at anonymous devotional and love poems that circulated in manuscripts of practical, religious, and literary material or were embedded in popular, courtly, and liturgical works. For her, the poems' abilities to participate in multiple modes of transmission are "lyric tactics," responsive and contingent modes of practice that emerge in opposition to institutional or poetic norms.Working across the three languages of medieval England (English, French, and Latin), Nelson examines the tactics of poetic voice in the trilingual texts of British Library MS Harley 2253, which contains the well-known English "Harley lyrics." In a study of the English hymns and French lyrics of the commonplace book of William Herebert, she unearths the moral implications of lyric tactics for the friars who produced and disseminated them. And last, she examines the work of Geoffrey Chaucer and shows how his introduction of Continental poetic forms such as the balade and the rondeau suggests continuity with rather than a break from earlier English lyric. Combining literary analysis, manuscript studies, and cultural history with modern social theory, Ingrid Nelson demonstrates that medieval lyric poetry formed a crucial part of the fabric of later medieval English society.

What shall we make of medieval English lyrics? They have no fixed line or meter, no consistent point of view, and their content may seem misaligned with the other texts in manuscripts in which they are found. Yet in Lyric Tactics, Ingrid Nelson argues that the lyric poetry of later medieval England is a distinct genre defined not by its poetic features-rhyme, meter, and stanza forms-but by its modes of writing and performance, which are ad hoc, improvisatory, and situational. Nelson looks at anonymous devotional and love poems that circulated in manuscripts of practical, religious, and literary material or were embedded in popular, courtly, and liturgical works. For her, the poems' abilities to participate in multiple modes of transmission are "lyric tactics," responsive and contingent modes of practice that emerge in opposition to institutional or poetic norms.Working across the three languages of medieval England (English, French, and Latin), Nelson examines the tactics of poetic voice in the trilingual texts of British Library MS Harley 2253, which contains the well-known English "Harley lyrics." In a study of the English hymns and French lyrics of the commonplace book of William Herebert, she unearths the moral implications of lyric tactics for the friars who produced and disseminated them. And last, she examines the work of Geoffrey Chaucer and shows how his introduction of Continental poetic forms such as the balade and the rondeau suggests continuity with rather than a break from earlier English lyric. Combining literary analysis, manuscript studies, and cultural history with modern social theory, Ingrid Nelson demonstrates that medieval lyric poetry formed a crucial part of the fabric of later medieval English society.

What shall we make of medieval English lyrics? They have no fixed line or meter, no consistent point of view, and their content may seem misaligned with the other texts in manuscripts in which they are found. Yet in Lyric Tactics, Ingrid Nelson argues that the lyric poetry of later medieval England is a distinct genre defined not by its poetic features-rhyme, meter, and stanza forms-but by its modes of writing and performance, which are ad hoc, improvisatory, and situational. Nelson looks at anonymous devotional and love poems that circulated in manuscripts of practical, religious, and literary material or were embedded in popular, courtly, and liturgical works. For her, the poems' abilities to participate in multiple modes of transmission are "lyric tactics," responsive and contingent modes of practice that emerge in opposition to institutional or poetic norms.Working across the three languages of medieval England (English, French, and Latin), Nelson examines the tactics of poetic voice in the trilingual texts of British Library MS Harley 2253, which contains the well-known English "Harley lyrics." In a study of the English hymns and French lyrics of the commonplace book of William Herebert, she unearths the moral implications of lyric tactics for the friars who produced and disseminated them. And last, she examines the work of Geoffrey Chaucer and shows how his introduction of Continental poetic forms such as the balade and the rondeau suggests continuity with rather than a break from earlier English lyric. Combining literary analysis, manuscript studies, and cultural history with modern social theory, Ingrid Nelson demonstrates that medieval lyric poetry formed a crucial part of the fabric of later medieval English society.

Traces the development of media concepts across scientific, legal, and devotional knowledge domains to offer a coherent theory of premodern mediaWere there media before the printing press? Although medieval culture lacked the machine technologies that we conventionally associate with the idea of media, medieval thinkers developed extensive scientific, legal, and devotional discourses of media and mediation. Ingrid Nelson draws on contemporary media theory to explain how premodern media—including not only easily recognizable media forms like books and paintings but also bodies and environmental elements that mediate perception—served as essential materials of communication between self and world.Tracing the development of medieval media from the rediscovery of Aristotle's work on sense perception to post–Magna Carta legal forms and Christian devotional practice, Medieval Media synthesizes these diffuse discourses to present a coherent theory of premodern media. Turning her focus to literature, Nelson shows how Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales draws on medieval media theory to express an aesthetic materialism that emphasizes relation and network over mimesis and representation. In exploring how literature shapes and is shaped by medieval media, The Canterbury Tales articulates a poetics of media that seeks to unite the perceptual, social, and spiritual capacities of human experience, even as it encodes emerging exclusions and restrictions of bodies marked by race and gender in medieval Western culture.Bringing medieval studies and media studies into conversation with one another, Medieval Media uncovers concepts and theories of premodern media that expand our understanding of media history and open new avenues for medieval literary studies.

Over the course of her career, Elizabeth Robertson has pursued innovative scholarship that investigates the overlapping domains of medieval philosophy, literature, and gender studies. This collection of essays, dedicated to her work, examines gender as a construct of language, a mode of embodiment, and a critical framework for thinking about the past. Its eleven contributors approach the figure of the gendered body in medieval English writing along several axes: poetic, philosophical, material-textual, and historical. The volume focuses on the ways that the medieval body becomes a site of inquiry and agency, whether in the form of the idealized feminine body of secular and religious lyric, the sexually permissive and permeable body of fabliau, or the intercessory body of religious devotional writing. The essays span a broad range of medieval literary works, from the lais of Marie de France to Pearl to Piers Plowman and the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer, and a broad range of methodological approaches, from philosophy to affect and manuscript studies. Taken together, they celebrate the scholarly career of Elizabeth Robertson while also presenting a coherent and multifaceted investigation of the intersections of gender and medieval literary practice.