Musical Instruments as Iconographical Artifacts in Medieval Poetry

Author / Editor
Boenig, Robert.

Title
Musical Instruments as Iconographical Artifacts in Medieval Poetry

Published
Curtis Perry, ed. Material Culture and Cultural Materialisms in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, no. 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001), pp. 1-15.

Series
Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, no. 5.

Description
For medieval poets, the "hyperreality of musical instruments" was "more significant" than was their reality. In "Beowulf," the harp signifies Hrothgar's agenda of political conquest and order; in Machaut's "Remedy of Fortune," the "instruments signify the Lady's bounty, the celestial associations of her court, and the displaced sexuality of the collector." In MilT, Nicholas's psaltery is a "surrogate for the female body."

Contributor
Perry, Curtis, ed.

Alternative Title
Material Culture and Cultural Materialisms in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Chaucer Subjects
Miller and His Tale.