Although the song is often the subject of monographs, one of its forms remains insufficiently researched: the vocalised song, communicated to the spectator through performance. The study of the song takes one back to the study of vocal practices, from aesthetic objects to forms and to plural styles. To conceive a song means approaching it in its different instances of creation as well as its linguistic diversity. Jean Nicolas De Surmont proposes ways of research and analysis useful to musicians, musicologists, and literary critics alike. In his book he takes up the issue of vocal poetry in addition to examining the theoretic aspects of song objects. Rather than offering an autonomous model of analysis, De Surmont extends the research fields and suggests responses to debates that have involved everyone interested in vocal poetic forms.

The historical horse is at once material and abstract, as is the notion of the border. Borders and frontiers are not only markers delineating geographical spaces but also mental constructs: there are borders between order and disorder, between what is permitted and what is prohibited. Boundaries and liminal spaces also exist in the material, economic, political, moral, legal and religious spheres. In this volume, the contributing authors explore the theme of the liminality of the horse in all of these historical arenas, asking how one reconciles the very different roles played by the horse in human history.