THE ENGLISH POEMS OF CHARLES OF ORLEANS (LYRIC-MEDIEVAL).
Item
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Title
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THE ENGLISH POEMS OF CHARLES OF ORLEANS (LYRIC-MEDIEVAL).
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Identifier
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AAI8423088
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identifier
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8423088
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Creator
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MARKS, DIANE R.
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Contributor
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Robert O. Payne
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Date
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1984
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Medieval
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Abstract
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The English poems attributed to Charles of Orleans have been the subject of some historical investigation and debate but as yet have received virtually no literary critical attention. The poems are unique in English and as the nexus of centuries of literary development it would do well to examine them from a literary-historical perspective.;The continental tradition of the vernacular lyric began with the troubadours. They sang of secular love in intricate rhymed stanzaic verse, artfully imitating the frenzy of the lover with paradox and parataxis in a highly varied tone. The Middle English lyric, as exemplified by the Harley collection, shares the Old Provencal aesthetic and differences between troubadour and Middle English poems can be attributed to the social situation of the poet and different linguistic habits.;The great poets of the Fourteenth century, Petrarch, Machaut and Chaucer, bring changes to the lyric: its form becomes fixed, its organization and its grammar become logical and syntactic and its tone modulates. With Petrarch features of classical rhetoric are exploited and allusion to classical myth becomes common. Machaut's refrain song emphasizes the musical aspect of the lyric. Only Chaucer values the varied tone of the troubadour and reinstates it in the love lyric.;When Charles of Orleans composes his book, he organizes it in an autobiographical sequence, as Dante and Petrarch did. The poems are the fixed forms, ballade and roundel, of the French lyric poets. Although the story he tells is that of a lover whose lady dies, the book examines the ideal of troth and the attempt of the poet lover to live up to that ideal.;The book not only demonstrates the problem of the poet-lover with his ideal, but his integration of his failure to achieve that ideal. As the persona of the lover matures, we also see the poet mature. Poetry becomes a means of examining his life. The early poems, witty allegorical and rhetorical ballades based on courtly life, are superseded by the roundels, which incorporate a greater variety of experience and language. And in the second ballade sequence he relies less on allegory, less on the conventions of courtly life and more on himself as the interpreter of thought and experience into poetry.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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English
