Lyric Poetry

Legitimized by the poetry of the Bible, devotional lyric verse—crossing denominational lines, often combining Reformation spirituality with Renaissance rhetoric—flourished in early modern England. Poets like Mary and Philip Sidney and George Herbert modelled their work on the Book of Psalms, at times imitating the prosodic simplicity of the Sternhold and Hopkins metrical psalms, elsewhere adapting the sophisticated stanzaic variety of the Marot/Beze Psalter. Women like Aemilia Lanyer and Anne Southwell used the Song of Songs to express their devotion to Christ. The ‘mystical marriage’ was often used by women such as Barbara Mackay, who produced a version of the Song of Songs in manuscript, and Elizabeth Melville, who parodied Petrarchan poetry; and it was employed in shocking fashion by John Donne. The religious lyric exists on the borderline of public and private: in conclusion, we present such lyrics as social and occasional, and examine their relationship with music.

Religious Lyrics

Although dimly anticipated by certain Old English poetic texts, the Middle English religious lyric appears in the manuscript record in the first half of the 13th century, when a rich and diverse collection of largely religious lyrics sprang into being in what must have seemed like a Russian spring. The phenomenon almost certainly owes its birth to the entry into Britain of the Franciscans, and to the preaching these Franciscans initiated, and to the warm, engaged, and meaningful spirituality their order both practiced and inculcated. Preceded and informed by Latin and Continental examples, the English religious lyric soon developed its own practices and its own audience, sometimes simply translating into English familiar Latin hymns, at other times producing texts of extraordinary originality and complexity. The English religious lyric retained from its earliest appearances elements of instruction, learning, and joy, and these qualities came to inform later production, thus remaining central to its identity. Changes having been made, religious lyrics in English continued to be written in large numbers well into the 17th century, informed by a number of traditions, that of Latin (and latterly, vernacular) meditation and European devotional practices and images, among them. The roughly two thousand medieval lyrics now known, many preserved in only one version, were no doubt only a fraction of the total number sung, recited, and inscribed, and although they have been long known to students of the period, an understanding of their cultural importance and their literary artistry is of relatively recent date. Since the 1960s, however, the depth, complexity, and beauty of these extraordinary works of art have been widely accepted, and, though their study was somewhat curtailed by the advent of literary theory, it has now begun again and continues with interest, learning, and vigor. The new study of the English religious lyric reaches out as well to carols and ballads, and the diverse, compelling, and not infrequently brilliant poems that make up the genre are now increasingly understood to be, as Douglas Gray has written, “the glory of late medieval English literature.”

L’estil i la llengua de Miquel Ortigues al Cançoner sagrat de vides de sants

Resum: El Cançoner sagrat de vides de sants és un dels millors exponents del gènere literari dels goigs a la literatura catalana entre els segles XV i XVI. Es tracta d’un manuscrit autògraf que recull 59 composicions, la majoria d’elles hagiogràfiques, de caire devot i contemplatiu on Miquel Ortigues, l’autor, deixa anar un estil assaonat de la tradició del gènere així com un regust de reiteració de rimes i construccions ben identificable. En aquest article s’intenta demostrar que l’estil dels goigs d’Ortigues no es deu a les limitacions personals de l’autor, sinó que és deutor de la tradició lírica religiosa de la que participen els escriptors amb més anomenada del segle d’or valencià.Paraules clau: Cançoner sagrat, hagiografia, goigs, Miquel Ortigues, poesiaAbstract: The Cançoner sagrat de vides de sants is one of the greatest examples of the literary genre of goigs in Catalan literature between 15th and 16th centuries. It is an autograph manuscript which contains 59 devotional and contemplative hagiographic compositions. Miquel Ortigues, his author, shows the typical style of the tradition of this genre as well as an aftertaste of rhymes reiteration and personal constructions. This article is an attempt to demonstrate that Ortigues goigs style is not due to personal limitations, but he is debtor to the religious lyric tradition used by the most famous authors of Valencian gold century.Keywords: Cançoner sagrat, hagiography, goigs, Miquel Ortigues, poetry