Assembling the Lyric Self: Authorship from Troubadour Song to Italian Poetry Book

Medieval Cultures #21

by Olivia Holmes

During the 13th century Western Europe witnessed an explosion in vernacular literacy, resulting in a large body of manuscript anthologies of secular and popular troubadour lyrics. Shortly afterwards, these multi-authored compilations were succeeded by books of poems by single authors, notably by Petrarch during the 14th century. This detailed yet readable thesis draws on an extensive range of archival sources to examine the reasons for this transition in Provencal and Italian literature, combining general analyses of manuscripts and authors with specific studies of, for example, Guittone d' Arezzo, Dante's Vita Nova , Nicolo de Rossi and Petrarch's Canzoniere . Extracts translated.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published December 16, 1999