IMC 2014: Sessions
Session 734: Mode in Lay and Song: Voice, Sight, Aurality, and Understanding in the Medieval Lyric
Tuesday 8 July 2014, 14.15-15.45
Sponsor: | Centre for Multimodality & Cultural Change, University of Agder |
---|---|
Organiser: | Emma Gorst, Department of English, Yale University |
Moderator/Chair: | Sean Dunnahoe, Department of Music, Royal Holloway, University of London |
Paper 734-a | Wisdom, The Wanderer, and Lyric Modes of Understanding (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Literacy and Orality, Performance Arts - General, Philosophy |
Paper 734-b | An Analysis of 'Mode' in Guillaume de Machaut's Lay mortel (Un mortel lay) (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Literacy and Orality, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Music |
Paper 734-c | Lyric's Unexpected Effects: The Modes of Song and Prayer in Chaucer's Knight's Tale (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Lay Piety, Music, Performance Arts - General |
Abstract | Medieval lyrics rarely, if ever, fit into established categories of 'lyric'. In this session we ask whether the idea of multiple 'modes' can provide an alternative discussion framework, and whether it renders modality useful for interdisciplinary investigations of the lyric. 'Multimodality' encompasses many ways of making meaning – including features of the written poetic text, manuscript layout, and illuminations. The Canadian philosopher and poet Jan Zwicky even posits that mode can be a means of understanding. Each paper in this session uses an approach to lyric modes that creates dialogue between readers of Old English, Middle English, and Middle French lyrics. |