This Norton Critical Edition offers one of the largest collections of Middle English lyrics ever made available to the college student. It is the only anthology which includes all thirty-one English lyrics from MS Harley 2253, all the verses by Friar Herebert printed in Brown XIV, and all the important poems given in Robbins?Secular Lyrics. In all there are 245 lyrics, arranged thematically. To make these delightful poems accessible to the modern reader, the editors have removed many of the orthographic impediments inherent in Middle English verse and have modernized punctuation, capitalization, and obsolete letters while scrupulously seeking to retain the substantive integrity of the poems.

This Norton Critical Edition offers one of the largest collections of Middle English lyrics ever made available to the college student. It is the only anthology which includes all thirty-one English lyrics from MS Harley 2253, all the verses by Friar Herebert printed in Brown XIV, and all the important poems given in Robbins?Secular Lyrics. In all there are 245 lyrics, arranged thematically. To make these delightful poems accessible to the modern reader, the editors have removed many of the orthographic impediments inherent in Middle English verse and have modernized punctuation, capitalization, and obsolete letters while scrupulously seeking to retain the substantive integrity of the poems.

Critical and Historical Backgrounds are provided in essays by Peter Dronke, Stephen Manning, Raymond Oliver, and Rosemary Woolf. In a special section, six poems are singled out for critical comment by A. K. Moore, Edmund Reiss, D. W. Robertson, Jr., E. T. Donaldson, John Speirs, Thomas Jemielity, D. G. Halliburton, Leo Spitzer, and others. Two of these lyrics,'Maiden in the mor lay" and'I sing of a maiden," are discussed by four different scholars. In all, twenty-five poems are discussed in the essays.

The volume also includes a list of Abbreviations, a Table of Textual Sources and Dates, a Select Bibliography, and an Index of First Lines.

Preface

The Poems

Ⅰ Worldes bliss

Ⅱ All for love

Ⅲ I have a gentil cok

Ⅳ Swete Jhesu

Ⅴ Thirty dayes hath November

Ⅵ Make we mery

Ⅶ And all was for an appil

Ⅷ I sing of a maiden

Ⅸ A God and yet a man?

Ⅹ When the turuf is thy tour

Abbreviations

Table of Textual Sources and Dates

Critical and Historical Backgrounds

Peter Dronke·Performers and Performance:

Middle English Lyrics in the European Context

Stephen Manning·Game and Earnest in the Middle

English and Provencal Love Lyrics

Raymond Oliver·The Three Levels of Style

Rosemary Woolf·Lyrics on Death

Perspectives on Six Poems

A. K. Moore·[On'Sumer is icumen in"]

Rosemary Woolf·[On'In a frith as I con fare　fremede"]

Edmund Reiss·[On'Now goth sonne under wod" and'Foweles in the frith"]

D. W. Robertson, Jr. ~ [On'Maiden in the mot lay"]

E. T. Donaldson ~ [On'Maiden in the mor lay"]

John Speirs

Peter Dronke

Thomas Jemielity

Stephen Manning

D. G. Halliburton

Leo Spitzer

Select Bibliography

Index of First Lines