IMEMS Lindisfarne Gospels Seminar Series 2013
In connection with the major loan exhibition of the Lindisfarne Gospels in Durham (1 July-30 September 2013), the seminar programme for 2013 explores the Lindisfarne Gospels and its world. With topics ranging from Holy Island and the culture of contemporary Northumbria, though different aspects of the Lindisfarne Gospels itself, to the place of the manuscript within broader traditions of book culture and illumination, the series showcases new work and offers fresh perspectives on a Northumbrian masterpiece, its contexts and implications.
The Enchantment of Song in Guillaume de Machaut
In the 13th century the lyric undergoes a process of disenchantement. Words become disconnected from music and from the expression of desire. But this gives rise to a counter mouvement that reaffirms the unicity of song (as opposed to its division into two complementary disciplines, words and music) and its (even dangerously) affective intimacy. Guillaume de Machaut manifests this development most fully in his Remède de Fortune. Appealing to the models of both Boethius and Orpheus, he sets about the seemingly contradictory aims of singing in a way that will be pure song, singing to voice the inspiiration of desire, and singing as part of an aesthetic that can be formalized and even taught.
Sarah Kay is professor of French at New York University. Her fields of interest are medieval French and Occitan literature and modern thought. She has written many books on medieval literary culture, of which the most recent are the co-authored Thinking Through Chrétien de Troyes and Knowing Poetry. Verse in Medieval France from the Rose to the rhétoriqueurs (both 2011); she is also the author of Zizek. A Critical Introduction (2003). Her next book will be called Parrots and Nightingales. Troubadour Quotation and the European Lyric.
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