This early Middle English rota, a canon for several voices, survives in a manuscript from Reading Abbey dating from the mid-thirteenth century (for fuller information on the ownership and contents of Harley 978, with a reproduction of the relevant page, see the manuscript). The alternative Latin text in red ink beneath it is a lyric on the Passion. The main critical debate on the poem has centred on the relationship between the two texts: which came first, and what is the relationship between th...
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This early Middle English rota, a canon for several voices, survives in a manuscript from Reading Abbey dating from the mid-thirteenth century (for fuller information on the ownership and contents of Harley 978, with a reproduction of the relevant page, see the manuscript). The alternative Latin text in red ink beneath it is a lyric on the Passion. The main critical debate on the poem has centred on the relationship between the two texts: which came first, and what is the relationship between them? For a recent discussion of this question, with a summary of earlier work, see Roscow (1999); Roscow also re-examines the controversial question of the tone of the poem (is it an innocent spring song (reverdie) or something coarser, linking the cuckoo with adulterous love?).
