Songlines: discovering the lyric in medieval Britain through writing, sound and image
Speaker: Prof. Ardis Butterfield, Yale University
Moderator: Prof. Hao Tianhu, Zhejiang University
Time: 19:00-21:00 pm, Dec. 13, 2025
Venue: 紫金港校区东五201
Abstract:This talk presents a panoramic view of a new edition of Medieval Lyrics in Britain (forthcoming with CUP). A 20-year project, it presents a copying history of lyric from the 12th to the late 15th century. It presents the verses by paying special attention to the manuscripts in which they were copied, to the world of often idiosyncratic handwritten symbols, flourishes and annotations in which they were framed, of musical notation and richly conceived programs of illumination. It is a media study of medieval lyrics as forms of inscription (on parchment but also many other media), of sound, and image.
Ardis Butterfield is Marie Borroff Professor of English and Professor of French and Music at Yale University. Her books include Poetry and Music in Medieval France (Cambridge UP, 2002) and The Familiar Enemy: Chaucer, Language and Nation in the Hundred Years War (Oxford UP, 2009). She has just completed a long-term project, a multi-media edition of medieval lyrics in Britain (forthcoming with Cambridge UP). Currently she is writing a book on medieval song: Medieval SongLines, along with essays on untranslatability and medieval global multilingualism.
世界顶尖大学合作计划项目“浙大-耶鲁中世纪与文艺复兴研究计划”资助
