UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER DR D’ARCY

ND
EN 240 MEDIEVAL LITERATURE 2 YEAR

The Middle English Lyric

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

A
NTHOLOGIES:
The majority of texts discussed are taken from Medieval English Lyrics, ed. R. T. Davies
(London, 1963), and students are advised to consult this critical anthology. Students are also
encouraged to explore the following works in addition to Davies’ edition. See also Old and
Middle English: An Anthology, ed. E. Treharne (Oxford and Malden MA, 2000), pp. 328-31,
416-20, 481-95.

The Early English Carols, ed. R. L. Greene, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1977).
Early English Lyrics, ed. E. K. Chambers and F. Sidgwick (London, 1921).
Early Middle English Verse and Prose, ed. J. A. W. Bennett and G. V. Smithers, 2nd ed.
(Oxford, 1968).
English Lyrics of the Thirteenth Century, ed. C. Brown (Oxford, 1932).
English Verse 1300-1500, ed. J. A. Burrow (London, 1977).
English Verse Between Chaucer and Surrey, ed. E. P. Hammond (Durham, NC, 1927), repr.
New York, 1969.
The Harley Lyrics: The Middle English Lyrics of MS. Harley 2253, ed. G. L. Brook, 2nd ed.
(Manchester, 1956), repr. Manchester, 1968.
Historical Poems of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, ed. R. H. Robbins (New York
and London, 1959).
Medieval English Lyrics, ed. T. Silverstein (London, 1971).
The Oxford Book of Late Medieval Verse and Prose, ed. D. Gray (Oxford, 1985).
The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse, ed. C. and K. Sisam (Oxford, 1970).
Religious Lyrics of the Fifteenth Century, ed. C. Brown (Oxford, 1939).
Religious Lyrics of the Fourteenth Century, ed. C. Brown, 2nd rev. ed., G. V. Smithers
(Oxford, 1952).
Secular Lyrics of the of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, ed. R. H. Robbins, 2nd ed.
(Oxford, 1955).
A Selection of Religious Lyrics, ed. D. Gray (Oxford, 1975).



S
ECONDARY CRITICISM:
Students are encouraged to consult some of the following works.

1
UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER DR D’ARCY
ND
EN 240 MEDIEVAL LITERATURE 2 YEAR

Boklund-Lagopoulou, K. ‘I Have a Young Suster’: Folksong, Ballad and the Middle English
Lyric (Dublin, 2001).
D’Arcy, A. M. ‘The Middle English Lyric’, in Readings in Medieval Texts: Interpreting Old
and Middle English Literature, ed. D. F. Johnson and E. Treharne (Oxford, 2005), pp.
306-322.
Dronke, P. Medieval Latin and the Rise of the European Love-Lyric, 2nd ed., 2 vols
(Oxford, 1968).
Dronke, P. The Medieval Lyric, 2nd ed. (London, 1978).
Gray, D. Themes and Images in the Medieval English Religious Lyric (London, 1972).
Gray, D. ‘Typology in Some Medieval English Religious Lyrics’, in Typology and English
Medieval Literature, ed. H. T. Keenan (New York, 1992), pp. 275-88.
Jackson, W. T. H. (ed.). The Interpretation of Medieval Lyric Poetry (London, 1980).
Kane, G. Middle English Literature: A Critical Study of the Romances, the Religious Lyrics,
Piers Plowman (London and New York, 1951), repr. London and New York, 1970, pp.
104-81.
Oliver, R. Poems Without Names: The English Lyric, 1200-1500 (Berkeley and Los Angeles,

1970).
Patterson, F. A. The Middle English Penitential Lyric: A Study and Collection of Early
Religious Verse (New York, 1966).
Scattergood, V. J. Politics and Poetry in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1971).
Stevens, J. Music and Poetry in the Early Tudor Court (London, 1961), repr. Cambridge,
1979.
Wilson, R. M. Early Middle English Literature, 3rd ed. (London, 1968), pp. 250-74.
Woolf, R. The English Religious Lyric in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1968).



F
URTHER READING:
Students may find the following studies helpful with regard to the sources, symbolism,
central themes, social and cultural contexts of the lyric.

Dronke, P. The Medieval Poet and his World (Rome, 1984).

Dronke, P. Poetic Individuality in the Middle Ages: New Departures in Poetry 1000-1150,
2nd ed. (London, 1986).
Preminger, A. and Brogan, T. V. F. (ed.). The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and
Poetics (Princeton, 1993).
Stevens, J. Words and Music in the Middle Ages: Song, Narrative, Dance and Drama, 1050-
1350 (Cambridge, 1986).

2
UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER DR D’ARCY
ND
EN 240 MEDIEVAL LITERATURE 2 YEAR
Wilkens, N. ‘Music and Poetry at Court: England and France in the Late Middle Ages’, in
English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. V. J. Scattergood and J. W.
Sherborne (London, 1983), pp. 183-204.

