News
News update - July
I am currently completing work on a new rhymed translation of Christine de Pisan's Rondeaux (all, apart from a few very minor pieces tagged on to the end of the traditional collection) which we hope to publish soon.
The next project is to create a rhymed verse translation of many of Guillaume de Machaut's Rondeaux and Ballades, in particular all those which he set to music. Guillaume was the last and by far the greatest of the 14th century poet-composers. Interest in his music has tended to obscure his fine qualities as a poet in the courtly style. Rondeaux and Ballades, along with Virelais, were the three 'formes fixes' the structured forms of verse in that age, and Guillaume created fine work in all three forms, often adorned with superb vocal settings, of which there are many fine modern recordings available. (I will provide links on the Links Page to source texts and discography also)
The plethora of rhymes in Old French, and the corresponding lack of them in modern English, mean that the strict forms have to be relaxed a little in order to achieve readable translations, but wherever possible the rhyme-schemes will be maintained.
If I consider these successful, I would like to also tackle the Virelais and his 23 polyphonic Motets which are mostly 'macaronic' in nature, i.e. consisting of a blend of languages, in this case Old French and Latin, though in some instances they are entirely in the one language or the other.
Christine de Pisan: The Hundred Ballads
10 June 2020News Update - June
3 June 2020Corbière: Selected Poems from 'Les Amours Jaunes'
14 May 2020Verlaine: Les Poètes Maudits
13 May 2020News Update - May
3 May 2020
Christine de Pisan: Rondeaux
9 July 2020News Update - August
1 August 2020Guillaume de Machaut: Rondeaux et Ballades
1 September 2020Guillaume de Machaut: Virelais
19 September 2020News Update - October
27 October 2020
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