The Middle English lyrics and short poems form a varied group that ranges over most aspects of life to include lyrics of religious and secular love, carols and songs, and mundane rhymes of everyday life. Thus there are expressions of devotion, ethereal or earthly, theological expositions, and knowledge needed for life. The poems are disparate and generally anonymous, and their survival owes much to chance. The bibliography assembles neutral annotation of collections and criticism of the works, arranged chronologically to show the course of criticism and the growing appreciation of these poems and all they can tell us. The introduction considers these matters, problems of definition of the genre, and the isolable lyrics, and seeks to reconcile some first impressions of the poems, as disparate and slight, with the rewards of close study.
ROSEMARY GREENTREE is currently Visiting Research Fellow, Dept of English, University of Adelaide.