News

Christine de Pisan's Rondeaux (all, apart from a few very minor pieces tagged on to the end of the traditional collection) are now available online here.

I am currently working on 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.