--- title: "Cervone, Cristina Maria, and Nicholas Watson, eds. 2023. What" description: "The contributors argue that New Criticism misreads these poems by treating them as isolated, private utterances on the page. 6 references." authors: ["Ad Putter"] year: 2024 venue: "SELIM 29" source: "https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/SELIM/article/view/20447" doi: "10.17811/selim.29.2024.152-55" licence: "CC BY-NC-ND (journal licence per DOAJ; SELIM)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/putter-2024-cervone-cristina-maria-nicholas-watson/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/putter-2024-cervone-cristina-maria-nicholas-watson/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2024](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2024/page/16/) / Cervone, Cristina Maria, and Nicholas Watson, eds. 2023. What Kind of a Thing Is a Middle English Lyric? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. xvi + 546. ISBN 9780812253900. # Cervone, Cristina Maria, and Nicholas Watson, eds. 2023. What Kind of a Thing Is a Middle English Lyric? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. xvi + 546. ISBN 9780812253900. **Authors:** Ad Putter · **Year:** 2024 · **Venue:** [SELIM 29](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/selim-journal-of-the-spanish-society-for-medieval-english-language-and/) ([SELIM Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature 2024](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/selim-journal-of-the-spanish-society-for-medieval-english-language-and/2024/)) · **Publisher:** [University of Oviedo](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/university-of-oviedo/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-ND (journal licence per DOAJ; SELIM)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.29.2024.152-55) · [PDF](https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/SELIM/article/download/20447/16507) · [DOI 10.17811/selim.29.2024.152-55](https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.29.2024.152-55) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4401092043) **Citations:** 0 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) ## Summary This is Ad Putter's review of a large edited volume (Cervone and Watson, 2023) that asks why Middle English lyrics have been judged dull next to modern lyrics and how they should be read instead. The contributors argue that New Criticism misreads these poems by treating them as isolated, private utterances on the page. Most of the lyrics speak in a shared "we," expect the audience to take part, and depend on situations such as carol dancing, the liturgy and the mass, or objects that carry inscriptions. The chapters approach this from several directions: editing, metre, cognitive poetics, romance boundaries, sound, inscribed objects, and Chaucer and Gower. The book ends with new poems and two responses from scholars of modern lyric. Putter praises the volume as a whole. He criticises a few chapters for linguistically naive sound symbolism, notes a missing engagement with earlier work on allegory, and points out gaps in the index. He concludes that the book meets its goal of widening how the field studies and teaches these lyrics. ## Key points - The volume runs to xvi + 546 pages (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023, ISBN 9780812253900). The review appears in SELIM 29 (2024), pp. 152–55. - Chapters include Zimbalist on the lyric Christ, Fassler on religious lyric 1150–1400, Butterfield on editing, Cannon on King Horn, Cornelius on metre, Kumler on verse inscribed on mazers and ewers, Gibbs on cognitive poetics, and Galloway on Chaucer and Gower. - Cornelius notes that the Digital Index of Middle English Verse records rhyme schemes but not rhythm type (for example iambic versus alliterative). Putter calls for an update to fix this. - Middle English lyrics usually circulated as fillers between longer texts. A rare exception is Charles d'Orléans' English poems in British Library, Harley MS 682 (c. 1440). - English poets borrowed lyric stanza forms, such as tail-rhyme and rhyme royal, for narrative. Putter suggests this happened because English lacked a prestigious vernacular lyric tradition. ## Interesting ideas - The meaning of many of these lyrics sits in an outside script, such as the rules of a round dance or the order of the mass, rather than in the words alone. - The lyric's "we" sweeps the audience into the speaking voice, and voices in a poem like "Stond wel moder" are blurred across several speakers. - Inscribed verse on drinking vessels only makes sense once you picture the object being passed and used. - Putter rejects claims that particular sounds carry meaning, citing Saussure and the fact that a syllable cannot be "plosive." - A verse index that records rhyme but not metre shows how a missing annotation layer quietly limits the questions a resource can answer. ## For Mova How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests: - **I1** (world): Texts that lean on a known ritual or procedure could be linked to a compiled script in the knowledge layer, so the world of the text can fill in the steps the text leaves out. - **I2** (frames): Coreference and speech-act handling should allow an inclusive "we" that covers the reader, and should keep speaker attribution open where dialogue is ambiguous. - **I3** (world): Text tied to a physical object could be anchored as a state or holding of that entity, so later reasoning knows who is holding it and what action is happening. - **I4** (learn): Any feature claimed to carry meaning should be tested against negative controls, for example shuffled or swapped inputs, before it is trusted. - **I5** (tree): When building or converting treebanks, list explicitly which layers are absent so that downstream stages do not assume information that was never annotated. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* ## Institutions - [University of Bristol](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-bristol/) — University, Bristol, United Kingdom · 18 works · 822 citations 📚 Shelves (3): [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 17,450 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 17,296 works · [🎭 Classics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/classics/) · 116 works 🧭 Topics (2): [English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/english/) · 2,379 works · [⏳ Historical linguistics & language change](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-change/) · 250 works ## Cite Cite as: Ad Putter. 2024. Cervone, Cristina Maria, and Nicholas Watson, eds. 2023. What Kind of a Thing Is a Middle English Lyric? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. xvi + 546. ISBN 9780812253900. SELIM 29. The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @inproceedings{putter2024cervone, title = {{Cervone, Cristina Maria, and Nicholas Watson, eds. 2023. What Kind of a Thing Is a Middle English Lyric? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. xvi + 546. ISBN 9780812253900.}}, author = {Ad Putter}, booktitle = {SELIM 29}, year = {2024}, doi = {10.17811/selim.29.2024.152-55}, url = {https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.29.2024.152-55} } ``` - [← previous Can listeners differentiate varieties using prosodic information? Lect identification in a persona-matching task](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/holliday-2024-can-listeners-differentiate-varieties-prosodic/) - [next → Comparison of Multilingual and Bilingual Models for Satirical News Detection of Arabic and English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/abdalla-2024-comparison-multilingual-bilingual-models-satirical/) - [↑ back to papers of 2024](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2024/page/16/) ## References 6 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. Chaganti, Seeta. 2018. Strange Footing: Poetic Form and Dance in the Late Middle Ages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Chaganti%2C+Seeta%2E+2018%2E+Strange+Footing%3A+Poetic+Form+and+Dance+in+the+Late+Middle+Ages%2E+Chicago%3A+University+of+Chicago+Press%2E) 2. Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Lakoff%2C+George%2C+and+Mark+Johnson%2E+1980%2E+Metaphors+We+Live+By%2E+Chicago%3A+University+of+Chicago+Press%2E) 3. Putter, Ad. 2011. “Chaucer’s Complaint unto Pity and the Insights of Allegory.” In Medieval Latin and Middle English Literature: Essays in Honour of Jill Mann, edited by Christopher Cannon and Maura Nolan, 166–81. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Putter%2C+Ad%2E+2011%2E+%E2%80%9CChaucer%E2%80%99s+Complaint+unto+Pity+and+the+Insights+of+Allegory%2E%E2%80%9D+In+Medieval+Latin+and+Middle+English+Literature%3A+Essays+in+Honour+of+Jill+Mann%2C+edited+by+Christopher+Cannon+and+Maura+N) 4. Putter, Ad. 2018. “The Singing of Medieval Romance: Stanza Forms and Contrafacta.” In Transmission of Medieval English Romance, edited by Ad Putter and Judith A. Jefferson, 69–90. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Putter%2C+Ad%2E+2018%2E+%E2%80%9CThe+Singing+of+Medieval+Romance%3A+Stanza+Forms+and+Contrafacta%2E%E2%80%9D+In+Transmission+of+Medieval+English+Romance%2C+edited+by+Ad+Putter+and+Judith+A%2E+Jefferson%2C+69%E2%80%9390%2E+Cambridge%3A+D%2ES%2E+Brew) 5. Simpson, James. 2002. The Oxford Literary History, Volume 2: Reform and Cultural Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Simpson%2C+James%2E+2002%2E+The+Oxford+Literary+History%2C+Volume+2%3A+Reform+and+Cultural+Revolution%2E+Oxford%3A+Oxford+University+Press%2E) 6. Zeeman, Nicolette. 2020. The Art of Disruption: Allegory and “Piers Plowman.” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Zeeman%2C+Nicolette%2E+2020%2E+The+Art+of+Disruption%3A+Allegory+and+%E2%80%9CPiers+Plowman%2E%E2%80%9D+Cambridge%3A+Cambridge+University+Press%2E) *Updated 29 October 2026*