Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-2022
Publication Title
What Kind of a Thing Is a Middle English Lyric?
Pages
106-134
Publisher Name
University of Pennsylvania Press
Publisher Location
Philadelphia, PA
Abstract
From a visual standpoint as well as a semantic and functional one, Middle English lyrics were often absorbed into their co(n)texts. In what sense, then, is a “Middle English lyric” a thing? I seek in this essay to show what metrical analysis may contribute to that question. Context is not all. If contextual analysis has tended to dissolve the presumed thing-hood of Middle English lyrics, metrical analysis shows that verses are robust enough to sustain that. Metrical structuration sets verse apart from its surround; it defines the verse object as a distinct entity, distinguished by a specifiable compositional craft.
Recommended Citation
Cornelius, Ian. “Language and Meter.” In What Kind of a Thing Is a Middle English Lyric?, edited by Cristina Maria Cervone and Nicholas Watson, 106–34. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2cw0rwx.10.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
© University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022.
Comments
Author Posting © University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022. This is the author's version of the work. It is published here by permission of University of Pennsylvania Press for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in What Kind of a Thing Is a Middle English Lyric?, Edited by Cristina Maria Cervone & Nicholas Watson, 2022, pp.106–34, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2cw0rwx