Editing Guillaume de Machaut (section)

==Poetry==
Guillaume de Machaut's lyric output comprises around 400 poems, including 235 ballades, 76 rondeaux, 39 virelais, 24 lais, 10 ''complaintes'', and 7 ''chansons royales'', and Machaut did much to perfect and codify these fixed forms.  Some of his lyric output is embedded in his narrative poems or "dits", such as {{lang|fr|Le remède de fortune}} ("The Cure of Ill Fortune") which includes one of each genre of lyric poetry, and ''Le voir dit'' ("A True Story"), but most are included in a separate, unordered section entitled {{lang|fr|Les loanges des dames}}.  That the majority of his lyrics are not set to music (in manuscripts, music and non-music sections are separate) suggests that he normally wrote the text before setting some to music.

Other than his Latin motets of a religious nature and some poems invoking the horrors of war and captivity, the vast majority of Machaut's lyric poems reflect the conventions of [[courtly love]], and involve statements of service to a lady and the poet's pleasure and pains.  In technical terms, Machaut was a master of elaborate rhyme schemes, and this concern makes him a precursor to the [[Grands Rhétoriqueurs]] of the 15th century.

Guillaume de Machaut's narrative output is dominated by the "dit" (literally "spoken", i.e. a poem not meant to be sung).  These first-person [[narrative poems]] (all but one are written in [[octosyllabic]] [[rhymed couplet]]s, like the [[Medieval French literature#The Roman|romance, or "roman"]] of the same period) follow many of the conventions of the ''[[Roman de la rose]]'', including the use of [[allegory|allegorical]] dreams (''songes''), allegorical characters, and the situation of the narrator-lover attempting to return toward or satisfy his lady.

Machaut is also the author of a poetic chronicle of the chivalric deeds of [[Pierre I de Lusignan|Peter I of Cyprus]], (the ''Prise d'Alexandrie''), and of poetic works of consolation and moral philosophy. His unusual self-reflective usage of himself (as his lyrical persona) as the narrator of his dits yields  some personal philosophical insights as well.

At the end of his life, Machaut wrote a poetic treatise on his craft (his ''Prologue''). This reflects on his conception of the organization of poetry into set genres and rhyme schemes, and the ordering of these genres into distinct sections of manuscripts. This preoccupation with ordering his ''oeuvre'' is reflected in an index to MS A entitled "Vesci l'ordonance que G. de Machaut veut qu'il ait en son livre" ("Here is the order that G. de Machaut wants his book to have").{{sfn|Earp|1989|p=461}}

The poem below, ''Puis qu'en oubli'', is his 18th rondeau.
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|fro|Puis qu'en oubli sui de vous, dous amis,
Vie amoureuse et joie a Dieu commant.
Mar vi le jour que m'amour en vous mis,
Puis qu'en oubli sui de vous, dous amis.
Mais ce tenray que je vous ay promis,
C'est que ja mais n'aray nul autre amant.
Puis qu'en oubli sui de vous, dous amis,
Vie amoureuse et joie a Dieu commant.}}
|
Since I am forgotten by you, sweet friend,
To a love life, and to happiness, I bid goodbye.
Unlucky was the day I put my love in you,
Since I am forgotten by you, sweet friend.
Yet I will keep what I have promised you,
Which is that never will I have another lover.
Since I am forgotten by you, sweet friend,
To a love life, and to happiness, I bid goodbye.}}

===Principal works===
* ''Le remède de fortune'' ("The Cure of Ill Fortune") (c. 1340s, before 1357) – The narrator is asked by his lady whether the poem she has found is by him; the narrator flees from her and comes to a garden where "Hope" consoles him and teaches him how to be a good lover; he returns to his lady.
* ''Jugement du roy de Behaigne'' ("Judgement of the King of Bohemia") (before 1346) – The narrator hears a debate between a lady (whose lover is dead) and a knight (betrayed by his lady); in order to proclaim one or the other the most unhappy, the narrator seeks out the advice of the King of Bohemia who consults allegories, and the unhappy knight is declared the winner.
* ''Dit du Lyon'' ("Story of the Lion") (1342) – The narrator comes to a magical island and a lion guides him to a beautiful lady; an old knight comes to the narrator and reveals the meaning of what he sees and gives him advice for being a better lover.
* ''Dit de l'Alérion'' aka ''Dit des quatre oiseaux'' ("Story of the 4 Birds") (before 1349) – A symbolic tale of love: the narrator raises four different birds, but each one flees him; one day the second (and preferred) bird comes back to him.
* ''Jugement du roy de Navarre'' ("Judgement of the King of Navarre") (1349) – Following up on the ''Jugement du roy de Behainge'', a lady blames the narrator for awarding the prize to the knight: the King of Navarre is consulted and condemns the poet.
* ''Confort d'ami'' (1357) – Dedicated to [[Charles II of Navarre]] (who was a prisoner in France), this poetic consolation gives biblical and classical examples ([[exemplum|exempla]]) of fortitude.
* ''Dit de la fontaine amoureuse'' aka ''Livre de Morpheus'' ("Story of the Amorous Fountain") (1361) – The narrator meets a hopeless lover who must separate from his lady; the two men come to a magical fountain and fall asleep, and in a dream the lady consoles her lover.
* ''Le voir dit'' ("A True Story") (c. 1362–65) – Often seen as Machaut's masterpiece,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/arts/music/orlando-consort-presents-program-of-machaut.html|title=A Love Affair That Burned for Centuries, at Least in Song|last=Oestreich|first=James R.|newspaper=The New York Times|date=November 17, 2013|access-date=July 26, 2017}}</ref> this poem is an early example of [[meta-fiction]], and tells of the sadness and separation of the narrator from his lady, and of the false rumors that are spread about him.  The narrative is stuffed with prose letters and lyric poems that the narrator claims were in truth exchanged by the unhappy lovers and put in the book at the behest of his lady. The work is, however, highly satirical, and mocks the conventional paradigm of medieval courtly literature by presenting himself as an old, ill, impotent poet who becomes the lover of a young and beautiful maiden, who falls in love with him from his reputation as a poet alone. Though the work is called a ''voir dit'' or true story, Machaut includes many inconsistencies which force the reader to question the truthfulness of his story.
* ''Prologue'' (c. 1372) – written at the end of his life as a preface to his collected works, this allegory describes Machaut's principles of poetry, music and rhetoric, as imparted to him by Nature and Love.
* ''Prise d'Alexandrie'' ("[[Alexandrian Crusade|The Capture of Alexandria]]") (after 1369) – poetic retelling of the exploits of [[Peter I of Cyprus|Peter of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem and of Cyprus]].