Maxwell S. Luria, Richard L. Hoffman (Editors)
Middle English Lyrics: Authoritative Texts, Critical and Historical Backgrounds, Perspectives on Six Poems.
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1974. A Norton Critical Edition. First printing inscribed by Maxwell S. Luria. 0393043797 xii/360 pages.
Volume, measuring approximately 5.5" x 8.75", is bound in red cloth, with gilt lettering to spine. Book exhibits very light shelfwear. Binding is firm. Pages are clean and without markings. Dust jacket, with price of $10 on front flap, shows mild wear at edges. Jacket is preserved in mylar cover.
Inscription on front flyleaf reads "June 30, 1975 / For Pearl, with / affectionate regards. / Max".
This anthology "includes all thirty-one English lyrics from MS. Harley 2253, all the verses by Friar Herebert printed in Brown IV, and all the important poems given in Robbins's "Secular Lyrics." In all there are 245 lyrics, arranged thematically. To make these delightful poems accessible to modern reader, the editors have removed many of the orthographical impediments inherent in Middle English verse and have modernized punctuation, capitalization, and obsolete letters while scrupulously seeking to retain the substantive integrity of the poems.
Critical and historical backgrounds for the poems are provided in essays by Peter Dronke, Stephen Manning, Raymond Olvier, and Rosemary Woolf. In a special section, six poems are singled out for critical comment by A. K. Moore, Edmund Reiss, D. W. Robertson, Jr., E. T. Donaldson, John Speirs, Thomas Jemielity, D. G. Halliburton, Leo Spitzer, and others. Two of these lyrics, "Maiden in the mor lay" and "I sing of a maiden," are discussed by four different scholars. In all, twenty-two of the poems are discussed in the essays."