Guillaume de Machaut is remembered today as the most prolific, and probably the greatest, poet-composer of fourteenth-century France. Sometimes considered as the last of the

, his large output of courtly poetry and music comprises: a lyric Prologue; fourteen

(i.e. long narrative and/or didactic poems, mostly on courtly love themes, sometimes with lyric insertions); the earliest known musical setting of the Mass by a single composer; the untexted musical

; a 64-line poem entitled “Vezci les biens que ma dame me fait” [Here are the good things my lady does for me]; twenty-five lays, nineteen of which are set to music; twenty-three motets; forty-two

set to music; twenty-two

set to music; thirty-three

(most set to music); one musical

4205 words

Citation: Maxwell, Kate. "Guillaume de Machaut". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 February 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1910, accessed 25 November 2024.]

• View recommended reading for this article