Considering Occitan troubadour, Middle High German Minnesang and Iberian cancionero songbook traditions from the high to late medieval period (ca. 1200-1500), this project charts the rise and persistence of the songbook genre. In this project, I argue that songbooks establish expectations for the nature of the poem and the poet as well as for lyric poetry in general, and describe how as an emergent genre, the songbook is both a product of historical forces and a concrete communal object. By analyzing the songbook from different perspectives-phenomenological, rhetorical, and bibliographical - I propose that as a memorial object it builds national literary traditions and cultural patrimonies, while as a work-in-progress it establishes a system of values for medieval lyric through networks of readers, including national, local, and private readerships. Moreover, this comparative study examines the role of songbooks in poetic attribution, canon formation and the concept of courtliness amidst the assimilation of new historical realities and material practices.
The first chapter applies the term "songbook" to the Carmina Burana and the Libro de buen amor. This descriptive experiment sets the paradigms for viewing a medieval text as an open hermeneutic structure that allows for reader interpolation and the assimilation of oral and literate cultures.
The second chapter examines the study of songbooks as historically intertwined with national and ideological interests. The creation of editions of songbooks proves crucial to the foundation of literary canons and cultural traditions.
The third chapter treats the phenomenon of the songbook through the transformation of the proper name from lyric presence to rubric. I argue that this transformation of the name represents an effect of hermeneutic opacity, an accumulation of interpretations around the poet name that resists unified meaning.
The fourth chapter treats the visualization of lyric texts by examining marginalia, historiated intials, and full-page miniatures, and their connection to contemporary arts, such as heraldry and frescoes. Images represent an important mode of lyric reception involving both visual and verbal texts.
The fifth chapter examines how cancioneros embody a social ritual for the poets of Castilian and Aragonese courts. The cancionero facilitates intertextuality among different lyric forms, poets, and themes.