A collection attesting to the richness and lasting appeal of these short forms of Middle English verse. The body of short Middle English poems conventionally known as lyrics is characterized by wonderful variety. Taking many different forms, and covering an enormous number of subjects, these poems have proved at once attractive andchallenging for modern readers and scholars. This collection of essays explores a range of Middle English lyrics from the thirteenth to the early sixteenth century, both religious and secular in flavour. It directs attention to the intrinsic qualities of these short poems and at the same time explores their capacity to illuminate important aspects of medieval cultural practice and production: forms of piety, contemporary conditions and events, the historyof feelings and emotions, and the relationships of image, song, performance and speech to the written word. The issues covered in the essays include editing lyrics; lyric manuscripts; affect; visuality; mouvance and transformation; and the relationships between words, music and speech. A particularly distinctive feature of the collection is that most of the essays take as a point of departure a specific lyric whose particularities are explored within wider-ranging critical argument. JULIA BOFFEY is Professor of Medieval Studies in the Department of English at Queen Mary University of London; CHRISTIANIA WHITEHEAD is Professor of Middle English Literature at the University of Warwick. Contributors: Anne Baden-Daintree, Julia Boffey, Anne Marie D'Arcy, Thomas G. Duncan, Susanna Fein, Mary C. Flannery, Jane Griffiths, Joel Grossman, John C. Hirsh, Hetta Elizabeth Howes, Natalie Jones, Michael P. Kuczynski, A.S. Lazikani, Daniel McCann, Denis Renevey, Elizabeth Robertson, Annie Sutherland, Mary Wellesley, Christiania Whitehead, Katherine Zieman.

A collection attesting to the richness and lasting appeal of these short forms of Middle English verse. The body of short Middle English poems conventionally known as lyrics is characterized by wonderful variety. Taking many different forms, and covering an enormous number of subjects, these poems have proved at once attractive andchallenging for modern readers and scholars. This collection of essays explores a range of Middle English lyrics from the thirteenth to the early sixteenth century, both religious and secular in flavour. It directs attention to the intrinsic qualities of these short poems and at the same time explores their capacity to illuminate important aspects of medieval cultural practice and production: forms of piety, contemporary conditions and events, the historyof feelings and emotions, and the relationships of image, song, performance and speech to the written word. The issues covered in the essays include editing lyrics; lyric manuscripts; affect; visuality; mouvance and transformation; and the relationships between words, music and speech. A particularly distinctive feature of the collection is that most of the essays take as a point of departure a specific lyric whose particularities are explored within wider-ranging critical argument.

Essays published in honour of the Trinity College-based scholar who has been at the forefront of Middle English studies in Ireland for many years. Contents as follows: David Aers on the Testimony of William Thorpe - Valerie Allen on tournament and toxophily in late-medieval England - Julia Boffey on Chaucers fortune in the 1530s - John A. Burrow Chaucers Book of the duchess - Helen Conrad-OBriain Sir Orfeo - Helen Cooper The date of the Auchinleck manuscript - Anne Marie DArcy Henrysons The testament of Cresseid - A.S.G. Edwards The Canterbury tales - Richard Firth Green The hunting of the hare - Alan J. Fletcher The pearl - Ralph Hanna Some TCD manuscripts - Angela M. Lucas on Chaucers Franklins tale - Peter J. Lucas on Capgraves The solace of pilgrimes - Alastair J. Minnis Piers Plowman - Charlotte C. Morse Scenes of farewell in the middle ages - Derek Pearsall The flower and the leaf and The assembly of ladies - Helen Phillips Remembering Edward I - Oliver S. Pickering The