The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Guillaume de Machaut

(also known by the Latin name Guillelmus de Mascandio). Born circa 1300 in Machaut, Ardennes; died 1377. French poet and composer.

Guillaume de Machaut founded a school of rhetoric and canonized poetic forms for 14th-century French poetry. His poetic works are linked to the growth of urban culture and Scholasticism. His best work is A Book About Something That Really Happened (1365), a novel in verse with inserted prose letters about the love of an elderly poet for a young girl. His other works include the narrative poem The Court of the King of Navarre (1349), the rhymed chronicle The Seizure of Alexandria (c. 1370), and the narrative poem Pastoral Times, which contains a description of 14th-century musical instruments. Guillaume de Machaut was a representative of Ars nova (new art), a progressive trend in early Renaissance music. He composed church music (motets, the first mass in the history of music) and created numerous songs (virelays, ballades, rondos) with instrumental accompaniments that combined the musical poetic tradition of the trouvères with the new polyphonic art.

WORKS

Oeuvres, vols. 1-3. Paris, 1908-21.
Poésies lyriques, vols. 1-2. Published by V. Chichmarev. Paris [1909].

REFERENCES

Shishmarev, V. F. Lirika i liriki pozdnego srednevekov’ia. Paris, 1911.
Istoriia frantsuzskoi literatury, vol. 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1946. Pages 170, 172-76, 179.
Prioult, A. “Un Poète voyageur Guillaume de Machaut et la ‘Reise’ de Jean l’Aveugle roi de Bohême, en 1328-29.” Les Lettres romanes, 1950, vol. 4. Pages 3-39.
Machabey, A. Guillaume de Machaut, vols. 1-2. Paris, 1955.

I. A. LILEEVA

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

(9) Guillaume de Machaut, Oeuvres de Guillaume de Machaut, ed.

"In hir bed al naked": Nakedness and Male Grief in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess

(5) Laurence De Looze, Pseudo-Autobiography in the Fourteenth Century: Juan Ruiz, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, and Geoffrey Chaucer (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1997), p.

'Iclosid art with stoon': Charles of Orleans' Imprisonment Poetics

The works of Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) dominated French 14th century music: he is often referred to as the last great poet who was also a composer.

Brothers in Brass: the Friendship of Malcolm Arnold and Dennis Brain

Machaut came up with his chansons later on, yet sung courtly poetry abounded in the milieu in different forms.

Charles IV and music

The literary focus of its scholarly enquiry is marked in the identification of Jean le Mauvais as addressee of Machaut's Confort d'Ami, rather than Charles II of Navarre.

The Lily and the Thistle: The French Tradition and the Older Literature of Scotland--Essays in Criticism

Here, the combination of organ (Fairs) and brass, with players placed individually around the hall, gave Roberts' colouristic exploration of themes by Guillaume de Machaut a fractured, surround-sound effect that, although modest in scope, was totally fascinating.

Organ Festival Finale Elgar Concert [...]; REVIEWS

The ensemble, with six male and four female voices, is dedicated to introducing modern audiences to lesser-known masterpieces of centuries past, including works of composers such as Claudio Monteverdi, Thomas Tallis and Guillaume de Machaut. All singers are accomplished soloists.

For Eugene vocal group, mausoleum is perfect venue

The new element in his work didn't necessarily consist in the fact that he had a "modern style." Rather, it resided in his ability to get inside--and in such a profoundly original way--any and all material employed, be it Tchaikovsky, Guillaume de Machaut, or Webern.

The new ancients and the old moderns

There is a yet stronger connection between literary criticism and the history of the book in Kate Maxwell's chapter on collections of Machaut s lays, which relates textual arrangements to the poems' meaning.

Emma Cayley and Susan Powell, eds.: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe 1350-1550: Packaging, Presentation and Consumption

The Art of Grafted Song: Citation and Allusion in the Age of Machaut. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Books received