An Elizabethan Song Book

An Elizabethan Song Book (1972) is the sort of volume that sounds, at first glance, like it might involve a lute, a ruff, and a lightly melancholic gentleman gazing out of a mullioned window while composing something about love, loss, or possibly both before luncheon. Which, to be fair, is not entirely inaccurate. But this particular collection arrives with a rather more formidable pedigree than your average wistful troubadour anthology.

Here we have W. H. Auden—yes, that Auden—alongside Chester Kallman and N. Greenberg, assembling a selection of songs from the Elizabethan era with the kind of literary seriousness that suggests these are not merely charming relics, but Proper Cultural Artefacts. This is not a book that idly hums a tune and wanders off. It stands its ground, clears its throat, and invites you to consider that these songs, with their elegant melancholy and occasionally pointed wit, are part of a tradition that deserves attention, respect, and possibly a quiet moment of reflection.

The Elizabethans, it must be said, were very good at this sort of thing. They had a remarkable ability to compress vast emotional states into a handful of lines, preferably set to music, preferably with just enough ambiguity to suggest that something slightly complicated had happened, but not so much as to require immediate explanation. Love was rarely straightforward, time was always slipping away, and someone, somewhere, was usually either leaving or being left. It is all beautifully done, of course, and faintly exhausting in its consistency.

Auden’s presence gives the whole enterprise a certain gravitas. One imagines him approaching these songs not as quaint museum pieces, but as living works of language—sharp, economical, and occasionally unsettling in their emotional precision. The result is a collection that manages to feel both historical and immediate, as though the past is not so much being revisited as quietly reintroduced, with the polite suggestion that it has been here all along and would appreciate a little more attention.

There is, too, something delightfully ironic about a 20th-century poet curating the songs of a 16th-century world for modern readers who may or may not be entirely sure what a madrigal is but are willing to give it a go. It is an act of cultural translation that assumes a certain goodwill on the part of the reader—and perhaps a willingness to encounter a form of expression that does not rush, does not explain itself excessively, and occasionally expects you to meet it halfway.

Published by Faber, this has all the reassuring solidity of a book that knows exactly what it is doing. It is not here to entertain in a casual sense. It is here to endure, to be returned to, to sit quietly on a shelf until the moment arises when one feels the sudden urge to engage with something a little more refined than the usual fare. That moment may come sooner than expected.

Condition: Good. Which feels entirely appropriate for a collection that has likely already done its duty in introducing at least one previous owner to the idea that Elizabethan songs are, in fact, rather good—and perhaps slightly more emotionally sophisticated than they had anticipated.

A quietly distinguished addition for poetry lovers, music enthusiasts, and anyone curious about the enduring appeal of songs that manage to be both delicate and devastating in roughly equal measure.

Keep browsing: See more Music books Other books by WH Auden C Kallman and N Greenberg