The Refrain and the Rise of the Vernacular in Medieval French Music and Poetry

By Jennifer Saltzstein

The relationship between song quotation and the elevation of French as a literary language that could challenge the cultural authority of Latin is the focus of this book. It approaches this phenomenon through a close examination of the refrain, a short phrase of music and text quoted intertextually across thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century musical and poetic genres. The author draws on a wide range of case studies to show that medieval composers quoted refrains as vernacular auctoritates; she also articulates a new framework for understanding the emergence of the first two named authors of vernacular polyphonic music, the cleric-trouv res Adam de la Halle and Guillaume de Machaut.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1843843498
• ISBN13: 9781843843498
• Release Date: June 2013
• Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.5"