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In Small Proportions: A Poetics Of the English Ayre, 1596-1622
Aesthetic anomaly? Historical oddity? Notable development in Occidental art song? Triumph of poetic and musical proportion? The English ayre, which enjoyed a short vogue from approximately 1596 to 1622, is a distinctive subgenre of the lyric, marking a transition in English lyric history from the staid language of Petrarchism to the lively and varied style of the late Elizabethans, and later to the highly elaborate metrical and philosophical style of the metaphysical poets.
Based on Edward Doughtie's seminal critical edition, Lyrics from English Airs, 1596-1622 (Harvard University Press, 1970), and i'ltended as a complement to it, In Small Proportions provides the first extended examination of the ayre's literary devices and attributes. Its goal is to elaborate a poetIcs of the ayre as a blend of music and text-a means by which scholars, students, performers, and cultural historians may interpret the ayre's lyrics through a heightened understanding of the distinctive
literary features that assure the genre a
unique place in the cultural achievements
of the English Renaissance.
In addition to discussing the aesthetic questions associated with the ayre's small proportions and outlining the metaphysical premises that underlie the genre, this study examines self-representation and metaphor,as well as the themes of eros and thanatos.The ayres use inexpressibility to suggest that the passionate word cannot enunciate the mystifying life experiences of self, love, or death. Paradoxically, through the recognition
of that insufficiency, expressive potency is achieved, especially in a musicopoetic context.
Later chapters investigate the significant formal characteristics that define the ayre, including the use of the rhetorical figure metalepsis as a technique for producing lyric affect; the preponderance of figures of negation that contribute to the ayre's highly condensed lyrics; and the intricate interrelationship between poetic and musical metrics. The final chapter considers some of
the cultural contexts, both literary and iconographic, that influence the ayre's performance practice. In Small Proportions breaks new ground in its exploration of the English ayre and the English Renaissance lyric.
Based on Edward Doughtie's seminal critical edition, Lyrics from English Airs, 1596-1622 (Harvard University Press, 1970), and i'ltended as a complement to it, In Small Proportions provides the first extended examination of the ayre's literary devices and attributes. Its goal is to elaborate a poetIcs of the ayre as a blend of music and text-a means by which scholars, students, performers, and cultural historians may interpret the ayre's lyrics through a heightened understanding of the distinctive
literary features that assure the genre a
unique place in the cultural achievements
of the English Renaissance.
In addition to discussing the aesthetic questions associated with the ayre's small proportions and outlining the metaphysical premises that underlie the genre, this study examines self-representation and metaphor,as well as the themes of eros and thanatos.The ayres use inexpressibility to suggest that the passionate word cannot enunciate the mystifying life experiences of self, love, or death. Paradoxically, through the recognition
of that insufficiency, expressive potency is achieved, especially in a musicopoetic context.
Later chapters investigate the significant formal characteristics that define the ayre, including the use of the rhetorical figure metalepsis as a technique for producing lyric affect; the preponderance of figures of negation that contribute to the ayre's highly condensed lyrics; and the intricate interrelationship between poetic and musical metrics. The final chapter considers some of
the cultural contexts, both literary and iconographic, that influence the ayre's performance practice. In Small Proportions breaks new ground in its exploration of the English ayre and the English Renaissance lyric.
404 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1997
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