Cuckoo and Cosmos: The Summer Canon as a Matter of Performance

Abstract

This essay presents a new interpretation of the Summer Canon, one of the best-known works of medieval song. It proposes an understanding of the song's form that emerges from a process of dynamic interaction between performer and textual object. It reconsiders the role and location of the manuscript's performance instructions, discusses the role of the Latin contrafact, and argues for an interpretation of the song's cuckoo as a recursive formal device, suggesting that the piece's use of repetition explores both the endless motions of cosmic bodies and the limitations of human ones.